Genealogy Data Page 41 (Notes Pages)

Note: Greenwood's Almshouses

Thomas was living in Russell Square (Bloomsbury) in 1825, and by 1830 at 21 Cumberland Terrace, in John Nash's spectacular terrace overlooking Regent's Park. Thomas Junior owned property in various parts of St Pancras parish, including a plot in Randolph Street, Camden Town. [From London County Council. Survey of London, Vol.19. LCC, 1938]

In 1840, his widow Mrs Esther Greenwood instituted the Camden Town & Kentish Town Almshouses, which still stand, at Nos.13-16 Rousden Street (formerly Little Randolph Street). She endowed them with Ł1666.13s.4d Old South Sea Annuities, for their repair and other expenditure, and to provide asylum, rent free, for 20 deserving poor women of indigent circumstances and good character, a preference being given to the inhabitants of Camden Town and Kentish Town. Inmates were required to be over 60, members of the Church of England, and with an income, free of parochial relief, not exceeding 5 shillings per week. Each of the four houses was divided into three units, each woman occupying 2 rooms; a back yard contained a small washhouse and a 'closet'.

After 1886, Edward Greenwood, Esther's grandson, became the charity's sole trustee, He considered the investment income to be his, subject only to repairing the almshouses, paying rates [local taxes], and other limited expenses such as providing inmates with coal and candles. From 1899 the charity was administered by the vicars of St John the Baptist Church, Kentish Town. In the 20th century, the almhouses were badly maintained.

In 1983-84 they were refurbished by Peter Mischon Associates as 6 sheltered flats. The conversion won 3rd prize in the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors' National Conservation Awards. Since 1986 the flats have been administered by the St Pancras (& Humanist) Housing Association, but the almshouse charity remained a separate entity, with two additional trustees representing the Kentish Town and Camden Town Parochial Church Councils. [Condensed from Malcolm J Holmes, Housing is not enough, St Pancras Housing Association, 1999]

Lease 1/3/1830 NNE of College Street (later Royal College Street) next to Randolph Street. Accession No. M5541 - Holborn Library Archive

Change: Date: 4 DEC 2011
Time: 22:12:57

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Munden, Esther (b. 1784, d. ?)

Note: Possibly married David Moffatt on 25th Apr 1793

Possibly died Westminster 1838, Q1 1 462

Rousden Street

Rousden Street, once known as Little Randolph Street but later re-named after a Dorset village like the nearby Lyme Street and Lyme Terrace, is a short street which has its origins in the 1820s but has since undergone much repair, rebuilding and re-development.

Views east and west are terminated by buildings on Randolph Street and Camden Road respectively. This, together with the narrow width of the street and the presence of three-storey terraced housing on either side built directly onto the pavement give a strong sense of enclosure. The enclosed character diminishes at the junction with Randolph Street where, on the north side, there is a short length of flat-roofed two storey housing.

The north side of the street has been much altered but contains the grade II listed Greenwood Almshouses, built in the 1820s as twelve dwellings in a terrace of four three-storey stucco houses. In 1840 four of the properties were converted into almshouses by Mrs Esther Greenwood as homes for aged women of 'indigent circumstances and good character'. The twelve dwellings are in a terrace of four three-storey stucco houses in a distinctive Victorian Gothick style and have square-headed sash windows with chamfered reveals and pointed lights under Tudor dripmoulds. It was refurbished in the mid 1980s and again in 2004.