Description

TQ 3472 LEWISHAM LAMMAS GREEN
(North side)
779/29/10071
Nos.13-23 (Consecutive)

GV II

Terrace of eleven houses. 1955-7 by Donald McMorran of Farquharson and McMorran, with Peter Nuttall as assistant, for the Corporation of the City of London. Brick construction, colourwashed, with pantiled roofs and brick stacks. The houses each of two storeys and each have three bedrooms. They are arranged in pairs, the composition based on pairs set forward and then back down the steep slope, comprising one more compact plan-type, with dining-kitchen and dormer windows, separated from a wider house by a round-arched entry. Metal windows with side-opening casements and toplights, those to Nos. 14, 15 and 21 renewed but retaining the pattern of the originals. Plank doors set within timber porches with pointed hoods reflecting the style of the dormers.
INTERIORS: Living rooms with picture rails. Staircases with timber balustrades. Many fitted cupboards, particularly to the upper floors. Kitchen and bathroom fittings not of special interest. 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 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. 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 colourwashed cottages is particularly distinguished. The form of the colourwashed terraces set in pairs owes something to the work of Tayler and Green, translated to an urban setting.

Listing NGR: TQ3464272478

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27082173

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

• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)