Description

856/0/10024 LEYCROFT CLOSE
05-NOV-10 1

II
Private house, 1966, by Walter Greaves ARIBA, MSIA, construction overseen by E Morton Wright RIBA.

MATERIALS: Brown Wealden brick and painted timberwork, flat roof with mono-pitch, covered in bitumenised felt.

PLAN: The house is divided into three principal areas: a central single-storey, split-level living area, a two-storey bedroom wing to the south, and a single-storey service area to the north.

EXTERIOR: The enigmatic front elevation appears as a heavy brickwork screen which drops in height from two storeys (at far left) to one, a single window looks out from the brickwork. To the left of this window the elevation is cut into by a deep recess which screens the south-facing front door, and reveals the steep slope of the mono-pitch roof, expressed with a triangular window. Within this recess the walls are composed of timber and glass. To the right the elevation recesses again; a set-back timber garage door faces out to the east, and a service door, screened by brickwork, faces to the north.

The rear elevation is staggered, and there is a much greater balance between brickwork and fenestration. Sections of brickwork are cut away and replaced with carefully detailed areas of timberwork, which are filled with fixed and opening lights, and shiplap boards. The living room extends into the garden, with a fully-glazed south-west corner and French windows. The bedroom wing and garage are set back to either side. The garage originally had a second large door to the rear. This has been carefully replaced with glazing and a smaller door.

The white-painted window joinery throughout the house is distinctive in its horizontal subdivision, top-opening lights, and use of deep-sectioned members; details typical of Greaves' work.

INTERIOR: The living area is largely open plan, composed of a series of interconnected spaces; the dining area, living room and study, opening off a loosely defined hall. The layout is compact, however the well-considered plan and carefully controlled site lines create light and space, balanced with a sense of enclosure. The study, located to the left of the hallway, and which was also intended as an occasional spare bedroom, appears almost as a large alcove off the hall. The study can be entirely screened off by a set of sliding timber doors. The kitchen and dining area are divided from one another by a full-height part-glazed unit and a sliding timber door.

The client had wanted a living room with a greater than average ceiling height. This has been achieved by exploiting the sloping ground; the ceiling height remains constant from the front of the house to the back, and the floor level in the living room is lowered, thus achieving the extra height. The ceilings are panelled in narrow pine strips, and over the windows curtain track is sunk flush into the surface of the panelling. A simple horizontal timber balustrade protects the difference in floor level between the dining area and hall, and the living room.

The bedroom wing is reached from the main entrance lobby. A short flight of stairs leads down to the lower bedroom, and up to the master bedroom. The master bedroom is accessed off a small landing and looks out over the garden. The room narrows into a dressing area which leads into a bathroom, also accessible from a second door on the landing; an arrangement known as a 'Jack and Jill' layout. The layout of the lower bedroom is identical to that of the one above, but the master bedroom has additional cupboards built-in under the eaves of the roof.

To the north, the kitchen leads into a lobby, which can also be accessed from outside via the service door. This lobby leads into the garage and utility area. The utility area is now screened from the main garage space with lightweight partitioning, and the garage used as a bedroom, however the original fabric of the garage is unaltered.

FIXTURES AND FITTINGS: The house retains a wealth of built-in furniture and fittings, the detailing and finish of which is unpretentious, but consistently good. Many of the original brushed-metal light switches and sockets remain.

The full-height unit between the kitchen and dining room has a row of timber drawers with shelves above. The shelves are enclosed by sliding glass doors and both the drawers and shelves can be accessed from either side. The unit was intended to allow the noise from the built-in labour-saving gadgetry that Morton Wright designed into the kitchen to be at contained, whilst also allowing vision between the two spaces.

The original fitted kitchen units remain, as does some of the worktop and several fittings and appliances. Other appliances have been removed or renewed, but the design integrity of the kitchen remains intact.

Throughout the living area, simple retractable spotlights are sunk into the ceiling, and others are mounted on the walls, providing focussed, directional lighting. In the living room, low-level fitted units hang on the walls to give storage space without disrupting the site-lines into other parts of the open-plan space. The client was a great lover of music, and some of these units were designed to house his stereo equipment and records.

Within the dressing areas of the bedrooms, simple wall-hung dressing tables are positioned to one side, with full-height cupboards with metal, louvred doors to the other. Some of the original bathroom fixtures and fittings remain.

HISTORY:
No. 1 Leycroft Close was designed in for Morris Shapira, a lecturer in the Department of English and American Literature at the University of Kent. Moving to Canterbury to take up this post, Shapira purchased the modestly-sized plot, located in a quiet close near to the university, and commissioned Greaves (1925-2004) to design a modern, functional house. When Greaves moved from Blackheath to Sussex in 1968, he handed the project over to E Morton Wright. The house had been granted planning permission by this stage, and Morton Wright designed the details, produced the working drawings, and saw the project through to completion.

Walter Greaves was a pupil of Peter Moro (1911-1998) at the Regent Street Polytechnic, London, during the 1940s. Moro was associate architect to Sir Leslie Martin on the Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London, which opened in 1951. Moro invited a number of his pupils to assist with the project, including Greaves (most of the published perspectives of the Festival Hall interior are his). Greaves went on to work for Moro, and an opportunity to work on a project for an old client of Moro's enabled him to set up his own practice (and eventually to marry the client's daughter). Greaves was a meticulous designer and detailer and was known for his exceptional draughtsmanship. He never employed any staff and his limited oeuvre includes only a small number of private houses. Greaves lived in Blackheath, London during the 1960s, where he built several houses, including one for Leslie Bilsby, a prominent local builder and member of the pioneering Span development company. In 1968 Greaves and his family moved to Sussex where he continued to work until his retirement in 2001.

Morton Wright (1932-) worked initially for the firm Richard Shepherd Robson before starting his own practice in Greenwich in 1965. He undertook commissions covering a variety of building types, including extensions to schools and church conversions, as well as taking over the completion of another of Greaves' projects: 24-26 Morden Road Mews, Blackheath (1962), another development of Leslie Bilsyby's.

SOURCES
G Bowyer, 'Obituary: Walter Greaves (1925-2004)' Twentieth Century Society Newsletter Autumn 2004, p35
P Evans, 'New Houses for Particular Lifestyles' Homes and Gardens, January 1974, No.7 Vol. 55, p 34-37
A Powers, The Twentieth Century House in Britain (2004)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
No. 1 Leycroft Close, a post-war private house by Walter Greaves, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the house successfully embodies many of the characteristics found in the best architect-designed houses of the post-war period, as well as reflecting the spatial ingenuity and immaculate attention to detail of its architects.
* Intactness of architectural scheme: the interior and exterior remain substantially unaltered; a testament to the building's quality, and to the success of the design.

Reasons for Listing

Listable at Grade II.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26674642

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.

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