Queen's Gate Living
Queen's Gate Gardens
The eponymous Queen’s Gate Gardens consists of three roads surrounding the communal gardens themselves. The communal garden is surrounded by large plane trees which hide the large private central lawn and flower-bed area from curious passers-by.
The street itself is fairly accessible for shops in Gloucester Road. It is wide enough for cars to be parked outside houses on both sides. The buildings have mostly been converted into large flats although there is still at least one diplomatic building on the south side.
The houses were generally built as 5 storey houses, with additional basements. Two typical late-Victorian house designs predominate. There are some fabulous white stucco giants and some equally impressive brick buildings which use the pale coloured brick favoured at the time (in contrast to the rich red brick of Cadogan Square or Evelyn Gardens for example).
The buildings have porticoed entrances which are usually paired so that three columns support the two porticoes.
In between the porticoes are the main ground floor rooms. The stuccoed houses generally kept to the older tradition windows flush with the main walls. In the brick buildings, bay windows were used to give additional space and light. Both types adopted the use of balustrades running along the entire front of the building at first floor level. First floor windows could open onto it as a balcony. Especially in the stuccoed buildings there are also individual balconies outside some second floor windows. They seem out of place so perhaps they were later additions.
Both types of houses have employed much the same decoration with the use of a large dentilled cornice in stucco running between the third floor and the slightly smaller fourth floor. Then comes the roof with – in some cases only – attic windows in the roof itself, probably added later.
The west side of the square contains Campbell Court, a 1960s block of flats which backs onto the gardens and has a frontage on Gloucester Road.
