The studio at the top of the house

By the end of the nineteenth century, Chelsea had become the part of London where artists wanted to live. They came for the river light, the cheap rents and each other’s company. When Mallord Street was laid out around 1912, several of the new houses were designed with that in mind, and this is one of them.

The clue is in the roof. On the north side, where a normal house would have a slope of tiles, there is a tall window more than three metres high. North light is the light painters prefer: it never shines directly in, so it stays the same colour and strength from morning to late afternoon. A portrait sitting begun at ten could be finished at four under the same light.

The first owner was a portrait painter, and the room was built to his description. It is the full width of the house, with a ceiling that rises to the ridge and a small gallery at one end where finished canvases could be stored. A narrow door opens onto a hidden staircase, so that sitters could arrive without walking through the family’s rooms.

The studio has been used for work ever since. The present owners, a furniture maker and a writer, divided it between them: a bench by the window for one, a desk at the gallery end for the other. Apart from new wiring and a wood-burning stove, they changed nothing.

An offer on the house has now been accepted. When we first showed it, almost every visitor climbed the stairs, stood under the window for a while and said nothing. That room is the reason the house sold.