Cornwall Gardens (London)

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Cornwall Gardens was developed on a thin block of land stretching east and west, which belonged to the Broadwood family from 1803 and was at that time a market garden. The original layout and the design of the earlier houses is ascribed to Thomas Cundy III, the estate's surveyor, from whom they commissioned two tall Italianate terraces facing a central communal garden flanked by two access roads with mews at the rear. It was named Cornwall Gardens for the Prince of Wales' coming of age.
Building on the north side commenced in 1871, with the last group that faced Gloucester Road completed by 1876. Its early residents included lawyers, senior civil servants and Empire administrators, and Thomas Cundy III himself moved into No.82. The west end of Cornwall Gardens was built a little later between 1876-8.
Thomas Cundy's original plan had allowed for a church and more housing to complete the western end but this was prevented from taking place due to the cutting of the Metropolitan and District Railway.
The communal gardens remain private today, maintained by a Garden Committee for the use of permitted keyholders, and consist of three enclosures divided by the access roads.
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