45 Squared 40) BELVEDERE SQUARE, SW19
Borough of Merton, 50m×10m
Where are we? Wimbledon, specifically WimbledonVillage, a couple of minutes from the High Street.
Why? I haven't done a square in Merton yet, and this is easily the most interesting of the seven.
It looks very similar to last time? Yup, workers cottages for a big mansion, just as in Beckenham.
What was the mansion? Belvedere House, built in 1717 for Sir Theodore Janssen, a director of the South Sea Company. He lost all his money in the infamous bubble three years later, but the mansion passed onto several new owners before being demolished in 1900 so its estate could be sold off for housing.
And the cottages? Built in 1864 when the latest owner, Revd Alfred Peache, used a builder’s yard on the estate to accommodate thirty artisan's dwellings in Victorian Gothic style for workers on the estate.
How do you find out all this stuff? Pick a square in a conservation area and the council has generally done all the hard work researching both heritage and architecture, in this case an 84 page document produced in 2007.
I presume they're all listed buildings? Absolutely. "Polychrome brick, tall Welsh slate roof with crested ridge tiles, large transverse brick stacks with cogged cornices and fancy bargeboards, slate-hung pointed-arched pent porch to set back boarded doors."
It's not square is it? The overall plot is squarish, but the houses are tightly crammed along a cul-de-sac which forks briefly at the far end. It'd be more accurate to call it Belvedere Close.
How are they numbered? 4-13 round the main cul-de-sac, then 17-31 for the smaller cottages at the far end. See here.
What happened to 1-3 and 14-16? They're now 16-26 Church Road.
How much are the houses worth? Down the far end they sell for three quarters of a million, which is madness for a 1-bed terrace with a floor area of just 48 square metres. It's arguably madder that the 2-bedders sell for a million and a half, but that's the prestige of living just round the corner from several boutiques and a Carluccio's.
What's it like? It is lovely to be fair, a little bijou stump of a road with Gothic feels. The teensy gardens are stuffed with shrubbery, and down the far end the residents maintain a dozen flowery tubs made from the bottom of a barrel.
What's your favourite bit? I like the little timber front gates, although it's regrettable so many of the originals have been replaced with different designs. Number 11 still has its gate but the front of the house has also been painted white, which the council's conservation team judged "has an adverse effect upon the appearance of the whole group".
Did you get out alive? It's a bit curtain twitchy, being a densely-packed cul-de-sac with no reason for anyone to be walking down it. But by the looks of it everyone in Wimbledon Village was out having coffee on the High Street while waiting for the Remembrance Sunday parade so nobody was visibly aggrieved.
