Key Details

Overview

Old Conduit House is a beautifully restored Gothic Grade II* listed 5054 sq ft (470m2), six-bedroom home in Hampstead, London NW3.

One and three Lyndhurst Terrace were built in 1864–1865 to the designs of John Burlison (Sir Gilbert Scott’s chief assistant) aided by Alfred Bell who was one of the pre-eminent makers of stained glass. The products of Bells’ firm, Clayton & Bell, can still be seen in many houses and churches around England, a number of examples of which are evident in Hampstead Parish Church where Bell was a devoted parishioner.

John Burlison was Bell’s father-in-law, and, as first built, the house contained residences for both families with an internal door between. After Burlison died in 1868, Alfred Bell’s family took over the whole building and called it Bayford House. Bell then employed another Gilbert Scott pupil, Charles Buckeridge, and the two men produced the extensive and ornamented gothic interiors.

Alfred Bell died in 1895 and his combined Bayford House was divided into two again.

The artist and author, Ernest Goodwin bought it around 1931 and renamed it Old Conduit House in 1934 referring to the nearby Shepherd’s Well, he lived there until his death in 1944.

His widow remained living in the house until 1994 with the upper floors of Old Conduit House divided into bedsits in the 20th century. The novelist Fay Weldon was a frequent visitor and wrote about the house in her 1995 novel Splitting.

Old Conduit House now exhibits the bold geometric forms of the masculine Gothic of the 1860s, incorporating a round stair turret, a square corner turret, a triangular oriel and lively polychrome window heads.

Internally, the building retains much of the elaborate interiors created by Bell and Buckeridge including stained glass and stencil decorations.

Lyndhurst Terrace was originally built by Davidson in the first half of the 1860s and called variously, Rosslyn Park or Windsor Terrace. The latter name was chosen because Windsor Castle was visible from here across the undeveloped acres of the Conduit fields. The present name came into force in 1939.