Description

The following building shall be added to the list:
CAMDEN PARK
No 5 (The Lawn)
9/340
including garden
boundary wall and
gate piers to north
GV 11

House. Circa 1853, architect not known. Stuccoed, probably brick walls. Low-
pitched hipped slate roof with lead rolled hips and ridge and deep eaves on brackets
with acanthus leaf decoration. Stacks with tall stuccoed shafts with modillion
cornices and square yellow clay pots. Plan: An Italianate villa of double-depth
plan with 2 principal rooms on the front facing the garden to the south, the right
hand (east) room has a canted bay at the front and the left hand room a verandah
at the front. Behind is the stair hall with the main entrance on the north elevation
and a room to left and right. On the right hand (east) side a large conservatory
and on the left hand (west) side a lower service wing, set back, with a small single
storey range around a small yard on the extreme left. Exterior: 2 storeys: The
elevations have rusticated and moulded quoins, moulded stringcourse at first floor
level on console brackets and a moulded string alcove at first floor sill level.
All C19 sash windows without glazing bars in moulded architraves. Asymmetrical
elevations. The south garden front 2:3 windows, the right hand 3 windows in a large
2-storey canted bay around which the stringcourses and eaves cornice continue.
To the left on the ground floor a pretty cast-iron verandah with thin posts and
ornate spandrels supporting a tented roof and with pierced cast-iron steps up to
the terrace of the verandah. Set back on the left (west) the lower 2-storey service
wing is plainer and has a C19 tripartite sash on each floor. On the right (east)
side an ornate wooden C19 conservatory with a canted front, gabled side, 3-centred
arch lights, dentil cornice and elaborate cast-iron cresting to the ridge. The
main entrance elevation facing north is asymmetrical: Shallow porch with pilasters,
round arch doorway with keystone and imposts, cornice and parapet. C19 moulded
and panelled inner door with side lights and overlight with console brackets.
Projecting stack to left of porch and sash window on both floors in shallow project-
ion to right of porch. Including front garden boundary wall to north: Mid C19
rendered and with rendered moulded coping ramped up at west end to a pair of
carriageway gate piers which have large moulded caps and C20 wrought-iron gates.
Interior: Was not inspected but photographs show that it is largely intact and
includes original joinery such as panelled doors and chimneypieces etc and the
plaster cornices are complete. The staircase has an elaborate cast-iron balustrade
with a wreathed mahogany handrail. One of the rooms has what appears to be later
C19 Jacobean style panelling and a large carved wooden chimneypiece with a pilastered
overmantel.
Note: No 5 is one of a crescent of Italianate style detached villas in their own
gardens overlooking Camden Park. Camden Park was laid out in circa 1853 in imitation
of Decimus Burton's Calverley Park which was started in 1828. 'According to the
1847 edition of Colbran's 'New Guide to Tunbridge Wells', Burton had by then planned
an estate at Tunbridge Wells for the Marquess Camden, but Camden Park does not appear
to have been laid out until circa 1853, and the five Italianate houses built by
1863, when work stopped, were probably designed by another architect'. (Colvin).
Source: Colvin, H. A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, pg 172.

Listing NGR: TQ5930639112

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26623113

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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