The Jacobean architectural tradition is alive and well in the heart of Wimbledon Village, London SW19, where Surrey-based Octagon Developments and Criterion Capital have joined forces to create eight luxury apartments behind the dazzling façade of Grade II*-listed Eagle House, said to be one of the capital’s finest surviving examples of a Jacobean manor house.
Built in the early 1600s for Robert Bell, master of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers and co-founder of the British East India Company, the house was sold several times in the 1700s, before being bought, in 1789–90, by the Rev Thomas Lancaster, who housed the Wimbledon School for Young Gentlemen and Noblemen within its walls. In 1887, after some years as a military academy, Eagle House was bought and restored as a private residence by the architect Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, known for his work for Oxford University.
‘From 1989 to 2009, Eagle House was home to the Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, after which the building lay empty for several years, until the head of Criterion Capital, a local resident who, having seen the building falling into disrepair, decided to acquire it and restore it to its former glory. He employed Octagon’s bespoke team of specialist craftsmen and building experts to oversee the renovation, restoration and conversion of this landmark property to eight apartments, of which seven are now on offer,’ reveals Andy Cook of Octagon (020–8481 7500), who is also handling direct on-site sales.
With completion imminent, Mr Cook pays tribute to Stephen Senior of Historic England and to Merton’s conservation officer, Jill Tindale, who have helped to steer the project through its critical planning phases, to designers Michaelis Boyd Associates of London and to Octagon’s own dedicated team of expert craftsmen, who have painstakingly restored the building’s historic interior.
The new homes vary in size from a 1,453sq ft two-bedroom unit, priced at £2.75 million, to a grand 2,821sq ft apartment on three levels, at £4.5 million.
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