IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Fitzroy Gardens, LONDON, SE19 2NP

A selection of solid mid-C19th houses of similar scale, but each differing slightly in the styles and motifs employed. The one on the right is now a doctors' surgery. Church Road has a number of good suburban villas dating from around this time, many of which have been converted to multiple occupancy or institutional use, and most of its buildings are within a Conservation Area.

Large hotel on Church Road, opened in 1854 to coincide with the opening of the nearby Crystal Palace. The architect was Francis Pouget. A blue plaque on the front commemorates the French Novilsits Emile Zola who lived here in 1898-9.

Pair of early 19th Century houses in Church Road, nos 126 & 124 respectively. Both are grade II listed - see https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1079316?section=official-list-entry and https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1188480?section=official-list-entry respectively.

The porch of Rockmount, a large and very ornate 19th Century villa, 128 Church Road, first marked on the 1896 1:1056 plan where it is shown in a gap between earlier houses. Built c.1873, it is grade II listed - see https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1188488?section=official-list-entry. The architect was Sextus Dyball, or Hexagon Sextus Dyball to give his full name.

Probably the best of the suburban villas on Church Road, this splendidly spiky Victorian affair dates from 1873 and was designed by the splendidly-named Sextus Dyball. It is crammed with detail, in particular the bay on the right which has brick nogging and two demi-octagonal roofs. Grade II listed. Dyball was a speculative builder-architect who designed a number of buildings in the area. Jonathan Meades wrote of him that he was "a local builder to whom all devotees of inspired ugliness and sinister gracelessness will be forever indebted. Did Dyball know what he was doing? Did he have any idea of the sensations that his creations would provoke? It is improbable that he was out to shock. Rather, it seems that he ... subscribed to an aesthetic system that, although not far from us, feels chronologically, seems unfathomably distant – a vestige of an alien civilisation."

A large and very ornate 19th Century villa, 128 Church Road, first marked on the 1896 1:1056 plan where it is shown in a gap between earlier houses. Built c.1873, it is grade II listed - see https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1188488?section=official-list-entry. The architect was Sextus Dyball, or Hexagon Sextus Dyball to give his full name.

Mid 19th Century villa on Church Road, marked on the 1870 6" map, symmetrical in design to its neighbour across The Park, no 181-191 (see Image and Image).