Decorating Barkston Gardens

Barkston Gardens was developed in the early 1880s as part of the continuing residential expansion of the Earls Court area, its construction coinciding with the growth of the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, which brought international visitors and a cosmopolitan character to the neighbourhood. The street takes its name from Barkston, a village in Lincolnshire associated with the landowning family that sold the development plots. The houses were designed to a high standard, reflecting the developers' awareness that the Earls Court area was attracting an increasingly prosperous clientele, including professionals, retired military officers, and members of the colonial service returning from overseas postings. The street's character was influenced from an early date by the presence of private hotels — residential establishments that provided furnished apartments with dining and domestic services — which catered to the itinerant professional population of late Victorian London. Several purpose-built mansion blocks were constructed alongside the conventional terraced houses, introducing a Continental apartment-dwelling model that was still relatively novel in London. The mansion blocks, typically of five to six storeys with communal entrance halls and porter service, represented a new type of middle-class housing that appealed to those who sought the convenience of a central location without the responsibilities of maintaining a large house. During the twentieth century, many of the individual houses were also converted to hotel use, and Barkston Gardens became one of the principal hotel streets in the Earls Court area. The street's Victorian character has survived substantially intact, and the conservation area designation provides protection against inappropriate development.

The decoration of Barkston Gardens requires expertise in the treatment of both stuccoed masonry and decorative terracotta, two materials with quite different conservation requirements. The stuccoed facades of the terraced houses demand Keim mineral silicate paint in appropriate Victorian tones, applied after thorough substrate preparation. The terracotta elements of the mansion blocks, however, must never be painted: terracotta's principal virtue is its integral colour and its ability to resist weathering without the need for a protective coating. Where terracotta has been inappropriately painted in the past, careful removal using steam or alkaline paint strippers is necessary to restore the material's natural appearance and breathability. Terracotta that has suffered frost damage — evidenced by spalling of the fired surface to expose the softer body beneath — requires specialist conservation, either through consolidation with a lime-shelter coat or replacement with purpose-made matching units. The red brickwork of the mansion blocks should be maintained through lime-mortar repointing, with the mortar colour carefully matched to the original to avoid the visually disruptive effect of mis-matched repointing. The carved stone dressings, typically in Portland stone, require periodic cleaning and, where decayed, repair using lime-based stone repair mortars. The stucco of the terraced houses requires the standard preparation and Keim mineral silicate finish. The elaborate ironwork, including the glazed entrance canopies, demands comprehensive hand preparation and a multi-coat protective system. The glazed canopy roofs require replacement of cracked or missing glass with wired or laminated safety glass, bedded in putty over a red-lead primer applied to the iron glazing bars. Timber windows and doors throughout should be maintained with linseed oil paint systems.