Three Modernist Mews Houses in NW1

The modernist mews houses came to the fore in London in the early 1960s as the first post war generation of architects sought to build their own homes, with the rundown backstreets of Camden a particularly fertile area to find an affordable plot of land. Here we present three examples you may come across wandering around NW1.

---

2 Regal Lane, Primrose Hill, Camden
1961
John Winter
​
A three storey house on a mews opposite Regents Park, this home was designed and built by architect John Winter for himself and his family in the early 1960s whilst working in the office of Erno Goldfinger. A set of garages were on the plot when Winter and his wife Val bought it, and they incorporated the old buildings into their new home. The house was constructed using reclaimed brick, in situ concrete and large windows, allowing light into the house on its narrow plot. The house also features a steel spiral staircase which reaches all the way up to the top floor with the master bedroom and a balcony facing towards the park. Winter extended his original design both before and after before moving to his corten steel house in Swains Lane, Highgate. Winter also designed two further houses in Regal Lane in 1963, Nos.10 & 11, two connected houses in brick with a carport on the ground floor.

---

15-19 Murray Mews
1964-65
Team 4
Down an indistinct side mews to the east of Camden Town is an early project by two of the most famous names in the second half of 20th century architecture. 15-19 Murray Mews was one of a handful of projects by partnership of Team 4, the short-lived practice made up of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Su Brumwell, Wendy Cheesman and Georgie Wolton. The practice only lasted for 4 years, with Wolton leaving after a few months, but produced a handful of influential designs.
One of them was this group of three houses in Camden, all squeezed onto a small plot. The houses open straight out on the street and have a private courtyard at the rear with glazed walls, allowing light into the interior. The houses are constructed of red brick walls and concrete floors, with a sloping glass roof. The tribulations of the houses construction, with an unscrupulous builder ignoring many details of the houses designs, led the practice to look at alternative materials and construction, paving the way for their glass and steel High Tech future. A large number of other houses were built along Murray Mews, including those by Tom Kay (No.22), Richard Gibson (No.20) and David and Ann Hyde-Harrison (No.33).

---

62 Camden Mews
1962-5
Edward Cullinan
Edward ‘Ted’ Cullinan began his career working for Denys Lasdun, working on projects like the Royal College of Physicians and the University of East Anglia. In 1960 he decided to build a house for himself and his family on an empty lot on Camden Mews. He produced a design for a house facing south with an open plan living area on the first floor, with windows angled to maximize sunlight through the day, but also provide shade in high summer. Bedrooms were placed on the ground floor, with the letter box emptying into the main bedroom, an idea that allows the Sunday newspaper to be delivered directly to bed! 

The two floors are connected by an external staircase via a terrace on the garage roof, and a smaller internal spiral staircase.The house was built between 1962 and 64 by Cullinan with friends and family of a few years, on weekends and when time allowed, using a mixture of timber, brick and concrete, bought , borrowed and stolen (or at least reclaimed). Cullinan and family lived at 62 Camden Mews until Cullian’s death in 2019, with the house recently going on the market for the first time. As on Murray Mews, the 1960s, 70s and 80s saw a number of young architects build houses on Camden Mews, such as Jon Howard (No.74), Peter Bell (no.4) and Sheila Bull (No.23).