Listing for St Saviour’s Vicarage
We are very pleased that following our application to Historic England, the former St Saviour’s Vicarage on the corner of Prince of Wales Drive and Alexandra Avenue has now been listed as being of special architectural and historic interest. This means that it will be protected for future generations.
The Vicarage was the first building to be erected on Prince of Wales Drive to the south of Battersea Park in 1879-80. It is described and illustrated in Volume 50 of the Survey of London as a 'pretty Queen Anne Revival composition in greyish stocks and orange-red brick dressings with a crow-stepped gable'. The vicarage was the initiative of the vicar of St Saviour's, Samuel Gilbert Scott and it was designed by John Oldrid Scott, Samuel's cousin and the uncle of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of Battersea Power Station.
John Oldrid Scott completed most the works left unfinished when his famous father Sir George Gilbert Scott’s died, including Glasgow University, St Mary's Cathedral Edinburgh and Norwich RC Cathedral, plus six other cathedrals. More locally he completed St Mary Abbot's Kensington, designed St Augustine's, Croydon and also the war memorial in Croydon Parish Church. He also designed St Sophia's Notting Hill (1874-82), the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Western Europe since 1932, described by Pevsner as 'remarkably restrained and successful'. He thus anticipated by 20 years the fashion for the Byzantine style from the 1890s. Unusually he also designed its 'icon wall' (iconostasis) to maintain the high standard of interior decor and fittings. He also designed the grade II* listed Greek Orthodox Chapel in West Norwood Cemetery. He was probably the best known architect amongst the spate of Queen Anne Revivalists who designed some fine houses around Battersea Park between the 1870s-90s; but his contribution is particularly notable as his generally favoured style, following his father and elder brother, was Gothic. This is therefore a very rare example of a Queen Anne Revival design by a Scott family member.
St Saviour's vicarage itself is the only detached house in this part of Prince of Wales Drive, an important caesura in the long rows of much larger mansion blocks that otherwise dominate the streetscape. The east front facing Alexandra Avenue is particularly attractive, with a large recessed porch to the upper ground floor, attractive asymmetric dormers in the roof, and prominent patterning in the orange-red brickwork to which the Survey of London refers. All these features, along with the prominent chimneys, survive in their original form. New owners are currently working to restore the house.