Decorating Templeton Place

Templeton Place was developed in the late 1870s as part of the broader residential expansion of the Earls Court area, its construction reflecting the seemingly insatiable demand for middle-class housing in west London during the final quarter of the nineteenth century. The street occupies a position between the more prominent Earls Court Road and the residential squares to the south, its quieter character and more modest scale attracting residents who valued domestic tranquillity over architectural display. The houses were built by local speculative builders working to designs that followed the standard templates of west London terraced housing, producing a harmonious streetscape of consistent quality if not exceptional architectural distinction. The original residents included clerks, commercial travellers, schoolteachers, and other members of the lower-middle class who were priced out of the grander streets but aspired to the respectability of a Kensington address. The street's name derives from Templeton, a property in one of the home counties associated with a local landowner. During the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, Templeton Place maintained its residential character more successfully than some of the surrounding streets, which were converted to hotels and boarding houses. However, the post-war decades brought subdivision into bedsitting rooms and general decline in the maintenance of the Victorian fabric. The gentrification of the area since the 1990s has prompted restoration of many properties, though the street retains a more workaday character than the fashionable squares and gardens nearby. The conservation area designation provides a measure of protection for the street's Victorian architectural integrity.

The decoration of Templeton Place's terraces benefits from the relative simplicity of the architectural detailing, which allows a more straightforward approach than the elaborate facades of the surrounding squares. The stuccoed ground floors require Keim mineral silicate paint in appropriate Victorian tones, applied after standard substrate preparation. The simpler moulded dressings are less prone to the soiling accumulation and biological colonisation that affects the deeply carved elements on the grander buildings, reducing the preparatory work required. However, the same fundamental principles apply: all existing coatings must be tested for adhesion, hollow or cracked render must be cut out and replaced with compatible lime-cement mortar, and the incised ashlar jointing must be maintained during any repair work. The canted bay windows, though of simpler design than those on the grander streets, present the same vulnerability at the angle junctions, requiring lime-based mastic sealing and careful application of the paint system into the sheltered corners. The exposed brickwork of the upper floors should be maintained through lime-putty repointing, with the mortar gauged to an appropriate softness for London stock bricks. Where previous inappropriate repointing in hard Portland cement mortar has been carried out, this should be carefully raked out and replaced with lime-putty mortar to prevent brick spalling. The ironwork requires the standard hand preparation and protective coating system. Timber sash windows should be maintained with linseed oil paint, and where modern replacement windows have been installed in inappropriate materials such as uPVC, the conservation area guidelines support their replacement with traditional timber sashes at the earliest opportunity.