Kensington and Chelsea have manifold magnificent garden squares of which Onslow Square is one of the larger examples, tucked away between Old Brompton Road and Fulham Road. Turn left out of South Kensington station and you'll be there in two minutes. When Queen Victoria came to the throne it was still all market gardens on the edge of the village of Brompton, then in 1845 the charitable trust who owned it decided to build houses. They invited George Basevi to be the architect, impressed by his work designing Belgrave Square and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, but he died after just four houses had been completed. His replacement was Charles James Freake, a self-made builder whose contracts for the Grosvenor Estate sequentially made him a) highly indebted, b) very rich, c) a baronet. His £2000 homes sell today as £3m subdivided flats.
Onslow Square still boasts a full-on rim of terraced stucco, apart from the corner where Charles built a church and the opposite corner where the Luftwaffe left a hole. These are prestige homes whose house numbers are sequentially emblazoned on the pristine white pillars of Doric porches, approved typeface only. First floors have French windows topped with triangular pediments leading out onto cast iron balconies, or at least the earlier houses do because Freake's designs grew less fussy as the years passed. Originally the top floor and basement were reserved for servants, but these days the minion who polishes the brasswork drives in from elsewhere. I also spotted the van of a 'Carpet Planner' because mere fitters and layers are insufficiently SW7.
Famous former residents include novelist William Makepeace Thackeray who bought number 36 off-plan in 1853 and paid for it in instalments. To either side are blueplaques for Beagle voyager and pioneering meteorologist Robert FitzRoy, and also for Baron Carlo Marochetti who cast the bronze lions at the foot of Nelson's Column. The architect Edwin Lutyens was born at number 16 and spent his childhood here, long before the Cenotaph ever needed designing. Today's millionaires tend to keep stumm about their presence, except when roaring off in their Bentley Turbos and Alfa Romeo Spiders.
The central gardens are very large and very private, ringed with shrubbery to prevent too many prying eyes seeing within. Entry requires a resident's key which must be touched on a beepy pad by one of the handful of entrances and costs £15 to replace. Perambulating round the outer path or sprawling quietly on the lawn central are all acceptable. Cycling, scooting and ball games are only permitted for those under the age of five, beyond which some level of personal responsibility is required. Parties may not be held at any time, except on one special midsummer's day when residents gather for canapes and liquid refreshment at the Onslow Neighbourhood Association Garden Party (tickets £27, everyone off home by 8.30pm).
Onslow Square is one-way in a clockwise direction, thus relatively quiet, except along the eastern side which forms part of a B road and is currently served by four bus routes. It also isn't entirely rectangular, with an extra prong also called Onslow Square sticking out in one corner towards Onslow Gardens. The geometry is further compromised by the lack of any throughfare on the opposite side because that's where the vicar lives, and behind that is the former Royal Brompton Hospital, a pioneer of cardiac surgery. Its Victorian buildings are now an "exclusive, modern and highly secure gated development" and have been since 1997, but if you want a proper prestigious address for your millions you'd really rather be in Onslow Square.
Meanwhile in Dagenham, a square that's more pebbledash than stucco. It lies deep in the Becontree estate which when completed in 1935 was the world's largest public housing estate. Turn left out of Dagenham Heathway station and it's three stops away on a bus heading north. The estate's architects liked to draw large geometric shapes within their street patterns, hence the perfect circle of Valence Circus to the northwest and the right-angled Hunters Square to the east. Here they drew an off-piste quadrilateral across two former fields and linked it to their chief spine road called Heathway, set back just out of sight.
There's nothing classical about the houses in Osborne Square. Built from brick or pebbledashed plaster they form chains of four, six, eight or ten, a kind of hemi-demi-semi-detached formation. Each had a recessed porch which some of the later homebuyers duly filled in or extended. These days the overall look is underwhelmingly regimented but this would have been a massive step up for those moving from slums in the East End... an inside toilet! a garden! two bedrooms! Most front gardens since have been sacrificed for parking and most south facing walls are bedecked with the necessary satellite dish. Love and care varies, from weedy paving and scattered bins to trimmed lawn and intermittent foliage. One resident has created the obligatory display of gnomes, Flowerpot Men and plaster geese, another has gone unnecessarily hoity-toity with security gates and golden twiddles.
Access roads link to Osborne Square in the centre of each side, apart from in the southeastern corner where Osborne Road arrives on the skew, all of which helps to keep traffic speeds right down. When faced with what to put in the centre of the square the architects didn't build a nice shared garden as in Kensington, they built a cul-de-sac with eighteen more houses, an addition which gives Osborne Square the overall shape of a belt buckle.
The central space additionally once included Osborne Hall Congregational Church, the birthplace of the fabled Dagenham Girl Pipers! The tartan troupe was formed in 1930 when the vicar chose 12 girls from the Sunday school and trained them in secret for 18 months before giving a first performance to an audience of startled journalists on a dais out back (video here). The girls went on to drone tunefully in front of royalty, Fuhrers and generations of Dagenham residents, until the last four veterans finally chose to retire in November last year. The church building vanished rather sooner and has since been replaced by a much smaller evangelical hall and a block of flats, but there is at least now a special dimpledplaque outside.
A bite to eat is provided by the Top Tearoom at the Osborne Partnership's very lowly-looking community hall on the west side of the square. Their charity works especially with adults with learning disabilities from across the borough, but their cafe is happy to welcome any member of the public on weekdays, especially the over 50s on Tuesdays and Thursdays for warming soup and a roll. The menu's pinned up outside and has gloriously affordable prices, including sandwiches for £2, tea and cake for £2.50 and a tuna jacket potato for £4. Meanwhile a warm sausage roll costs just £1.20, hugely cheaper than any savoury pastry in Kensington, even if you have to give 20 minutes notice when ordering.
