Lissenden Gardens

[3] The estate was designed by Boehmer and Gibbs, the architects who were experienced in building middle class blocks of flats in the Hampstead area and working for Cave.

[5] The flats were built in the fashionable Edwardian period Arts and Crafts style, using red brick, with attention to detail such as stained glass above the front doors and some windows as well as in the stair columns; hand-made tapered brick arches over the windows; hand-made red clay tiles; and terracotta foliage panels and flower tiles by the front doors.

[6] In autumn 1939, the pacifist and suffragist Mary Sheepshanks moved into an apartment in Parliament Hill Mansions after she was bombed out in her Hampstead home.

[8] After the war, the remains of 1-10 Parliament Hill Mansions were replaced by the six-storey Chester Court, built in the utilitarian style by architects Anderson, Forster and Wilcox.

[11] Central government refused to approve the compulsory purchase in July 1973, but the council retaliated the same month by serving “dangerous structure” notices on some of the blocks, requiring the owners to carry out urgent repairs.

The neighbourhood is positioned between Gospel Oak to the west, Dartmouth Park to the east, Kentish Town to the south, and Hampstead Heath to the north.

Lissenden Gardens lies across NW5 postcode and is served by Gospel Oak railway station on the London Overground and three local buses, namely 88, C11, 214.