South Kensington Living
Hereford Square
Hereford Square is one of the prettiest squares in South Kensington. It runs along the west side of Gloucester Road and has a large attractive private communal garden with many mature trees.
The north west and south terraces are all painted white. The houses are mainly four-storeys (plus basement) with a first floor balustrade balcony. Some of the houses have private rear gardens. The south and west side of the square are particularly quiet yet extremely convenient for Gloucester Road underground.
The east side of the square consists of houses of varying architectural styles and these are on the other side of Gloucester Road. There is one small terrace built in the 1950’s but the rest of the houses are mainly Victorian with large front gardens.
The central communal garden is maintained to a very high standard.
There is a local neighbourhood pub called The Hereford on the east side of the square.
Hereford Square was built on land belonging to the Day Estate.
The square was laid out on land which had previously been a paddock adjoining Gloucester Road. In 1845 James Day entered into a building agreement with Thomas Holmes, a speculative builder in his 20s, who was already building houses in Thurloe Square. Hereford Square was actually to be three rows of houses. There were to be seventeen houses in the north-south row running, with two east-west rows of nine houses each. There was to be a central garden fronting Gloucester Road with no houses on it (which was the fourth side of the square). The deal was that Holmes should build all the houses by Christmas 1849.
The architect whose designs Holmes had to follow, was John Blore, the Day’s estate surveyor. Work started but Holmes was declared bankrupt in 1847. His biggest creditor was George Pinckney Whitfield, who had lent part of the capital to fund the building. He took over the building agreement. In 1848 Whitfield completed the gardens and by 1850 he had completed twenty one of the houses. In 1850, Thomas Holmes came out of bankruptcy, and Whitfield used him to complete Nos. 10-12 and also to build Nos. 27-29 from scratch. For Nos. 13-20, he subcontracted the work to William Wells, a Vauxhall building in 1850.
The houses had fully stuccoed façades. Most of the houses were on 3 storeys, plus basement and rooms in the attic. In the terrace on the west side of the square, the five central houses (Nos. 16-20) project slightly forward and have the appearance of a Greek temple with Corinthian pilasters and columns, appearing to partially emerge from the front of the building.
By 1871, most of the inhabitants of the square were either retired people or people living on private incomes. Two of the houses, Nos. 9 and 33 were preparatory boarding schools for boys.
In the Second World War, several houses in Hereford Square were destroyed by bombing and have been replaced.
The Days have sold off most of their freeholds over the years.
