Full on Victorian Gothic: Holly Village
Holly Village is a wonderful piece of 'full-blown' Victorian gothic, hidden away in Highgate New Town just three minutes' walk from Hampstead Heath and even closer to Highgate Cemetery.
​It's private so you can't venture past the entrance arch - which explains why some of the photos that follow are taken over walls and through hedges.
The village dates from 1865. It consists of eight buildings - four detached houses and four adjoining pairs of cottages - round a small green. The community of buildings was designed by Henry Darbishire for the extravagantly wealthy heiress and philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts.
Coutts lived nearby on Holly Lodge - a grand house with large grounds which, several decades after her death, was demolished and is now the sought after Holly Lodge Estate.
The elegant iron gates in the entrance arch of the gate house have prompted the description of Holly Village as London's first gated development.
Pevsner describes Holly Village as a 'picturesque eyecatcher' and comments on one of the really stand-out features of the development: 'All immaculately kept, down to the rustic lattice fencing and thick holly hodges.'
It's just a pity it's so difficult for the rest of the world to see and appreciate it.
Jonathan Cronin link
As a child in the 70s and 80s, we used to go into the courtyard and look around when we were walking to and from the Heath, so it wasn't always a 'gated community'.