Kenwood: north-west end - layout, part 2; the Yard.

Particularly back in the day, Kenwood, as has been noted at some length, was an eccentric structure...and no part illustrates that better than the section built beyond the sunroom. The original 1913 plan, as seen above, shows a yard pegged onto the north-west end. I'd assumed that this would have been built over when the place was extended; yet another error, as it turns out.
The aerial shots that have surfaced looked odd to me - that portion appears to be a mess - half finished, with a large hole in the roof:


Yet that hole is there in both the above photos, one of which dates from the '60s, the other from the '90s. Not being insane, I didn't give this much thought before now; it just seemed like one more item for the ever expanding Weird Kenwood list.
I also assumed that the door evident to the left of the sunroom must have led to the kitchen. Wrong again - as can be seen, it actually led to that strange uncovered bit:


What was that (to again use the technical term) "strange uncovered bit"? It turns out to have been, as the '90s plan shows, the very yard evident on the 1913 plan - still there over 80 years later.
It's very odd, however. You would never have been able to tell at ground level, that the highlighted part of the house was exposed to the elements, or that the door there led to a "yard" in the middle of that end.
I have no idea why this was done; maybe the idea was to have a kind of courtyard. Who knows? But there it is...


The '95 renovation, of course, finally put paid to the yard - that section is now part of the much expanded kitchen.