Patrick Comerford
Kensington Lodge on Grove Park in Rathmines is a beautiful example of Queen Anne style architecture in the late Victorian period, and one of the fine examples of the use of terracotta in architecture in Dublin at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Unlike many of the other terracotta buildings from that period, such as the former Harding Home on Lord Edward Street and D’Olier Chambers on D’Olier Street, Kensington Lodge was built as a private family home.
It stands at 107 Grove Park, almost at the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and facing the south side of the former YMCA building, built 30 years later, close to Portobello Bridge on the Grand Canal.
Kensington Lodge was built in 1882 and designed by the architect William Isaac Chambers (1847-1924) as his own home. It is particularly remarkable for its early use of terracotta mouldings in Dublin, and for many of the idiosyncratic details and embellishments that were designed by Chambers for his own entertainment.
Chambers built his house on the Grove Park estate at a time when it was being developed into building sites, and his design showcases a period of architectural innovation and experimentation in Dublin. He had a penchant for architectural flamboyance, and is best known for his mosque in Woking, built in what was described as a ‘Persian-Saracenic Revival’ style.
William Chambers was born in Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire, in 1847. He trained as an architect in Darlington and Sunderland, and at early stage in his career he worked with John Ross of Darlington.
He had moved to Dublin by the end of 1879 and in 1882 he initiated and offered prizes in the competitions held by the Irish Builder for a design for a gate lodge and for a design for a shop front. During this period he was engaged in various projects in Dundalk, where he had an office in the Market House.
He designed houses and shops in Dundalk and Blackrock, Co Louth, and his other works include a glebe house and a groom’s cottage at Monasterevan, Co Kildare, where he used brick supplied by Messrs Thompson of Kingscourt, Co Cavan.
He had offices at 44 Westland Row (1880) and 4-5 Westmoreland Street (1881-1884) in Dublin. He lived at 2 Brighton Vale, Monkstown (1880), Auburn Villa, Rathgar (1880) and 3 Leinster Road, Rathmines (1881-1882), before designing and building Kensington Lodge on Grove Park, where he lived from 1883 to 1885.
Chambers designed Kensington Lodge as his own home, so it is something of an ambitious showcase for his work. As he designed Kensington Lodge for himself, it offers reliable insights into his personal tastes.
Susan Keating, who has studied architectural terracotta in Ireland, notes how his terracotta details dominate the house and that he impressed the trade with the crispness and colour of his material and his designs.
Chambers was influenced by the then-fashionable Queen Anne style and his house was built over three storeys with highly decorative interior and exterior flourishes from the heavy swag over the front door and the baroque female herms on either side of the main upstairs window to the elaborate stucco work in the gracious living room.
The terracotta for the house was modelled to Chambers’ own designs, and manufactured by Wilcock and Co (Burmantofts) in Leeds.
The remarkable details include two baroque female herms, each wearing a diadem and with a rosette set in the middle of her bust that has the illusion of being quite ample as her torso disappears into a bracket below. Two panels seem to be set with heraldic detail in the centre and a foliate pattern in the background.
A heavy, fruit-laden swag above the front door is accompanied by recessed, vertical foliate panels that flank the ground floor windows. Running above the string-course is a horizontal panel of dogtooth pattern, set into the wall surface. These features are flanked by a minor reiteration of the foliate panels.
Other original features include several elaborate coloured glass windows. Crowning the whole, the shaped gable is pierced by a wheel window at attic level, contributing to the lively character of the house.
Susan Keating notices how some changes can be noticed by comparing the building with the architect’s published elevation of 1882. In the drawing, the gable features an idiosyncratic swan’s neck pediment, flanked by heavy scrolls enriched with garlands. This ornate feature was, however, simplified in execution.
The carved stone elements on the wall outside, including angels with a heraldic plaque, however, have not survived so well.
Chambers continued to live in Ireland for only a few short years after it was built, and he seems to have left Ireland around 1885. He has the distinction of designing the first mosque in Britain.
The Shah Jahan Mosque on Oriental Road, Woking, was built in 1889, and is now one of Woking’s great architectural treasures. Chambers designed the mosque in what has been described as a ‘Persian-Saracenic Revival’ style, with a dome, minarets, and a courtyard. It is described by the Pevsner Architectural Guides as ‘extraordinarily dignified.’
A prominent early member of the mosque in Woking was the Irish peer Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn (1855-1935), 5th Baron Headley, who was an early convert to Islam.
Chambers was living in Albany Courtyard, Piccadilly, London, by 1891. In the decade that followed, he married and was widowed, and in 1900 he had offices in in Savoy House, London.
Kensington Lodge has changed hands many times in recent decades, and at one stage the house was divided into flats. It is now a private residence. At hall level there are two rooms, one grand living room to the front, with high ceilings, a period fireplace and elaborate cornice work, and a smaller room at the back. Upstairs there are three bedrooms, two doubles and a single, and a family shower room.
The attic has a wood panelled ceiling and is reached by a spiral staircase. In the basement, three rooms were put together to create a large eat-in kitchen. Off this is a family room, with custom-made doors to the garden at the side of the house.
The house is decorated in a restrained period style, including William Morris wallpaper and dark paintwork.
Across the street, Kensington Lodge has given its name to the former chapel of the YMCA building, which has been renamed Kensington Hall, and became the home of the Leeson Park School of Music.
Much of the original crispness of Kensington Lodge has been lost through atmospheric erosion, over time. But it remains a remarkable building and its exterior and its charm mean it remains a striking architectural feature in Rathmines.
Additional reading:
Susan Keating, ‘Dublin’s terracotta buildings in the later nineteenth century’, Irish architectural and decorative studies Vol 4, 2001, pp 142-169.
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