First of the Maida Vale mansion blocks
Construction work on the three Lauderdale Mansions buildings was completed in 1897. Lauderdale Mansions South, which stretched along the south side of Maida Vale's Lauderdale Road, was the largest of the buildings, with 142 flats including a porter's flat in the basement of each individual block.
Facing LMS on the other side of the road were the identically designed Lauderdale Mansions West and Lauderdale Mansions East.
The three mansion buildings were the first of a wave of new redbrick mansion blocks that would spring up to cover the whole of central Maida Vale over the following 10 years.
Unlike in continental Europe, where flat living in urban areas was the norm, the building of apartment blocks for the middle classes was a new phenomenon at that time in London.
One resident of Lauderdale Mansions South in the early years was Agnes de Cuffe who in 1914 gave birth to the future actor Sir Alec Guinness in flat 155. Alec Guinness later won an Oscar after a career starring in films such as Kind Hearts and Coronets (eight different characters), the original Star Wars trilogy (Obi-Wan Kenobi), A Passage to India (Indian mystic Godbole), Lawrence of Arabia (Prince Feisal), Doctor Zhivago (Bolshevik leader Yevgraf) and Oliver Twist (Fagin).
Life in Lauderdale Mansions South during the early part of the 20th century was very different to what it is today.
Almost all of the families in the apartments had at least one live-in servant, and each of the 15 blocks in Lauderdale Mansions South had its own resident porter who lived in the basement flat at the rear of the block. With a fireplace in every apartment room, one of the porter's most important duties was to winch up coal each day from the basements to his residents using a pulley-driven lift on the outside of the building.
The internal layout of the apartments was also very different to most of the flats today, most of which have been changed by their owners over the past 20-30 years.
The largest room at the front of the apartment facing the street was used as a living room, and the room next to it was a dining room. The main bedroom was behind the living room. Further down the corridor, next to the main bedroom was a self-contained bathroom, and next to this was the kitchen, which had a coal fired stove. Leading off the rear of the kitchen was a servant's bedroom (with a small sash window looking out to the garden). A second family bedroom was located next to the servant's bedroom, with a larger sash window. Typical apartment layout from early 20th century.
The gardens were also very different. A 1937 Ordnance Survey map for instance shows the gardens were almost entirely lawn, with very little shrubbery or trees. Running round the edge of both parts of the garden was a perimeter path.
The Second World War brought several changes to the building. The garden was used to grow vegetables to help the war effort. The rear of Block 23 (Flats 211-227) also suffered a direct hit by a bomb. After the war the damaged part of the building was rebuilt in a slightly different style, with metal framed windows instead of wooden sashes.
Until the 1980s, almost all the land in Maida Vale, as well as many of the apartments, was owned by the Church of England. But in 1981, the Church decided to sell off its entire estate in the Maida Vale area, including the freehold to Lauderdale Mansions South.
In 1989, the leaseholders completed the purchase of the freehold of the whole building and the communal garden. For the first time, the flat owners themselves had control over the way in which the building would be managed.
After the flat owners bought the freehold in 1989, an Assets Working Party was set up to investigate how the value of the freehold assets could be exploited. In 1993, a plan was developed to build a 170 space underground multi-storey car park in the garden. But the idea was eventually dropped after many residents feared it would attract more traffic to the area.
Then the Board turned its attention to the redundant coal sheds in the basements, which had fallen into disrepair. In 1999, the Board offered half of the basement areas underneath each block to the neighbouring apartment owners at a fixed price, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Most of the sales went ahead in 2000, and there followed several months of frenzied building work along the whole of the south side of Lauderdale Road, as ground floor and basement apartment owners converted the basements areas they had bought into extra living space.
By 2002 maintenance the Board realised that maintenance work on the rest of the building had fallen badly behind schedule.
In March 2002 the Board of Lauderdale Mansions (South) Ltd proposed an "accelerated programme" of major works, with an estimated one-off cost to each flat owner of £20,000-£30,000, in addition to their existing annual service charge of about £3000. But the plan ran into strong opposition among some flat owners who believed the work could be done a lot more cheaply.
It was eventually agreed that, before any decisions were taken on any major expenditure, special elections should be held in respect of all seven positions on the Board and that, for the first time, any shareholder would be able to stand as a candidate. At the same time, an independent Elections Committee was formed to oversee a new process of "free and fair" elections, which included a secret ballot of all votes cast.
In November 2002 nine candidates, including two from the "old board", stood for the seven board positions available, and in December the first board members were appointed under the new election system. The new board, chaired by Angus Stewart, appointed a new managing agent Chris Quantrill of Aldergill Ltd who put together a programme of planned maintenance and refurbishment of the building. The one-off extra service charge of @20,000-£30,000 payable by each flat owner was never required, and annual service charges have remained frozen at the same level since 2002.
In September 2005, LMS' articles of association were changed to include the newly established directors elections process, and the ability for shareholders to attend board meetings and receive minutes of board meetings. Limits were also placed on the value of assets that the board would be allowed to sell without formal approval by shareholders.
Last updated: 30 March 2009