St. Paul's Studios on the Talgarth Road

Many artists living in London who have ever travelled west will have marvelled at the Artists Studio from the Arts and Crafts era - with the wonderful large north facing windows - on the A4 just before the start of the Hammersmith Flyover.

They're called St. Paul's Studios. I've always wanted to know more about them and the sale of one of them means this post includes information about:

• one which is for sale and 
• the history of the studios
• other 19th century artists' studio buildings in London - in Pembroke Gardens, Kensington; Tite Street, Chelsea and Greville Road, St John's Wood.

I find it fascinating that most of the studios developed in west London in the 19th century and east London at the back end of the 20th century. Where I live (in the East End of London) has more artists per square mile than any other place in the UK!

St Paul's Studios on the Talgarth Road (courtesy of Google Streetview)

Artist's Arts and Crafts Studio for Sale.

You can read more about the house which is for sale on the following links.
Estate Agent: Featherstone Leigh listing
Address: 149 Talgarth Road, London, W14 9DA (Grade II Listed in 1970) - formerly known as #8 St Paul's Studios.
Built: 1891
Listed Status: Grade II listed - which means that the special features of the building cannot be altered without special permission of the relevant planning authority.
Asking Price £1.4 million | Offer made: £1.525 million
Previous occupants: Dame Margot Fonteyn who used the space as a dance studio
Layout:

Past sales

These studio houses do come on the market from to time - but not very often.

• 1993: Nos 2 and 3 were on the market for £220,000 each (reference)
• 2003: one of these studios was on the market priced at £1,100,000
• 2007: another was on the market for £1,200,000.
• 2012: 135 Talgarth Road went on the market for £1.3million (See The perfect home for a 'bachelor artist': A £1.3 million time warp in Artists' Row)
• 2012: 145 Talgarth Road - sold for £1m in November 2012
• 2014: 145 Talgarth Road - sold for £1.36m in May 2014

145 Talgarth Road

The downside to the houses are that they have the extremely noisy and dirty Talgarth Road to the front (studio window side) and the Piccadilly Line to the rear and only small gardens front and back.  Of course when they were built circumstances were very different

The History of St. Paul's Studios

Designed by: Frederick Wheeler FRIBA (1853–1931)
Built: 1891
Purpose: Designed to house bachelor artists - on behalf of James Fairless a fine art publisher
Accommodation:

• Ground Floor: 3 "living" rooms for the artist
• First Floor: The "work space / studio" - 30 feet long and 22 ft wide (9.1 m × 6.7 m) with a 20-foot-high (6.1 m) ceiling
• Basement: Housekeeper's Flat

Address: Originally number #1 to #8 St Paul's Studios, Red Cow Lane (and subsequently Colet Gardens); the numbers converted to #135 to  #149 (odd numbers only) Talgarth Road at a later date.

Articles about the studios:

• Chestertons: Artists' studios that stop traffic
• London Details: St Paul's Studios documents to past occupants of the different houses
• Country Life: Studios with an artistic past
• The Guardian: For sale: Margot Fonteyn's Arts and Crafts live-in studio 
• Daily Mail: The perfect home for a 'bachelor artist': A £1.3 million time warp in Artists' Row

Other historical artists' studios in London

This article by The Independent discusses St Paul's Studios and other historic studios in London.  I was surprised to find that some of them were let to artists by the Prudential insurance company who aimed to let studio spaces to artists.

Pembroke Studios, Kensington (map)- 11 studios, each with a skylight and a floor- to-ceiling, north-facing window.

Pembroke Studios, site plan, and typical studio plan and elevation. C. F. Kearley, builder, 1890–1
British History Online

Tite Street, Chelsea

Tite Street was home to a number of artists and there's a few houses with very large windows. This is 31-33 Tite Street which used to be the home and studio of John Singer Sargent. Whistler also used #33 as his studio. The odd thing about the properties in Tite Street is that none of them have the much desired north facing window.

Greville Road Studios, St John's Wood

This is an article about the planned refurbishment of a listed artists studio - with images - in Greville Road, St John's Wood



I've always thought it would be fun to create a gazette of the locations of all the artists studios in London!

If anybody else has links to interesting art studios in London I'll add them into this post.