Description

937/0/10071 TANNERS LANE
05-MAY-10 BARKINGSIDE
Cairns Cottage at Barnardo's

GV II
Semi-detached cottage home, 1887, by Ebenezer Gregg. Later alterations.

EXTERIOR: Cairns Cottage comprises two semi-detached residences, in brick with rough-cast render and half-timbered detailing. That facing the village green takes the form of the other cottages nearby, albeit slightly larger and with bay windows on the first floor as well as the ground floor.

The other residence has an octagonal clock tower, which has a belfry and four clock faces, each with its own gablet. It is topped by a weather vane with the word Cairns fretted into its tail. The bells sound the 'Westminster' chime every quarter hour, having been restored in 2005. The projecting porch to the north was added not long after the building was constructed; originally it just had the porch to the east.

INTERIOR: The residence to the west had the same plan as the other cottages inside, except for the upper storey which had an additional two bedrooms to the rear and an additional Mother's sitting room. Each of these bedrooms had an individual WC, and is labelled refectory on the original plans; presumably the rooms were for children when they were sick. The stair, with its stick balusters and decorative newel posts, survives as does one fireplace on the ground floor. The plan of the ground floor rooms has been opened up. Upstairs, there is dado panelling, architraves and ventilation shafts in some rooms.

The residence with the clock tower has two large reception rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms above, all with cornices surviving but no fireplaces. The entrance hall has a patterned tiled floor and the dog-leg stair an ornate newel post, turned balusters, moulded treads and a moulded handrail. The character of the joinery in this section is much grander than in the cottages, and the rooms are more generously proportioned. The nature of the accommodation (two sitting rooms, two bedrooms but no kitchen or servants area), and its location at what was the centre of the two village greens suggests that this part of Cairns Cottage may have been where important visitors to the Girls Village Homes stayed. Dr Barnardo did not live at the Village Homes after 1874 and so it might even be that he was accommodated here on his visits, perhaps taking his meals with the girls in one of the cottages.

HISTORY: Cairns Cottage is a principal element of Barnardo's Girls' Village Home. It is larger than the other cottage homes and is located at what was originally the fulcrum of the first and second greens, hence its prominent clock tower. It was named in memory of Lord Cairns, one-time Lord Chancellor, who was an important supporter of Dr Barnardo's Homes.

Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905) arrived in Barkingside in 1874, having been given Mossford Lodge, a large house and grounds, as a wedding present by Sir John Sands. Dr Barnardo had many such admirers, particularly from Christian evangelical backgrounds, due to his zealous charitable work with the destitute children of London's East End. His marriage in 1873 and the gift of Mossford Lodge lent Barnardo the moral propriety and the means to focus more of his attention on the plight of penniless girls. Barnardo and his wife lived in the house and accommodated twelve girls in its stable block. The arrangement was not an immediate success, however, partly because the girls were difficult to control. Thus in 1876, Barnardo began building a 'Village Home'. This was to be a series of cottages arranged around a green, each under the care of a 'Mother', and promised a domestic, familial environment in which to nurture the girls. Funds for the first cottage were given as a memorial to a dead child and in 1876 fourteen cottages were opened by Lord Cairns, then Lord Chancellor, along with a Governor's House and laundry. The cottages were similar in elevation to a plan for a pair of labourers' cottages shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851 by Henry Robert. Subsequent homes were built as funds became available, each named by its benefactor. Hence, some are named for institutions (Oxford, Cambridge), others flowers (Pink Clover), others virtues (Peace, Hope) and some as memorials (such as Eton Cottage, which bears a plaque reading 'In memory of my son AR').

The idea of village homes was not a new one. In 1867, the Farningham and Swanley Homes for Boys, Kent was founded on similar principles and the Princess Mary Homes in Addlestone, Surrey opened in 1870; both were inspired by similar institutions in France and Germany. Yet Barnardo's Village Home was the most famous, the largest, and is the only one of these first three English examples where the cottages survive. (Only the lodge and chapel survive at Farningham and nothing at Addlestone).

The girls lived around twenty to a house and employed themselves in housework, laundry, needlework and basic school lessons. The aspiration was that the girls would find employment as laundresses, dressmakers' assistants, or in domestic service, but the number taken in by the Village Home (1,000 lived there in 1905) and the 'ever open door' policy made this difficult. Thus, from the 1880s, Dr Barnardo began to sponsor the emigration of children to Canada. Barnardo took a party of boys to Canada in 1882, girls in 1883, and by 1884 he had established an 'industrial farm' in Manitoba to provide work for the boys. The policy was not uncontroversial: Dr Barnardo was under investigation for kidnapping on at least three occasions, having sent away children without the permission of their parents. Many children suffered in their new homes, from ill-health, from overwork on Canada's farms, and, in some cases, from serious abuse. By 1906, 13,000 boys and 5,000 girls had emigrated, to the end that in 1901 some 0.3 percent of Canada's population had come from a Barnardo's Home.

By Barnardo's death in 1905 there were 64 cottage homes arranged around three greens (built in 1876-80, 1887, and 1903-5). The gardens were landscaped, with gravel paths, rose bowers, fountains, specimen trees, and benches. Barnardo's ashes were interred in the centre of one of the village greens, after an extensive funeral cortege had progressed from the East End, via train, with thousands paying their respects. His resting place, on what is now the southern edge of the village, is marked with a memorial by George Frampton RA (1860-1928), erected in 1908 (qv). The second half of the C20 saw the demolition of much of the previous era's building efforts, however. All the cottages around the southern green of 1976-80 and the majority around the south-western green of 1903-5 were demolished along with the schools, hospital, Governor's House and Mossford Lodge.

SOURCES: Anon, My Cottage: A Story of Dr Barnardo's Village Home for Destitute Girls by M.E.S. (1884)
Mrs Eyrie-Louise Barnardo and James Marchant, Memoirs of the late Dr Barnardo (1907)
Janet Hitchman, They Carried the Sword (1966)
National Portrait Gallery, The Camera and Dr Barnardo (1974)
Gillian Wagner, 'Barnardo, Thomas John (1845-1905)' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)
Plans and photographs in Redbridge Local Studies Library

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Cairns Cottage is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* early date: together with the other cottages at Barnardo's Girls' Village Home, Cairns Cottage is an early and rare-surviving instance of purpose-built homes for destitute children;
* architectural interest: a landmark with its distinctive and eye-catching clock tower, which terminates the row of Olde English style cottages on the south side of the green and is a visual counterpoint to the church tower;
* historical associations: Dr Barnardo considered the Village Home his principal achievement and Cairns Cottage, which is grander than the other cottages, may have been where he or other important visitors to the Village stayed;
* group value as part of an early, well-preserved and extremely rare example of a Victorian cottage homes settlement, completed with twenty-two cottages, village green and Children's Church (qv).

Reasons for Listing

Dr Barnardo was a major figure in Victorian England and the history of the charity he founded is of manifold significance, not least to the descendants of the thousands of children he helped. Dr Barnardo's Girls' Village Home at Barkingside was not only his magnum opus, but also his place of rest, and was the emblem of the charity's mission well into the C20. The Village survives today as a remarkable physical manifestation of the strengths and weaknesses of Barnardo the man, and the character of Victorian charity, a highly-esteemed virtue in the C19. It evidences both the sentimental and nostalgic aspects of Victorian charitable foundations, as well as the sometimes severe treatment of children in that era, in particular through the story of emigration to Canada. Even lacking many of its communal buildings, and nearly two-thirds of its original cottages, the Barnardo's Girls Village Homes at Barkingside is a special place. For reasons of their special architectural and historic interest, as well as group value, the central components of the Village -- the Children's Church, Cairns Cottage, and the twenty-two surviving cottage homes -- are recommended for listing at Grade II. The fountain, lodge, and boundary walls are recommended too, mainly for their group value as handsome and integral components of the ensemble, which form an essential part of the setting of the cottage homes. Athlone and Linney Houses, both later, less interesting architecturally, and more detached from the main green, are not recommended for listing. A separate advice (UID 170024) recommends that the memorial to Dr Barnardo, currently listed at Grade II, be upgraded to Grade II*.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27087285

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
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  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)