Kendal House
Collier Road, London N1
Architect: Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin
Register for similar homes"We will deliberately create exhilaration" - Berthold Lubetkin
This beautiful two-bedroom apartment is positioned on the fourth-floor of Kendal House, an exceptional mid-century estate built to a design by the legendary architectural practice Tecton. This particular apartment was renovated and reconfigured by Adam Khan Architects in recent years, opening up the communal spaces and introducing a contemporary material palette.
Kendal House forms part of the Priory Green estate, a project planned before the war, but completed after it in 1957. The design was overseen initially by Tecton and then by architects Francis Skinner, Douglas Bailey and Berthold Lubetkin. It is widely regarded as a monument to British modernism and bears many of the hallmarks of Lubetkin’s signature style, including concrete construction, sculptural stairways, interlocking fenestration and expansive landscaped gardens.
The apartment is accessed on the fourth floor, with lift access. It has two double bedrooms, a bathroom, a compact kitchen and a large reception room with access to a balcony with incredible views of St Pancras station and the city to the west.
The recent renovations saw the introduction of dark-brown Danish linoleum floors, in addition to integrated Douglas Fir storage units and shelving. An original concrete beam has been exposed in the corridor and concrete has also been exposed in the kitchen. The heating and hot water are run off a communal system and included in the service charge.
Conceived as public housing, the Priory Green Estate has a mixture of council tenants and private owners. It was the subject of an exemplary refurbishment in 2019 that restored the original colour scheme and a mural by Kenneth Hughes, which recalls Lubetkin’s contacts with Russian Constructivism.
Part of this refurbishment involved the construction of the RIBA Design Award-winning Hugh Cubitt Centre, through which Kendal House is now accessed on Collier Street.
Collier Street is a quiet residential street in Barnsbury, a charming neighbourhood between Angel and Kings Cross. The area is renowned for its Georgian Squares and excellent pubs including The Drapers Arms and The Albion.
The apartment is a short walk from Granary Square, Central St Martins and the newly opened Coal Drops Yard. Alongside existing outposts of Caravan coffee roasters, Waitrose, Dishoom, and audiophile bar Spiritland, the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Coal Drops Yard brings Margaret Howell, Tom Dixon and Aesop stores to the canal, minutes from the apartment’s front door.
The Regent’s Canal runs through Islington into Hackney where it connects to the River Lea. There are many excellent pubs and cafes along the towpath, including stops at the Victoria Miro Gallery and Broadway Market.
Kings Cross station is a ten-minute walk away. It runs services nationwide and is served by the Hammersmith and City, Circle, Victoria, Northern, Piccadilly and Metropolitan tube lines, while St Pancras International station has Eurostar connections to Paris and Brussels.
Tenure: Leasehold
Lease Length: approx. 97 years remaining
Service Charge: approx. £2,700 per annum
Ground Rent: approx. £10 per annum
Council Tax Band: D
Please note that all areas, measurements and distances given in these particulars are approximate and rounded. The text, photographs and floor plans are for general guidance only. The Modern House has not tested any services, appliances or specific fittings — prospective purchasers are advised to inspect the property themselves. All fixtures, fittings and furniture not specifically itemised within these particulars are deemed removable by the vendor.
History
Berthold Lubetkin is among the most important figures of the Modern Movement in Britain. Born in Georgia in 1901, he studied in Berlin and Paris, before moving to London in 1931. The following year he founded the famous Tecton practice with the Architectural Association graduates Anthony Chitty, Lindsay Drake, Michael Dugdale, Valentine Harding, Godfrey Samuel and Francis Skinner.
Lubetkin’s buildings are among the most iconic of the period, and include the penguin pool at London Zoo (designed in conjunction with the engineer Ove Arup) and Finsbury Health Centre.
The Priory Green Estate was designed by Lubetkin while he was working with Tecton in the late 1930s, but was not completed until 1949, by which time the firm had regrouped as Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin. His intention was to create a manifesto for modern architecture.
The largest of the three estates designed by Lubetkin for Finsbury, Priory Green is laid out to match the original street pattern and has 12 blocks of apartments, plus a circular laundry and boiler house. The blocks were built with the same method as the Spa Green buildings, and include six eight storey blocks, arranged in two groups and four four storey blocks which run in parallel. The slightly austere finish of the estate was enlivened by a concrete relief by Kenneth Hughes and internal murals by Feliks Topolski.
Priory Green borrowed features from Lubetkin’s acclaimed Highpoint flats in Highgate, including lifts, central heating, balconies, daylight and ventilation from multiple directions, large entry spaces, and a roof terrace. Well designed fitted kitchens, including slide-away breakfast counters and ironing boards, electrical and gas appliances, and a central waste-disposal system in stainless steel, exceeded the amenities enjoyed by most of the population in the austere late 1940s.
Ove Arup’s innovative concrete box-frame or ‘egg-crate’ construction gave each flat clear views and interiors uncluttered by beams, columns or pipes, while his open terraces provided a communal area for drying clothes, social gathering and enjoying views.
Priory Green is one of the few Lubetkin buildings in London not to be listed, and one of the few social housing estates to receive extensive refurbishment in 2019. This act on behalf of the council was in part prompted by the disillusioned tenants, who issued a mock-obituary notice mourning ‘the sad death of a once-loved friend, their housing estate’.
An experimental series of murals by Polish artist and Royal Academician Feliks Topolski were somehow ‘lost’ during the estate’s darker years. The murals depicted the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the eighteenth century – including images of Pentonville resident Joseph Grimaldi – and what was then the present day.
