
This carefully considered two-bedroom apartment is set within Redbanks, a handsome, Grade II-listed detached Victorian villa that lies upon a peaceful tree-lined road in Sydenham Hill, south London. Recently redesigned in a pared-back palette by Ronnie + King, this lateral home is positioned on the first floor, measures some 820 sq ft internally and has a grand main living space with triplicate aspects that overlook the communal gardens.
Setting the Scene
Sydenham Hill was once part of Great North Wood, an area of woodland that covered a large part of south London. The area has an incredibly rich history, with the woods on Sydenham Hill first reserved by HM Queen Elizabeth I for timber to be used in shipbuilding at Deptford Creek. Large Victorian villas with extensive gardens were first established in Sydenham Hill in the 1850s, in response to the development of the Crystal Palace, which was built to house the Great Exhibition in 1851 and located nearby; this was a feat of engineering at the time but sadly destroyed by a fire in 1936.
Redbanks was built in 1868 by local builder John Perry to the designs of Israel Bacon. Bacon was an understudy of Charles Barry Junior, architect of New College at nearby Dulwich College, and carried Barry’s taste for high-Victorian classicism when designing Redbanks. The villa is built from red brick in Flemish bond, with a mansard roof of original Welsh slate, and set out over four storeys, with a three-window range. Original intact stucco frames the windows; entablature with mutule forms the cornicing at ground level and decorative quoins sit atop the apartment’s first-floor fenestration, while dentil cornice projects proudly at the second storey, completing the selection of rendered dressings to the house.
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