Description

TQ 3872 LEWISHAM LAMMAS GREEN
(North side)
779/33/10070
Nos.1-12 (Consecutive)

GV II

Block of twelve flats. 1955-57 by Donald McMorran of Farquharson and McMorran, with Peter Nuttall as assistant, for the Corporation of the City of London. Brick construction, faced in hand-made Essex bricks, with weatherboarded gables and pantiled roofs. Three storeys on steeply sloping ground, with one and two-bedroom flats arranged in mirrored pairs either side of two staircases - the larger flats in the centre of the block.
Symmetrical composition, the living rooms at the front with square sash windows with small panes; smaller windows to the staircases and bathrooms under moulded heads with incised voussoirs. The large windows repeated on the side and rear elevations. Staircase halls entered via arched openings. Four very tall stacks in a roof that is set well back behind high parapets.
Donald McMorran is slowly becoming recognised as one of the most significant architects to work in a traditional style in the 1950s. What makes him stand out from other traditionalists was his willingness to tackle the most progressive building types like public housing and schools while sticking to the old values of composition, proportion and texture. This puts him closer to Giles Scott than to architects like Raymond Erith, best known for private houses. He also owed much to Vincent Harris, for whom he worked between 1927 and 1935. This is the smallest but finest of four housing schemes by McMorran, two of them for the City Corporation. The composition of three terraces set round a village green, with views of the North Downs, is made the more idyllic by the position of the two blocks of flats as a buffer to the road behind. The density is 57 dwellings per acre, less than the permissible seventy, 'so as to establish conditions under which a community with its own continuity and life might be able to flourish'. The contrast of the flats, notable for their fine brickwork and traditional proportions, with the colourwashed cottages is particularly distinguished.

Listing NGR: TQ3461072502

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27082172

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

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy