Decorating Fitzjohn's Avenue

Fitzjohn's Avenue was developed during the 1870s and 1880s as a grand residential boulevard ascending from the Metropolitan Railway station at Swiss Cottage to the ancient village of Hampstead on the ridge above. The avenue was named after the Fitzjohn family, who had held the manor of Hampstead since the seventeenth century, and its development represented the most ambitious residential building scheme in the area's history. The generous width of the avenue, with its central reservation of mature trees, was designed to create a processional approach to Hampstead that would attract the wealthiest residents to the newly accessible suburb. The opening of the Metropolitan Railway at Swiss Cottage in 1868 had made Hampstead suddenly convenient for city workers, and the developers exploited this new accessibility by building houses of exceptional size and quality. The original villas were designed for the upper echelons of the Victorian professional and mercantile classes, including successful physicians, barristers, bankers, and industrialists who desired the grandest domestic accommodation within reach of central London. The avenue became particularly associated with the Jewish community that established itself in north London during the late nineteenth century, with several prominent families building substantial houses along its length. During the twentieth century, some of the largest villas were converted to institutional use, including schools, embassies, and nursing homes, but many have been restored to residential occupation. Fitzjohn's Avenue falls within the Hampstead Conservation Area, one of the largest in London, with Camden Council and English Heritage maintaining rigorous controls over external alterations.

The decoration of Fitzjohn's Avenue's diverse villa properties requires an architect's understanding of the specific materials and stylistic vocabulary of each house. The red-brick facades that characterise the majority of the properties should be maintained in their natural state, with lime-putty repointing in mortar carefully matched in colour and texture to the original. The stone and terracotta dressings, including carved entrance porches, window surrounds, and decorative panels, require specialist cleaning using appropriate non-abrasive techniques, and any stone repairs must use matching stone from approved quarries. The stuccoed facades, where they occur, require Keim mineral silicate paint applied over lime render. The timber joinery varies considerably by period and style, from the large-section sash windows of the Italianate villas to the small-paned casements of the Arts and Crafts houses, each requiring appropriate paint systems. Linseed oil paint provides the most historically appropriate treatment for the Victorian joinery, while microporous systems suit the Edwardian elements. The ornamental ironwork, including entrance gates, balcony railings, and decorative panels, requires painstaking hand preparation to preserve the detailing. The substantial garden walls and gate piers require periodic repointing and, where the coping stones are damaged, replacement with matching materials. The mature trees create heavy shade that affects drying conditions and encourages biological growth, requiring biocidal pre-treatment of affected surfaces.