VICTORIAN INVENTIONS | BELVEDERE | 1930s | MANSARD FLATS

The mansion
The Park Court estate was originally occupied by a mansion called Belvedere. Old maps show a large house with stable block and a garden building (or ‘belvedere’) at the junction of Lawrie Park and Crystal Palace Park roads from which the house took its name. Many of the trees on the estate date from the original development and most of them are protected by Tree Preservation Orders.

Changing times
Although the Crystal Palace was not wholly a commercial success, it was hugely popular; it was visited by two-thirds of the UK’s population despite being closed on Sundays – then the only non-working day. The millions of visitors each year brought prosperity to the area – Penge and Sydenham had their own theatres and department stores, for example. So, when the Palace burnt down in 1936, the local economy collapsed and many of the larger houses were demolished or converted into flats.

Soon after the Palace fire, the Belvedere estate was bought for re-development by a Mr Cannon, who planned to build flats for letting to a new generation of London-based professionals. He had seen, in nearby Streatham, a controversial development called Pullman Court, built in 1935 in an uncompromising ‘modern’ style and grouped around old trees, by the young architect Frederick Gibberd.