Apartment

During the last quarter of the 19th Century, ideas began to change. Both urban growth and the increase in population meant that more imaginative housing concepts were going to be needed if the middle and upper classes were to maintain a Pied-à-terre in the capital. The traditional London town house was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain. Especially for male and female bachelors, the idea of renting a modern mansion flat came increasingly into vogue.
The first mansion flats in England were:
- Albert Mansions, who was developed by Philip Flower and designed by James Knowles (architect). These flats were constructed between 1867 and 1870, and were one of the earliest blocks of flats to fill the vacant spaces of the newly-laid out Victoria Street at the end of the 1860s. Today, only a sliver of the building remains, next to the Victoria Palace Theatre. Albert Mansions was really 19 separate ‘houses’, each with a staircase serving one flat per floor. Its tenants included Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose connections with the developer's family were long-standing. Philip Flower's son was Cyril Flower, 1st Baron Battersea developed most of the mansion blocks on Prince of Wales Drive, London.
- Albert Hall Mansions, designed by Richard Norman Shaw in 1876. Because this was of a new type, risks were reduced as much as possible, each block was planned as a separate project with the building of each separate part contingent on the successful occupation of every flat in the previous block. The gamble paid off and the scheme was a success.