I have just discovered proposals by the Duke of Westminster's Grosvenor Estates to demolish Walden House in the City of Westminster. This is part of a wider scheme of a comprehensive residential-led mixed-use redevelopment, including demolition of Kylestrome House, Lochmore House, Laxford House, Stack House, Walden House and structures attached to Coleshill Flats in Pimlico.
Why am I posting this in my "Family history musings" blog, I hear you ask? Well, Walden House is named after my 1st cousin. Sir Robert Woolley Walden! I have posted about him before more than once. Born in Spalding, the son of a baker and grandson of a carpenter, a Chemist by profession, he was an unsung champion for the plight of the poor in late Victorian and Edwardian London.
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| Walden House Credit Danrok, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons |
The development of Walden House by Westminster City Council commenced in 1921 and was formally opened on 19 May 1924 after Sir Robert personally brokered a deal with the Duke of Westminster to donate the land to the City Council. The development of 40 flats was reserved for families with children living at home and includes a rear courtyard to serve as a playground for children. This proposition is entirely in keeping with Sir Robert's efforts to improve the welfare of underprivileged children, evidenced by his Mayoral appeal to raise funds for necessitous children whilst Mayor of the City of Westminster, his wife Jessie's work with St George's Row School in Pimlico, and the Whyteleafe Secondary School and his legacy to Spalding Grammar School that established the "Walden Prize" for the pupil to have made the most progress in a School Year, to mention just a few examples.
Walden House to this day is used for the purpose for which it was intended, but remarkably is not a listed building, as Grosvenor Estates were able to obtain a 5 year block on an application for listing by virtue of s.6 Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. However, a statue in the courtyard known as the Arnrid Johnston Obelisk is listed . The listing was achieved in October 2018, and one wonders whether if there had not been a block on the listing of the building, whether that to might have been listed.
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| Arnrid Johnston Obelisk Ham II, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons |
The listing of the Arnrid Johnston obelisk describes it as the most significant surviving sculptural work by the Swedish born artist and specifically refers to a weathered inscription on the plinth of the obelisk which refers to the fact that Walden House was built on land given over by the Duke of Westminster. It really must have been very impressive when it was new judging by a photograph held in the archives of the V & A - it seems very apt that a Swedish born artist should be involved in this testament to Sir Robert's memory given that his first Knighthood was granted by the King of Sweden.
Fortunately because the statue is listed, it has to be relocated in the new redevelopment should it proceed, but as the statue refers specifically to Walden House, surely that too should be saved and restored for future generations, and continue to be used to house families with children?
Whilst the building has seen better days, it represents in bricks and mortar a visual testament of everything that Sir Robert Woolley Walden wanted to achieve; a move away from unsanitary housing and the slums that existed in this part of the City of Westminster before Walden House was built. Unlike those , Walden House is simply lacking some tlc. Instead of knocking it down, Grosvenor Estates and the City of Westminster should be looking to restoring the building in time for it's centenary anniversary. That way it can continue to provide a home for families who, through no fault of their own, risk falling into the gaps in society that result in necessitous children that Sir Robert spent his whole career seeking to fill.
Given that it is accepted that Sir Robert brokered the deal that enabled Walden House to be built, I call on Grosvenor Estates and the City of Westminster City Council to explain how the demolition of Walden House lives up to the terms of that original deal between Sir Robert and the Duke of Westminster.
I have signed a petition calling for a halt to these proposals and I hope you will do likewise. To keep up to date with what is happening with this, the campaign has a Twitter feed and a Facebook page . I hope that you will offer them your support.
I hope it can be saved, restored and perhaps even renamed. Throughout his life he used his full name Robert Woolley Walden. It is through his mother's Woolley family that we are related. If they had named it Woolley Walden House, then I would have been aware of the building and have ensured it's place in the wealth of material I have collated on his life. Now I am aware, it will be recalled no matter what those who have forgotten why the building was built might decide to do.
