Ealing Village
Ealing Village, R. Toms & Partners, 1936 .
A glamorous interwar residential street of five blocks of flats in a Dutch-Colonial- Baroque style with a colonnaded clubhouse and adjacent swimming pool. The developer hoped to lure starlets from the nearby film studios by building a slice of Hollywood in west London but, as the celebrities of the day preferred to lodge in the West End hotels and be driven to set, Ealing Village was mostly occupied by film crew and ordinary local people. Until television became common place, the club house hosted weekly whist and beetle drives and an annual Christmas variety show performed by residents.
History
Ealing Village is located between Hanger Lane and Madeley Road. It is a private estate of five art deco blocks of flats developed in 1934-6 by R.Toms & Partners for the Bell Property Company. The flats were originally rented out but were made available for purchase in 1980. Ealing Village was first listed Grade II in 1991, with some dwellings added later. It was also protected by Ealing Council's designation as an Area of Special Character of Local Importance.
Ealing Village has been described as 'a remarkable enclave of five blocks of apartments, each white walled, with red-painted ornaments and crowned with green-tiled roofs … the acme of the Dutch colonial style' and as 'Dutch-Colonial-Baroque'. This is particularly noticeable in the piers above the entrance archways which rise to a Dutch gable reminiscent of canal-side buildings in Amsterdam. The windows throughout are of green-painted metal, the doors are of wood and the stairwells have brass and black-painted wrought-iron banisters.
There is a total of 128 flats in the four-storey blocks, of varying two, three or four-bedroom size. Ingenious use is made of the space available with rooms leading off the central corridor within each flat and open-plan living/dining areas in the larger flats. Some of the flats retain original fittings such as brass door handles and tiled fireplaces. The ground floor flats have small gardens at the front.
Within the grounds there are two porter's lodges now converted to flats, a clubhouse, open air swimming pool and tennis court (the bowling green, also used as a croquet lawn, is no longer in use). Concrete lids by the roadway indicate the site of wartime air raid shelters.
The swimming pool is included in the Grade II listing and has yellow tiles, a covered walkway on the north side and a central shaped pedestal with lion's head fountain on the south side. The plant room is in keeping with the general architectural design of the estate, with its white and red painted brick and hipped roof of green pantiles. The water slide and diving board were removed several years ago for safety reasons.
Some of the residents have lived at Ealing Village for many years or have returned after growing up there and moving away. A notable feature is the way people mix socially especially at the clubhouse and swimming pool, with celebrations at such times as New Year and the Summer Pool Party and BBQ.