Georgian house, Ham Common

Image: © Stefan Czapski Taken: 4 Jul 2014

At the north-west corner of the green, by Lock Road. This appears to be the house named by Pevsner as Ensleigh Lodge: 'a cottage with lower wings with a double-curved top to reach the walls of the cottage and two solid wood fanlights'. It seems on the large side to be called a cottage, but those curved appendages (rather Dutch-looking) puff it up to look larger than it is. In any case, some very unusual details have survived the centuries. The rather grand windows of the end-wings are embedded within what might be called blank arches, with the fanlight-like feature (mentioned by Pevsner) at the head of the arch. All seven windows of the façade (even the little attic windows) retain wooden hoods, of a sort often seen in early photographs but these days quite scarce. Stephen Richards has suggested that the proper term for these hoods is 'blind hood'. Though not often seen, they have (for some unknown reason) survived in a number of houses around Ham Common. I have documented an example seen in Hampstead: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2523418

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