Campaigners Celebrate Saving Historic Ealing House
Plan to demolish Victorian property on Marlborough Road blocked
The house threatened with demolition on Marlborough Road. Picture: Google Streetview
June 15, 2023
Campaigners seeking to prevent the demolition of a Victorian house in Ealing are celebrating after the proposal was blocked.
Ealing Council planners wrote to a developer on Tuesday 13 June informing them of their decision to refuse permission for the development of flats on the site of the house at 6 Marlborough Road on the largely well-preserved 1850's "The Rectory Estate, Ealing".
They had hoped to build a four-storey block containing eight flats which objectors had pointed out were contrary to the estate's original building scheme stipulations.
Over 350 objections were submitted to the plan including one from Ealing Civic Society as well as a solicitor’s covenant warning letter based on extensive research into land conveyancing in the Middlesex Deeds Registry and National Archives by Victor Mishiku of The Covenant Movement.
The planners’ letter to the applicant stated that the proposal "would represent an inappropriate, ad-hoc and incongruous form of development that is out of keeping with the prevailing pattern of development within the area to the detriment of surrounding amenity and character" and "would result in the total loss of a locally-listed building".
It continues that demolition of the house “would result in the total loss of a locally listed building, which is identified as being a positive local landmark and a locally significant non-designated heritage asset with architectural and historic significance.”
The house dates back to the mid-19th century making it one of the earliest surviving homes in the area. It was built in the original centre of Ealing around St. Mary’s Church and was originally called Clive Lodge. It was the first house to be built on the road has been locally listed on the council’s heritage asset register since 2014.
A heritage report submitted with the application had argued that the building was of “minor architectural and historic interest” and that the benefits of the proposal in terms of helping the council meet its housing targets would have outweighed the loss of the house.
CGI of rejected scheme. Picture: Red + White, 2022
A group of residents, who have been advised by Victor Mishiku, had argued that the proposed development would be in breach of the covenant under which the land was originally granted. These documents were found during earlier investigations when a development was proposed on Ranelagh Road.
The letter states, “Houses in Marlborough Road as well as in Liverpool Road, Ranelagh Road, Richmond Road, Blandford Road and parts of Warwick Road (formerly known as Guy’s Lane) were all part of a uniform building scheme with restrictions and covenants as to the kind of buildings that were intended to be permitted on the land which in the early 1850s was laid out and carefully planned as ‘The Rectory Estate, Ealing, Middlesex’. Lots on the estate which numbered 161 Lots, were part of a Scheme of Development administered by an Executive Committee enrolled as a benefit building society.”
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