EXCLUSIVE: Planners throw out Athlone House demolition application

Thursday April 8, 2010

EXCLUSIVE by DAN CARRIER

A VICTORIAN mansion next to Hampstead Heath was saved from the wrecker’s ball tonight (Thursday) after Camden Council’s planning committee unanimously threw out an application to build a money-no-object mansion in it’s place.

Athlone House, on Hampstead Lane and boasting gardens that wind down to Kenwood, has lain empty for 11 years since it’s sale by the NHS. The plan, which would have seen an eight bedroom luxury home replace it, was dismissed by councillors after Town Hall planning officers recommended it be turned down. They heard the scheme, over seen by classical architect Robert Adams, was too big and would infringe on the urban equivalent of the green belt known as Metropolitan Open Land.

Councillors were told the designs also went against a legal agreement with previous owners to restore the house to it’s former glory in return for permission for luxury flats to be built in one part of the grounds, and that the new Bath stone clad building would ruin views from Hampstead Heath.

Jeremy Wright, of conservation body The Athlone House Working Group who have campaigned to save the 1874 home, praised the decision. He said: “The existing building has sufficient detail and historic interest to be restored.”

Planning lawyer David Cooper, representing the owners who remain anonymous, said: “We expected this result and we intend to appeal.”