No. 8, Park Village West

Charles Lee, the office of John Nash

c.1834-7

Cream stucco

Off Albany Street, Camden, London

Photograph, caption, and commentary below by Jacqueline Banerjee. Click on the image to enlarge it and mouse over the text for links.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL.]

Despite the gable and projecting bargeboard above it, the entrance to this asymmetrical house has been "treated classically" (Roberts and Godfrey), with an "open distyle-in-antis portico" [i.e. a porch-like structure having two columns between the projections at the sides] (Camden Council). But then the doorway itself returns to a more Gothic style with a "panelled door with radial patterned fanlight" (Camden Council again). This listed building is therefore a good example of how Nash and his assistants blended different elements in this characterful, highly influential little development close to Regent's Park.

In 1839 the house was leased to the transport tycoon Joseph Baxendale (manager of Pickford's removal form, a director of the Regent's Canal Company etc etc), probably as an investment. Its first resident moved in the same year. This was James Wyld (1812-1887), son of James Wyld the Elder, who had been the founder fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. A cartographer and geographical publisher like his father, Wyld now ran the highly reputed family firm in the Strand. He had recently got married, so this would have been his first real family home. Wyld's "excellent map of Bengal" is mentioned in Blackwood's Magazine, in an account of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. However, by then he was already more popularly known for something else, a curiosity associated with the Great Exhibition. This was a gigantic gas-lit globe which, since it was too big for the exhibition itself, was set up in Leicester Square in 1851 and remained there for over ten years. With its several levels of galleries, and changing displays, it could be seen as the forerunner of the Dome of Discovery erected for the Festival of Britain in 1851, and the Millennium Dome which remains in place at Greenwich. Wyld must have made a great deal of money from this quirky but successful enterprise. He moved on from Park Village West in 1856 and eventually died in a larger house in a smart terrace in Kensington. For an illustration of Wyld's Globe taken from the Illustrated London News of 7 June 1851, and Henry Morley's tongue-in-cheek discussion of it, see here; for a picture of the complete structure in an essay on "Public Exhibitions and Picture Palaces," see here.

Related Material

• Houses in Park Village West
• No. 10, Park Village West, Camden, London, by the office of John Nash
• No. 11, Park Village West, by the office of John Nash
• No. 12, Park Village West, by the office of John Nash
• No. 14, Park Village West, by the office of John Nash
• No. 17, Park Village West, by the office of John Nash
• Park Village East, by the office of John Nash

Bibliography

Baigent, Elizabeth. "Wyld, James, the Younger (1812-1887)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Viewed 28 May 2008.

Camden Council. "Listed Building Details" (source no longer available). Viewed 28 May 2008.

Roberts, J. R. Howard, and Walter H. Godfrey, eds. "Park Village West." Survey of London, Vol. 21 (1949). British History Online. Viewed 28 May 2008.

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Last modified 23 October 2015