A List of the Properties Built by Allen and Norris as accurate as I can get it

Last updated: December 2008; December 2023

It’s roughly in chronological order, by estate. Within each estate I’ve listed the roads in alphabetical order. I give the dates of the drainage applications where I’ve got them. Sometimes I haven’t got drainage applications, or they’re very vague about the properties applied for. In Fulham and Wandsworth I’ve walked along all the streets to check all the properties look the same and can therefore be counted as by Allen and Norris; where that ISN’T the case, I say so. However, in October 2023, Google took me along some streets off Uxbridge Road, where the houses and maisonettes had the same, familiar design, only for me to discover at Hammersmith and Fulham Archives that Allen and Norris hadn’t built any of them! Let that be a lesson to me – appearances can deceive!

After the authorities have granted you permission to build, you’ve got to start construction work within six months, and finish before a date supplied to you as part of the permission. If you don’t start before your first deadline you have to apply again; if you don’t complete by your second deadline, you have to apply again - which is why some house numbers are in the list below more than once.

Beginning with MORRISON’S FARM on the west side of Wandsworth Bridge Road in Fulham. William Gilbert Allen began building this estate in 1896 just before Henry Norris and he formed their partnership.

Ashcombe Street all 1896

Beltran Road all 1897

29-31 and 34-36 were built as maisonettes

Clancarty Road 1-73 1896

Friston Street all mid 1898

Narborough Street 1-29 late 1896

2-34 early 1897

Settrington Road 38-108 1899

2-36 unknown but other evidence indicates they are definitely Allen and Norris

Probably 1899

Wandsworth Bridge Road is complicated.

134-298 and the joinery works next to 298 spring 1896 to mid-1898

134-210 are shops with living quarters above

212-294 are maisonettes

296-298 were Allen and Norris’ first offices; with the joinery and stables next

door

Woolneigh Street all June 1899

There are only a few houses in Woolneigh Street. There would have been more, but in the spring of 1899 the LCC refused Allen and Norris’ request to have the street extended eastwards into what was then a market garden and is now South Park.

BATTERSEA/CLAPHAM

Hill Crest, Thurleigh Road 1897

Brooklands, Thurleigh Road 1898

CRAB TREE LANE (1) 1-69 1898

1-5 were built as maisonettes

69 is a corner shop

West of FULHAM PALACE ROAD on the bishop of London’s estate. In essence, Allen and Norris built all the houses in the roads listed below although I couldn’t find some of the drainage applications so some numbers are missing.

Finlay Street 5-72 only 1905

The rest of Finlay Street was built by a different firm

Fulham Palace Road west side is a tricky one! There are very few drainage applications for the properties on Fulham Palace Road between the south side of Crabtree Lane and the north side of Harbord Street. Just to add a little something to my confusion, I’ve found that there’s no number 302 Fulham Palace Road, and no number 374.

288 - may have been built by Allen and Norris; but I’m perfectly ready to accept that it was built by another firm.

290-300

As 288 but despite the design being so different from anything else Allen and Norris built, there are drainage applications by Allen and Norris that seem to refer to this short run of houses, which were built (one by one, I think) between 1898 and 1900.

I’m quite sure that Allen and Norris built the properties from 304/06 to 468/70 - it’s another run of their houses-as-maisonettes design but on a much grander scale than any of the maisonettes they built elsewhere. As there are so few drainage applications that I can identify as being for 304-470 that I’ve assumed below that properties on the main road were built while Allen and Norris were working on the nearest side road:

304/06-340/42 spring 1901

344/46-354/56 summer 1901

358/60-370/72 June 1903

Allen and Norris’ lease of the land between Langthorne Street and Harbord Street was not signed until June 1904.

440/42-468/70 June 1904

408/10-436/38 Sep 1906

376/78-404/06 May 1908

Allen and Norris’ run ends with 468/70, on the north corner with Harbord Street; they didn’t build any properties south of that.

Greswell Street 1-25, 2-58 1905 all the houses in the street

Harbord Street 1-45, 2-48 1904

93-145, 98-150 1906

5-91, 6-96 were built as maisonettes

145-147, 150-150a were built as maisonettes

Inglethorpe Street 1-51, 2-52 1903

6-16, 5-15 1904

101, 103 1904

55-99, 56-104/106 1906

101-107, 104/106 were built as maisonettes

Kenyon Street 1-56 1903

57-103, 60-104 early 1908

55, 58, 106 mid 1908

Langthorne Street 2-62, 3-59 mid 1902

1 Jan 1903

59, 62 mid 1903

Lysia Street 2-8 May 1899

10, 12 June 1899

2-14 Sep 1899

16-26, 3-35, 23-38 Nov 1900

2 Jan 1901

40-74, 37-71 Feb 1901

71, 74 Sep 1901

Niton Street 10, 12, 3-9, 14-24 Sep 1899

11-25 Nov 1899

26-48 Feb 1900

51-73, 50-74 Sep 1900

Queensmill Road 2-46 May 1901

1-15, 48-70 Sep 1901

17-65 Oct 1901

15-22 Apr 1902

23-36 June 1902

27-34 Jan 1903

Woodlawn Road 49-71 Jan 1908

FULHAM PALACE ROAD east side

Atalanta Street 1-47, 2-40 Nov 1899 all the houses in the street

2-14 Sep 1900

Branksea Street 1-23 Nov 1899

2 May 1900*

*actually 2-10 were applied for; but only 2 was built

Fulham Palace Road 225/227-305/07 unknown! But probably 1899-1900

All built as maisonettes

275 as commercial premises 1916

Kingwood Road 68-100 June 1899

The rest of the houses in the street are older; they weren’t built by Allen and Norris.

SOUTHFIELDS in Wandsworth

Gatwick Road 1-25, 2-32 Oct 1910 all the houses in the street

Granville Road 41-105 Sep 1911

All the other houses in the street were built by other firms

Hambledon Road 2-48, 1-39 Sep 1911 all the houses in the street

2-24 Mar 1913

Standen Road 116-110 June 1910

All the other properties in the street are older and were built by other firms

Wimbledon Park Road 161-139 June 1910

161 is a corner shop with a small oriel window, the only such that Allen and Norris built; it’s on the corner with Standen Road.

137-115 Aug 1910

130-116 Sep 1910

113-73* Feb 1911

130-116 Sep 1910

Garage at 130 Dec 1910

130 was Allen and Norris’ estate office

100-82* May 1912

114-102 July 1912

*73 and 82 are at the corner with Granville Road; properties on Wimbledon Park Road north of this crossroads are either much earlier, or modern.

I’m not sure Allen and Norris built 152-132 Wimbledon Park Road. I can’t find a drainage application from the partnership for those properties, which do seem to be a different design from Allen and Norris’ others on the main road. The southern-most properties on Allen and Norris’ Southfields site seem therefore to be 161 on the east side and 130 on the west side.

Wincanton Road 1-53, 2-62 Sep 1911 all the houses in the road

CRAB TREE LANE (2) the CRABTREE LANE ESTATE

Bowfell Road 1-29, 2-30 May 1913

Colwith Road is another puzzle. More seems to have been applied for than actually got built - probably because the war intervened.

1-19, 2-14 Dec 1912 these are houses

21/23-113/115, 72/74-144/146

It’s been difficult to date these. They’re probably 1912-13. They were all built as maisonettes, the only such on the Crabtree Lane Estate.

Allen and Norris also applied to build 16-82 Colwith Road, as houses, in Dec 1915. However 16-42 don’t exist now and I can’t see any evidence that they were ever built; and 44-68 look like 1930s designs to me. There’s no number 70.

Crabtree Lane 2-40 Sep 1911

Ellaline Road 1-37, 2-38 Sep 1911

Fulham Palace Road 190 as temporary structure Sep 1911

190 was Allen and Norris’ estate office from 1911-1919. From 1919 to the 1970s it was the partnership’s only office. It’s still an estate agent now.

192-206 Nov 1911

208-226* Jan 1912

220 Dec 1912

182-190 Sep 1913

174-182 Dec 1913

*222-226 doesn’t seem to ever have been anything more than a garage.

I have some evidence that Allen and Norris also built 162-164 - they were in existence in the 1920s; however the properties at those addresses in 2008 are modern offices. I’m not sure 166-190 was ever built; apart from 190, the row 166-190 is now derelict.

[Nanette]Larnach Road 1-37, 2-38 Sep 1911

[Dorset Lane]Nella Road 1-41, 2-44 Sep 1911

2 Sep 1913

[Gilbert]Rannoch Road 1-73, 2-58 Sep 1911

105-127 May 1912

90-122 May 1912

72-80, 89 May 1913

64-70 July 1913

11, 105 Apr 1914

56-62 Dec 1914

Rosedew Road 1-47, 2-28 July 1912

24-28 Oct 1915

[Dalton]Silverton Road 1-37, 2-38 Sep 1911

Skelwith Road 1-29, 2-30 Dec 1912

Wingrave Road 2-32 Dec 1912

Apart from 1, not built by Allen and Norris, 2-32 are the only houses in the street.

And finally, NORTH SIDE, UXBRIDGE ROAD – houses and maisonettes NOT built by Allen and Norris despite being constructed to the partnership’s designs. The streets or parts of streets concerned are Collingbourne Road; Ormiston Grove; Oaklands Grove; Adelaide Grove; Thorpebank Road; Galloway Road; and crossing the northern ends of all of them, Dunraven Road.

George Axton, born in Wiltshire, moved to London to play a part in the expansion of its suburbs by making and selling bricks. By 1864 his business was based on a piece of land between Uxbridge Road and Ducane Road, whose freehold he had bought. He died in 1877. His sons George the younger and Charles continued to make bricks, in increasing challenging circumstances. George the younger died in 1887. Charles died in 1899 and there was no one else in the family willing to keep the business going; it may have been all-but-moribund for a few years in any case, facing stiff competition from bricks coming to London from the Midlands – the deep-red bricks Allen and Norris always used.

The Axtons’ brick yard was north of a line roughly followed now by Halsbury Road. Its western edge is now the back garden walls of the west side of Adelaide Road. Its eastern edge was Bloemfontein Road. Its northern edge was less clearly defined but the line of the back garden walls of the north side of Dunraven Road probably follows it. Adelaide Road, Oaklands Road and Ormiston Road had existed as short streets off Uxbridge Road for some time and as early as 1894 the local Vestry had been planning to extend them northwards through the brick yard. After Charles Axton’s death the family decided to use the sale of the brick yard to ensure their future. On 11 January 1904, Clara Axton (the original George’s daughter and presumably representing the family as a group) signed the freehold of the brick yard away in a series of conveyances. The buyers that day were William Gilbert Allen and Henry George Norris.

It looked like another Allen and Norris housing estate was in the making. However, the records of Hammersmith Borough Council show that the partnership never made any drainage applications for any of the streets that were built on the brick yard. Allen and Norris were, after all, already pretty busy building elsewhere. The applications were made by William Gilbert Allen’s older brother Morris Joseph Allen, in the house-building and maisonette-building business on his own account as M J Allen.

Morris Allen had been making drainage applications for properties in Oaklands Road (now Grove) and Adelaide Road (now Grove) during 1903, while negotiations about the brick yard were still going on and all the paperwork was still being prepared. Though I don’t know how I could prove it, I think that William Gilbert Allen stepped in to help his brother out, when Morris saw a wonderful opportunity to build on a big scale but couldn’t raise the money to buy the brick yard himself; with Morris then acting as a sub-contractor in return for part of the profits on the houses and maisonettes. Allen and Norris also let Morris use their house/maisonette design and layout, to save him having to pay for a new one himself. Morris kept working in the area after all the properties on the brick yard had been built and sold or rented – his firm M J Allen built Thorpebank Road and Dunraven Road and Galloway Road. But as far as I’ve been able to tell – land ownership west of Adelaide Road is rather complicated – Allen and Norris never bought any other land on his behalf.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE SOURCES OF ALL THIS INFORMATION, SEND ME AN EMAIL AND I’LL SEND YOU THE SOURCES FILE.

December 2008

December 2023

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