Princes Place
Princes Place used to consist of charming cottages, with real cottage gardens full of dahlias and sprouts, much valued by their Housing Trust tenants. Unfortunately, it was so “gerry-built” that the houses were quite beyond re-habilitation and doomed. Princes Place is the largest modern redevelopment in the area, built in 1977, with the purpose of keeping pedestrians and living areas away from motor traffic. The scheme replaced two rows of artisans’ cottages, with charming narrow front gardens going down to a central road, delightful in appearance, and at the same time private and neighbourly. The cottages with windowless rear walls backed on to the gardens of surrounding houses, St James’s Gardens to the north, and Norland Square/Queensdale Road to the south. Unfortunately their condition was considered so poor that there was no alternative to demolition. The frontage (north) of the new building is functional and bare, completely lacking in sympathy for its surroundings, with echoes of the Brutalist architecture of the 60’s. Its garage doors and access balconies dominate the plain three-storey vertical facades. The maisonettes possess south-facing gardens and window space on the pedestrian side in stepped levels. Garden and balcony areas, and a play square at the west end of the footpath side of the maisonettes, make these dwellings suitable for mixed family occupation; while disabled or older people are provided for by single storey dwellings south of the footpath with their small private gardens.