Architecture

Buildings where the building is the reason to go: the inside-out, the Art Deco, the concrete, and the ones that make no sense at all until somebody explains them.

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The Tower House

William Burges built himself a small Gothic castle off Holland Park, and left the inside to the imagination of everyone who has never been in.

Houses

Burges built it for himself between 1875 and 1881, in red brick under a slated roof, and being his own client he did exactly as he pleased. The composition is deliberately asymmetrical: a wing advanced to the left with its gable to the road, another set back at right angles to the right, and between them a round tower under a conical turret. The windows are mullioned and transomed with leaded lights and stained glass, the tower's are lancets, and the chimneys are tall out of all proportion.

Historic England's entry for it runs to eight lines and ends with two words: important interiors. That is all the register says, and they are not open, which is the whole difficulty with this house - it is one of the most extravagant interiors in London and almost nobody has seen it.

So it is a building to stand outside and look at, on a road built for artists where several of them put up houses to be looked at.

Where
29 Melbury Road, W14 8LT
Nearest station
Kensington (Olympia) · 6 min walk

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