MODERNISM IN METRO-LAND

The Inbetweeners: Ealing Common and Hounslow West

25/2/2026

Ealing Common Underground Station. Image from Bright Underground Spaces.

Charles Holden’s first set of stations for London Transport, the Northern Line extension to Morden in 1926, introduced a fresh new look for the underground, based on a three part screen facade. This design could be adapted for a variety of sites, easily fitting into an existing shopping parade or onto a street corner in the already built-up sprawl of London. The 1930s saw the tube rapidly expanding, stretching beyond the inner suburbs into Middlesex and Essex. This meant station buildings could sit in larger plots, not having to fit in with the existing suburban scene, and so could be more expansive in form. This led to some of Holden’s and the underground’s most celebrated stations; Sudbury Town, Arnos Grove, Southgate and a number of others. But in between the first Northern Line stations and the “brick boxes with concrete lids” as Holden called them, were a couple of stations that bridged the gap from one design to the other; Ealing Common and Hounslow West.

Ealing Common station under construction. Image from London Transport Museum.

The stations opened in 1931 as part of the Piccadilly Line extension westwards from Acton Town towards Hounslow and South Harrow, both replacing earlier station buildings. Ealing Common was opened on March 1st, with Hounslow West following on July 5th. Holden adapted the flexible screen facade from the Morden extension,into a fully fledged station building, using a seven-sided double-height ticket hall as the main structure. Around the seven sides of the upper portion of the ticket hall are rectangular windows with an underground roundel on six of them. The station also had a blue enamel name sign which went around the edge of the roofline (now removed at Ealing Common), and the first use of an illuminated name sign at the front of the station, an integral feature of later stations. Like the Northern Line stations, Ealing Common and Hounslow West were built in Portland stone, with concrete roof slabs. At these new stations Holden added a granite finish at ground level, intended to prevent wear and tear from passenger flow.

The ticket hall ceiling of Hounslow West station. Image from London Transport Museum.

At street level were shop units, and Hounslow West also had a drop off and pick up area for cars, a useful feature in the suburbs where the car was gaining ascendancy. The interiors of the stations used the seven sided structure to create a heptagonal shape in the ceiling. At Hounslow West this was adorned in the centre by a hanging light fixture designed by Basil Ionides. This shape was echoed in the ticket hall floor with the use of polished cement St James's tiles. Ionides also decorated both ticket halls with a dado rail in tile and terrace and a wall frieze in geometric tiled patterns, pink and yellow at Hounslow and green and grey for Ealing.

Ealing Common ticket hall interior. Image from London Transport Museum.

The platforms featured the curved concrete canopies developed by London Underground chief architect Stanley Heaps, and later used at other Piccadilly Line stations. Hounslow West had its platform area redeveloped in 1975 for the extension to Hatton Cross and beyond to Heathrow. As Ealing Common and Hounslow West opened, Holden had already moved on to ‘purer’ geometric forms, using the rectangle, square and the circle at stations like Sudbury Town (which also opened in 1931) and Arnos Grove (which followed in 1932). Both Ealing Common and Hounslow West were listed in May 1994, with the listing notes for the latter commenting on its “richness and completeness…as well as its unusual form”, and both still serve the Piccadilly Line 90 years after opening.

Ealing Common and Hounslow West are featured in our London Tube Stations 1924-61 book, available HERE

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Anatomy of a House No.25: Sewell's Orchard, Tewin

12/2/2026

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Anatomy of a House No.25

Sewell's Orchard, Tewin, Hertfordshire
1936
Mary Crowley

The Garden front of the center house of the three at Tewin.

The work of female architects was few and far between in interwar Britain. We have covered the house designed by artist Dora Gordine in Kingston on a previous Anatomy of a House blog, and there were others such as Justin Blanco White, Norah Aiton and Betty Scott. One female architect who would prove to be the most influential of those who practiced in the 1920s and 30s was Mary Crowley. Her work designing schools in the post war years, alongside husband David Medd, first for Hertfordshire County Council and then for the Ministry of Education, would help transform schools from the regimented Victorian-era layout to a more flexible, child-centred approach. But it is her house design we are interested here, and we will explore the group of three houses she designed at Sewell’s Orchard in the village of Tewin, Hertfordshire

Crowley was born in Bradford on 4th August 1907. Her father, Ralph, was the Chief Medical Officer for the Ministry of Education and was a Quaker, two strong influences on Mary’s future career. Mary attended the progressive Bedales school in Hampshire, a coeducational secular establishment where Mary would become Head Girl. She later attended the Architectural Association, where she met other young women studying architecture such as Judith Ledeboer, Jessica Albery and Justin Blanco White. After passing her qualifications, Crowley worked in the office of Louis De Soisson in Welwyn Garden City, where her family had moved in 1921. It was nearby that Crowley would design and build a terrace of three houses on a plot of land bought by her parents. Mary’s mother thought the plot of land was the right one for them, especially as Sewell had been a name in their family.

The three houses seen in their landscape.

The three houses that Mary designed were to house her parents, her sister Elfrida and her husband Cecil Kemp and the Miall family, all Quakers. Kemp was the head architect for the Miners Welfare Commission and the National Coal Board, designing modernist-influenced pithead baths at sites such as Snowdon Colliery in Kent. Kemp, and Mary’s friend from the AA, John Brandon Jones, assisted Crowley with the drawings and details of the house, but they were all her own design. Mary had taken a trip to Scandinavia in July 1930 as part of her architectural studies, and this proved to be influential on the design for Sewell’s Orchard.

A plan of the houses in their grounds

Most modernist houses built in Britain up to that point took their influence from the International Modern style as seen in the work of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and other heroic figures from the continent. Crowley's houses however took their cue from a gentler strain of modernism as found in Northern Europe, with less emphasis on white walls and monolithic concrete and more on brick, tile and timber. The three houses are largely separate, with two connected by their garages, with mature trees and a vegetable garden in the shared grounds behind. The houses have sloping, monopitch roofs finished in blue pantiles with the facades on the southerly garden side having overhanging eaves. The windows in the houses were constructed from metal casements with wood frames. The bricks are a mixture of yellow local stock from nearby Hertingfordbury and blue brick used for a plinth. The houses were arranged with open plan ground floors with the dining and living areas flowing into each other.

The living room of the second house. Image from RIBApix.

Crowley worked with Hungarian architect Erno Goldfinger from around 1934, assisting him as he set up his practice in England. She worked on the terrace of houses at Willow Road in Hampstead, which would be completed in 1939 and be home to Goldfinger and his wife Ursula throughout the rest of their lives. That project has some similarities in approach with the Tewin scheme, with both sets of houses showing how modernist design can fit into their environments and use local materials. The pair also produced a design for a prefabricated nursery school in the mid-1930s, something that wasn’t taken up at the time, but would prove influential to both of them.

In 1941 Crowley joined the education department of Hertfordshire County Council under the leadership of Chief Education Officer John Newsom, who wanted to bring the county's educational buildings into the modern world, and became part of the newly formed architects department in 1946. As part of the department, Crowley helped produce innovative designs for new schools, using prefabricated units to build schools quickly, and including commissioned artworks and landscaped grounds in the designs. A good example of Crowley’s work for Herts is Burleigh School in Cheshunt, built from 1946, and designed with David Medd and Bruce Martin using a modular system to enable quick construction.

5 Pennyfeathers Lane, Digswell (1954) David and Mary Medd. Image from RIBApix.

She married Medd in 1949, who she had met whilst working for Goldfinger, and the couple would work for Herts and live in a house they designed together in the village of Digswell in 1953. The house on Pennyfeathers Lane also takes its inspiration from Scandinavian modernism, with its single storey, stock brick structure, formed of two halves connected by a covered walkway. The couple then went to work for the Ministry of Education overseeing the design of the new schools throughout the country, such as Woodside Jr School in Amersham (1957). The houses at Tewin were listed in March 1982, recognized as a pioneering group of houses,with a design “which would not have appeared out of place thirty years earlier”. The Medd's house in Digswell was also listed in April 2007, with the listing noting its unchanged interior and careful integration in the landscape. Mary Medd had passed away in 2005, with her husband David dying in 2009.

Burleigh Primary school, Cheshunt (1948) Herts County Council. Image from RIBApix

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The Archer

4/2/2026

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Eric Aumonier putting the final touches to The Archer statue, 1940. Image from London Transport Museum.

The casual commuter travelling along the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line may notice something a little unusual as they pass through East Finchley station. Come rain or shine, a determined looking figure points his bow and arrow south towards the centre of London and beyond to the line’s terminus at Morden. The Archer sculpture, poised on the eastern wall of the station just above the south bound track, was created by artist Eric Aumonier for the station which had been rebuilt from 1939.

The sculpture and the station rebuild were part of the ill fated Northern Heights programme, a plan to upgrade and extend the northern branches of the Northern Line. The Edgware branch was to be extended into Hertfordshire, and the Barnet branch was to have a series of station upgrades. The rebuilding of East Finchley station was the only part of the programme that came to pass, thanks to budget restraints and the outbreak of war in 1939.

The Archer seen acroos the platforms of East Finchley Station. Image from London Transport Museum.

The new building replaced the 1867 station which was built for the Great Northern Railway, with the rebuilt station primed for the underground which had been slowly making its way northwards. The initial plan by Leonard Bucknell and Ruth Ellis was revised by Charles Holden, who had been busy with his University of London scheme, another project which was curtailed, leaving us with Senate House.

The new station, completed in 1941, did not have the straightforward clarity of Holden’s earlier work along the Piccadilly Line. Partly this is due to the awkward nature of the site, with the station perched on a railway viaduct. However, at platform level, the streamlined platform shelters and glass bridge over the tracks containing offices, reflects the “Speed, Light and Modernity” that Holden and London Transport supremo Frank Pick brought to the network from the 1920s.

The South Wind releif on 55 Broadway, by Eric Aumonier. Image from London Transport Museum.

The symbol of the station and Holden and Pick’s vision, would be the 10ft statue, installed in 1940. Eric Aumonier was born into the family architectural sculpture business, Aumonier Studios, founded by his grandfather, in 1899. He studied at the Slade School of Art, and became the chief artist for the family firm. He would be commissioned to provide a relief sculpture of the South Wind for Holden’s 55 Broadway headquarters for London Transport in 1929, and a couple of years later would design two statues set into relief panels for the Daily Express building in 1932.

The Speed Underground poster by Alan Rogers, 1930. Image from London Transport Museum.

The Archer was created by using beech timber wood fastened around a steel armature framework, before being covered in reclaimed lead sheets. The bow is made of English ash, and covered in copper and gilt. The symbol of the archer was used to represent the former royal hunting grounds of Enfield that Finchley sits on the edge of, as well as nodding to the concerns of speed and accuracy that Holden and Pick were interested in. Of course the archer motif had also been used by Alan Rogers in his 1930 “Speed Underground” poster for the network. By 1955, the wood used for the original statue had already begun to decay, and it had to be replaced at a cost of £1500, a much steeper price than the £245 paid to Aumonier in 1940.

A sketch of the intended Highgate station with the Dick Whittington statue. Image from Bright Undergound Spaces by David Lawrence.

The Archer was just one artwork planned for the Northern Heights stations. A couple of stops down the line at Highgate, Aumonier was asked to design a statue of Dick Whittington for a new station building, but neither were ever completed. The statue at East Finchley, nicknamed Archie, has become a symbol not just of the station, but also of the surrounding area, with the local newspaper also named The Archer. The station building including the platforms and statue was listed in July 1987.

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Frederick Gibberd and The Modern Flat

4/1/2026

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Pullman Court, Streatham. Image from RIBApix.

Frederick Gibberd was born in Coventry on January 7th 1908. Throughout his career, he and his partnership designed a wide range of buildings, including houses, factories, offices, colleges, libraries, hospitals, power stations, airports and even cathedrals. But the one building type he was most associated with was the flat. After gaining his architectural qualifications at Birmingham School of Art he worked for the firm of E. Berry Webber, best known for their municipal projects in the interwar years, but was laid off as the Great Depression meant construction work dried up. Gibberd then travelled Europe, visiting Prague, Vienna and Budapest, studying the new architecture of the time, before setting his own firm and designing a series of innovative speculative apartment blocks in the 1930s.

Pullman Court as featured in The Modern Flat book in 1937.

As well as his practical work, Gibberd also provided theoretical weight to the idea of the apartment, a relatively new typology to the British urban fabric in the interwar years. Alongside fellow architect F.R.S. Yorke (who was his roommate at Birmingham), Gibberd produced The Modern Flat, a book that provided a survey of modernist apartment blocks from all over the world, including examples from Britain, such as the Isokon flats by Wells Coates and Kensal House by Maxwell Fry and Elizabeth Denby, as well as three examples by Gibberd himself.

Gibberd's birds eye view of the Pullman Court scheme. Image from RIBApix.

The first of those three examples was Pullman Court in Streatham (1935), Gibberd's first major commission, at the age of just 27. The scheme consists of three blocks, two long ones which mirror each other and a taller one at the back of the long, thin plot. The blocks are constructed with reinforced concrete frames infilled with modular panels, the engineering overseen by L.G. Mouchel and Partners. Gibberd arranged the blocks to get maximum light to each apartment, with south-facing balconies and roof gardens on each block as well. The estate also had an open air swimming pool, located at the end of the northern block, now unfortunately filled in. Like many of the new blocks built in the interwar years, it was designed to be occupied by single people or couples, with a range of labour saving devices like refrigerators and fitted kitchens provided.

Two of the Park Court blocks, pictured after completion. Image from RIBApix.

Gibberd also designed Park Court (1937), a speculative estate on the edge of Crystal Palace Park in Sydenham, in a similar fashion. The estate has seven blocks arranged in a semi circle on a triangular piece of land between two roads. The ranges are three storey high and contain 54 four-bedroom flats, built with a reinforced concrete frame and brick infill, painted white to fit the modernist ethos, and steel framed windows. Unfortunately this aesthetic was undermined by the mansard roofs added in the 1980s.

The interior of one of the Ellington Court apartments. Image from RIBApix.

In the north London suburb of Southgate, Gibberd designed Ellington Court for Wells, Wells and Diplock (1937). Unlike Pullman Court and Park Court, Ellington Court forgoes the bright white render or exposed concrete construction in favour of a more suburban brick finish. Formed of two linked blocks, this building's modernity is saved for its bold concrete balconies and curved cantilever porches, along with its mixture of horizontal and vertical window strips. Unfortunately this careful detailing has been somewhat undermined by the exterior service pipes (stipulated by the council in the original planning agreement) and the more recent additional penthouse floor.

The Lawn, Harlow. Image from Conway.

In the post war years Gibberd’s firm expanded greatly, designing larger and more complex projects all over the country. However, one of his most notable projects in immediate post war years was another flat design, The Lawn at Harlow New Town (1951). Gibberd was the master planner of the new town in Essex and designed much of the housing. The Lawn was the first point block in the country, with the flats, specified for single people and couples, arranged around a central service core. The flats were also arranged in a butterfly plan, allowing every apartment a south facing living room.

His partnership would design a range of estates in the post war years featuring tower blocks and lower rise ranges of flats with schemes found in Hackney, Stoke Newington, Enfield, Leamington Spa, Harlow and elsewhere. Gibberd's career would also include prestigious projects such as Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Didcot Power Station and Heathrow Airport, but it was with the humble flat that he had his biggest influence.

Pullman Court, Park Court and Ellington Court are all featured in our Speculative Suburban Apartments mini guide alongside many other examples from all over suburban London. Get you copy right HERE

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The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea

7/12/2025

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The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex was officially opened on 12th December 1935 by the Duke and Duchess of York (the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). It had been commissioned by Herbrand Sackville, the 9th Earl De La Warr, who despite his title was an ardent socialist and the mayor of the town. He wanted a new building to include public entertainment and education facilities, and a competition was announced in the February 1934 edition of the Architects Journal, calling for entries. Over 230 were received with Thomas Tait of Burnet, Tait and Lorne acting as the assessor.

Plan of the ground floor of the De La Warr Pavilion

The winning design was produced by Serge Chermayeff and Erich Mendelsohn, during their brief partnership in Britain. Chermayeff was born in Grozny, before his family moved to Britain and he was sent to attendHarrow School. After completing his further education in various European countries, Chermayeff worked as a journalist and a designer, and then trained as an architect. Mendelsohn was one of the most prominent figures in European modernist design in the first decades of the 20th century, producing designs throughout Germany and also in the Soviet Union. He fled Nazi Germany for Britain in 1933, and went into partnership with Chermayeff.

The staircase and hanging light feature, as seen from below. Image from RIBApix.

The design the pair produced is one of the finest International Modernist buildings in Britain. It caused somewhat of a scandal when it was chosen by Tait, with a public enquiry called to examine how such a brazenly modernist scheme was chosen. But it was built, with only a few modifications, a vision of the future among the Edwardian townscape of Bexhill.

The auditorium. Image from RIBApix.

It consists of a two section building, joined in the middle by curved, projecting glazed staircases. The western half contains an assembly hall, with the eastern half originally housing a dance floor, library, conference hall, restaurant and a terrace area, spread out over two floors. The interior also features furniture designed by Alvar Aalto and a mural by Edward Wadsworth. The structure of the building consists of a welded steel frame, overseen by engineer Felix Samuely, with the concrete walls covered in smooth white render. The south staircase was designed with a long hanging pendulum light, designed by Chermayeff, (although reminiscent of Mendelsohn’s Trade Union Building in Berlin).

The sun terrace. Image from RIBApix.

Despite the public enquiry, the building was well received in the architectural press of the time and later. In the Buildings of England volume for Sussex, Ian Nairn called it “exhilarating”. Unfortunately the building was somewhat neglected and had fallen into disrepair by the 1970. In 1986 it was given Grade I listing, a high honour for a 20th century building, and a couple of years later a trust was formed to protect and renovate the pavilion. Over a decade later the Heritage Lottery Fund granted £6 million for its restoration and modernisation, reopening as an arts centre in 2005. A further £17 million has just been budgeted for further upgrades, including refurbishing the auditorium and upgrades for the 21st century.

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Anatomy of a House No.24: 9 West Heath Road

15/10/2025

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Anatomy of a House No.24

9 West Heath Road, Hampstead
1964
James Gowan

On the south west corner of Hampstead Heath, stands a building which at first appears like a small office block, despite its leafy, residential setting. It is in fact a house built for Chaim Schreiber, who had built the Schreiber furniture brand in Britain from 1957. It was designed by architect James Gowan, who had come to fame due to his partnership with James Stirling, who he first worked with at Lyons Israel and Ellis, later going into partnership together. Their short-lived partnership produced some of the most dynamic buildings of the era. Designs such as the Engineering Building at Leicester University and Langham House Close in Ham Common, reacted against cosy, Scandinavian-influenced post war modernism and firmly pushed into the future, and the era of brutalism and High Tech.

Sketch of the Leicester Engineering Building

The partnership only lasted from 1959 to 1963, splitting over creative differences, paving the way for bands of the late 1960s and 70s. Gowan's first commission after parting ways with Gowan was the house on West Heath Road. Before working at Lyons, Ellis and Israel, Gowan had worked for the Stevenage Development Corporation, and a former colleague who now worked for Schreiber phoned to ask his advice on a house for his boss. Gowan’s advice was ‘Let me design it’.
The house is formed of two oblong sections connected by a central core, built in dark blue Staffordshire brick, somewhat cooler than the famous red brick of the Leicester Engineering Building. Windows strips run all the way up the four floors of the house, emphasizing the verticality of the design. Schreiber and his wife, Sara, wanted the most important room in the house to be the dining area, able to accommodate up to 20 guests.

The living area with an example of the co-designed furniture by Gowan and Schreiber.

The dining room and connected living area form the heart of the house on the ground floor. Below on the basement level are the service rooms, with the main bedrooms on the first floor and bedrooms for Schreiber's three children and a studio on the second floor. The rooms on each floor were open plan, with hidden wooden doors used to divide space as needed. The house is arranged north-south, facing north towards Hampstead Heath. Gowan made the rooms extend the full width of the house, allowing the maximum daylight from the south facing aspect, which looks over the gardens. The internal floors were finished in San Stefano marble, with ceilings formed of moulded precast units. Engineering for the house was overseen by Frank Newby, who had worked with Gowan and Stirling on the Leicester Engineering Building.

The first and second floor plan for the house

Gowan also collaborated with Schreiber to design all the furniture in the house, to make it a totally integrated design. Four types of storage units were developed that could be used in all rooms, depending on need and layout. Various mod cons were included in the house, such as a central vacuum system to keep the house clean and electrically heated external paving stones to melt ice and snow. After completing the main house, Gowan returned three years later to design a domed swimming pool in the grounds of the house. The pool is partially sunken in a turf mound and topped by a glass dome. The dome is formed by a tubular steel structure with quarter inch thick late glass, attached to a concrete base. The pool itself is finished in white and black Sicilian marble and tilework in red, white and blue, and incorporates two smaller circular rooms containing changing rooms and toilets.

The dome-roofed swimming pool

Gowan would design another house for Schreiber in the early 1980s, radically different from the Hampstead home. This house, in Chester overlooking the River Dee, was designed in a post-modern style, a form his old partner Jim Stirling had also drifted into. The house in Chester has a large pitched roof that sits over a largely-glazed ground floor, with prominent circular windows. Apparently Schreiber never lived in this house, as he passed away in May 1984.

The second Schreiber house, in Chester. Image from OfHouses.

Gowan only designed a few private houses during his career, but they are all distinctive. One of his earliest houses was during his partnership with Stirling, a compact and austere single storey residence on the Isle of Wight from 1957, now unfortunately added with a pitched roof. In 1967, Gowan designed a circular, tower-shaped house for E.W. Parke, Professor of engineering at Leicester University in St. David’s, Wales. The house is built in brick which is rendered white, with a circular staircase tower. Also worth mentioning is the small estate of houses Gowan designed at East Hanningfield in Essex (1975). The scheme, which features houses and flats, is designed in the PoMo style seen with the second Schreiber house, complete with porthole windows and angular profiles.

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The Rolls Royce: Serge Chermayeff’s Bentley Wood

5/10/2025

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Bentley Wood as seen from the garden side. Image from RIBApix.

Serge Chermayeff designed a number of buildings in Britain, before moving to the United States in 1940. These buildings include private houses in Chelsea, Chalfont St Giles and Rugby, offices in Camden and the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea. Some of these were designed with German architect Erich Mendelsohn, who was also a brief visitor to Britain before moving on to the US himself. The buildings that Chermayeff designed, both by himself and with Mendelsohn, are perfect examples of the 1930s modernist aesthetic; long horizontal lines, gleaming white walls and regular, metal-framed windows all abound.

The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea. Designed by Serge Chermayeff and Erich Mendelsohn.

However, Chermayeff’s most accomplished design is possibly Bentley Wood, a house he built for himself and his family in Halland, East Sussex in 1938. The house is modernist in form, but uses a gentler array of materials, and is sensitively placed in its rural setting. Instead of the concrete of his earlier designs, Bentley Wood is built with a jarrah wood timber frame, exposed in parts, and clad in Western Red Cedar, with brick infill. The ground floor has floor to ceiling glazing, with sliding glass doors opening out onto the gardens.

A sketch for the interior of Bentley Wood by Serge Chermayeff.

The grounds themselves are as much a part of the design as the house. Chermayeff asked landscape designer Christopher Tunnard to oversee the landscaping, and a sculpture by Henry Moore, “Recumbent Figure”, was specially commissioned to stand at an exact spot at the end of the garden terrace (the piece was donated to the Tate gallery in 1939). The interior of the house is semi open plan and has split levels, giving the house a sense of flowing space, with further artworks by John Piper, Ben Nicholson and others, dotted around.

Henry Moore's Recumbent Figure, seen in the grounds of Bentley Wood. Image from RIBApix.

As with many modernist houses of the era, especially those in the countryside, its progress was initially blocked by Uckfield Rural District Council. They rejected the first application, feeling the design did not fit its rural setting, despite Chermayeff’s careful consideration of the landscape. The architect appealed, and permission for the house was granted. Bentley Wood was widely praised in the architectural press, being seen as a turn away from rigorous International style modernism, towards a more romantic style, as also seen in Berthold Lubetkin’s use of caryatids at Highpoint II. Architect Charles Reilly likened the house to a Rolls Royce in a review for the Architects Journal and it became a place to visit for architects and students.

The interior of the ground floor living area. Image from RIBApix.

Chermayeff only lived in his dream house for a short time, moving to the US after his practice was declared bankrupt. He would go on to practice in America as well as teaching at Yale. Bentley Wood was bought by newspaper editor Sir William Elmsley Carr, who started a process of extension and alteration, which was taken up by subsequent owners. These changes to Chermayeff’s original design meant Bentley Wood was turned down for listing in 2002. However, a later owner carefully removed much of the alteration and returned the house to Chermayeff’s vision, with a Grade II listing awarded in March 2020.

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Power to the People: The Rise of the Electricity Showroom

18/9/2025

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Showrooms & Offices, Westminster Electric Supply Co,Victoria Street (1933) Maxwell Fry. Image from RIBApix

In 1925 the London and Home Counties Joint Electricity Authority was formed to oversee the generation and supply of electricity in the capital. The use of electricity in domestic settings had started in the late 19th century, and grown in the first two decades of the 20th. Local power companies were formed and used small power stations to generate electricity for their local area. By 1910, 65 different private companies or local authorities supplied power in London, generated from around 70 small power stations. The new authority aimed to bring this all under one body. This new organisation was made up of 36 members, including the London Power Company, which brought another 10 power companies from west London, and the local authority companies, mainly from the east of the city.

Although a number had existed before this amalgamation, from 1925 the use of the electricity showroom was expanded across the city, with one found in most high streets, and at other locations. These showrooms sought to promote the use of domestic appliances that used electricity, as well as electric lighting and heating. Early showrooms were fitted into existing shop parades, but as art deco and modernism began to make its mark on the British consciousness, these styles were employed to denote the futuristic application of domestic electricity.

Strand Building,Clapton (1925) J.A. Bowden

The most renowned architect of the electricity showroom was Maxwell Fry, who designed a number of showrooms in the mid 1930s. Whereas early buildings specifically built to promote and demonstrate the use of electricity, like the Strand Building in Clapton (1925, J.A. Bowden) or Electric House, Bow Road (1925, Harry Heckford), used Classical or Neo-Georgian dressings, Fry’s showrooms utilized lightweight steel, plate glass and vitrolite. His first showroom in Victoria Street featured a streamlined entrance in metal-faced plywood with a neon name sign and was decorated inside with photomurals by designer Hazen Sise. Fry then redesigned a shop for the Chelsea Electricity Supply company in Sloane Street in 1936, adding a neon sign and large windows to the exterior.

Mortimer Gall Electrical Centre, Cannon Street (1937) Maxwell Fry and Walter Gropius. Image from RIBApix.

Fry designed two more showrooms; the Mortimer Gall Electrical Centre in Cannon Street (1937) and the Regent Street showrooms for the Central London Electricity Company (1938). The Cannon Street showrooms were designed when Fry was still in partnership with Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, during the German’s brief stay in England. Like the Sloane Street design, it fits new wine into an old bottle, adding a shopfront in curved glass, black vitrolite and glass brick to an existing building. In Regent Street, Fry designed premises with a spectacular interior featuring a spiral metal staircase and a photographic display by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, which showed the story of electrical production and supply.

Showrooms, Central London Electricity Company, Regent Street (1938) Maxwell Fry . Image from RIBApix

Elsewhere in the city and its suburbs were a number of other showrooms using art deco and modernism to make the case for the electric age. In the north west suburb of Willesden, the local architects department designed and built Electric House (the name given to many electricity showrooms) in 1937. The three storey building occupied a prominent corner site and featured a rounded staircase tower and finished inside with travertine terrazzo, maple wood flooring and oblong light fittings, Unfortunately the building was demolished in 2014. A little further to the east is Hornsey Town Hall, opened in 1935 and designed by Reginald H. Uren. The town hall is flanked by two sets of showrooms, an electricity one by Uren (1938), and one for gas appliances by Dawe and Carter (1937). Both ranges were built in the same sober brick idiom as the civic buildings, but the gas showrooms feature curved windows and a series of stone reliefs by A.J. Ayres, who also contributed a brick relief to the electric side. The town hall and the two showrooms are all listed by Historic England.

Electric House, Willesden (1937) F. Wayman Brown, F. Wilkinson and Percy Johnson-Marshall. Image from RIBApix.

In nearby Wood Green are the showrooms and offices of the North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Company, from 1930. In profile the building isn't as modernist as those in Willesden or Hornsey with its pitched roof, but it does have some lovely art deco detailing with underground style roundels across the exterior proclaiming ‘lighting’, ‘heating’, ‘cooking’ and ‘power’. In a similar mode are the former Gas Light and Coke showrooms in Edgware, designed by Welch, Cachemaille-Day and Lander in 1937. The showrooms were fitted into an existing Neo-Georgian parade, but the partnership added deco details such as chunky name signs, streamlined lighting and doors with half moon windows. Those moderne details are now gone, and the shop is now a Starbucks.

Gas Light & Coke Showrroms, Leytonstone (1937) G.Grey Wornum. Image from RIBApix.

The eastern suburbs largely had their electricity and gas supplied by municipal companies but they also built a large number of showrooms to promote the new power sources. In Leytonstone are the former Gas showrooms at 678 Leytonstone High Road, designed by esteemed architect George Grey Wornum, who fitted out the interior with relief lettering spelling out Gas Light & Coke, now long gone. The Neo-Georgian ground floor of the 1934 library around the corner was home to the electricity showrooms. Electricity offices for East Ham Borough were designed by N.F. Cachemaille-Day who added a frontage in black terrazzo and glass with bronze detailing, now demolished. One former showroom which still exists is that for Ilford, on the junction of the HIgh Road and Clark’s Road. Designed in 1931 by borough architect L.E.J. Reynolds, the building has a nice deco styled corner entrance and windows with metal reliefs on the first floor.

Electricity offices for East Ham Borough, by N.F. Cachmaille Day.

Moving around the compass to the south, amidst the high rises of Croydon we find the Electricity showrooms and offices on Wellesley Road by Robert Atkinson, built between 1939-42. Like the Ilford building, it sits on a corner plot, although it is much larger and grander in scale, finished in Portland stone and featuring double height windows along the street level. Just along from this building are the moderne, former Segas Offices (1939-41), designed by William Newton for the Croydon Gas and Coke Company. Both buildings are listed, but the electricity office is in much better shape these days.

Segas Offices, Croydon (1939-41) William Newton

Completing our journey in the south western reaches we find a pair of buildings featuring the work of architect J.E. Franck and artist Percy George Bentham. On York Street in Twickenham is the South Eastern Electricity Board Building, designed by Franck with stone relief by Bentham. The building again occupies a prominent corner site and is made more conspicuous by its art deco style clocktower, reminiscent of a bypass factory of the age. The work of the pair can also be found on a much smaller scale on Portsmouth Road in Kingston upon Thames (1935), where we find a substation, compact in size but still featuring the stylized light bulb and lightning bolts above the doorway by Bentham.

Electricity and gas showrooms continued to be a fixture of the high street after World War II, but the stylized deco details gave way to a more austere modernist palette. Soon even the later buildings disappeared, although some have (just about) survived such as former London Electricity Board showrooms and offices on Cambridge Heath Road (1959) by Watson & Coates. As you can see from this blog the novelty of domestic electricity may have faded but some pieces of the Electric Age still remain.

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Erno in the East End

10/9/2025

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This week we have published our latest Mini Guide, dedicated to the work of architect Erno Goldfinger, who moved to Britain in 1934 and designed a series of buildings in his precise, austere style until his retirement in the late 1970s. Below is an extract from the guide, which you can purchase HERE.

The buildings that have come to define Goldfinger as an architect are the two estates he finished his career with, the Brownfield in Poplar and the Cheltenham in North Kensington. The Rowlett Street Scheme as the Poplar project was originally known, had been planned by London County Council from 1963 as an extension of an earlier Poplar Borough estate, with Goldfinger designing the first phase incorporating the Balfron Tower, old people's maisonettes and a shop from February 1963. Like the Trellick tower in the west, Balfron has become an instantly recognizable trademark of Goldfingers design, with its separated service tower connected to the main block by access galleries arranged every three floors, reducing circulation space with no outdoor walkways. A series of thin slit windows run up the facade of the service tower, giving it the air of a defensive rampart. This attitude is reinforced by the rough, bush-hammered finish to the block, which despite its rough looking nature was actually carefully detailed by Goldfinger. The grey cement that comes to the surface when the concrete is setting was removed in the bush hammer process, revealing the colour and texture of the interior aggregate, and providing a more robust surface. The completed tower featured 136 flats plus 10 maisonettes, which were situated on the ground and first floors.

The next phase from 1965 saw another block added, Carradale House, an eleven storey building arranged at a right angle to Balfron Tower. Like its sister tower it has a separate service section, but this time Goldfinger placed it between two blocks connected by covered walkways. Internally there is a combination of different sized flats, one bedroom and two bedrooms in size, with the larger ones having dual aspect. The third phase from 1967 saw the building of Glenkerry House, as well as low rise blocks along Burcham Street and a community centre. Glenkerry House is 14 storeys tall, containing 75 flats and four maisonettes, with the same three floors to one corridor, as the previous blocks on the scheme. The block forms a shortened U-plan, with a prominent projecting boiler house at the northern end. Once again aggregate and bush hammered concrete is used to form the building, with Goldfinger also using curved precast units for the balconies, and buff brick, to slightly broaden the platte established with the first two blocks. The estate was finally completed in 1975, with some planned additions, such as a car park, left unbuilt, but with other community facilities like a nursery, shop and playground included.

Goldfinger and his wife moved into Flat 130 of the Balfron for two months after the tower was completed in February 1968, speaking to residents and making a number of revisions to improve the flats. The three towers were listed between 1996 and 2000, sparing them the demolition that would be visited on their near neighbour and contemporary, Robin Hood Gardens by Alison and Peter Smithson. In 2011, the housing association entrusted with the estate began the process of refurbishment, which required all residents to vacate whilst the work was undertaken. This caused a two-fold controversy; firstly the refurbishment replaced Goldfinger's original window design, double glazed with wooden frames and manufactured by Pilkingtons, for ones which were different in finish, colour and design. Secondly, the residents were decanted with no promise of being able to return to their flats, and eventually all of the flats were sold off on the private market, denuding the estate of its original purpose, something which Goldfinger strongly believed in

Images and text from our Erno Goldfinger Mini Guide
Available HERE

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A Ruckus in Ruislip: The Parkwood Estate

25/8/2025

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Some publicity materials produced for the Parkwood Estate. Image from Paul Mellon Centre.

The mid 1930s saw the leafy streets of Ruislip become the centre of a clash between tradition and modernity, as Ruislip Northwood Urban District Council battled against a development by Walter Taylor Builders and the partnership of Connell Ward and Lucas. Walter Taylor had built three houses designed by the practice before they decided to team up and build a speculative project together. A piece of land for sale in Ruislip, belonging to Kings College Cambridge, (originally bequeathed to them by Henry VIII) was identified, and the architect met with the bursar of the college, who happened to the economist John Maynard Keynes, and a deal was agreed. This first parcel of land was large enough for six houses, with the idea that if they sold successfully more land would be purchased to extend the development.

97-101 Park Avenue. Image from RIBApix.

The architects Amyas Connell and Basil Ward, (Colin Lucas would join the partnership in 1934), produced a design straight out of the European modernist tradition, influenced by Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. They initially planned to build three semi detached houses, which would be arranged in C-plans, with the projecting parts to include the garage and entrance, with the living space centered along a three storey range. The houses would be constructed of reinforced concrete and finished in white render, emphasizing the stark right angles of its design. The end of the ranges would contain a glazed staircase, a feature that would project openness and cleanliness, a central tenet of the modernist project.

The floor plans for the ground and first floors of the semi detached houses. Image from conway.

Plans were submitted to the authorities in September 1933, and the scheme was turned down, with the council citing the breaking of various byelaws, statues and regulations. The case was referred to a local advisory panel of the Royal Institute of British Architects, which upheld the council's decision, mentioning in their report the use of concrete, which they considered “cold, noisy..” and the extensive use of glass in the staircase sections. The builders decided to appeal both of these decisions and the case went to arbitration. Various witnesses were called, with the scheme getting support from Kings College and architecture critic P. Morton Shand. One of the members of the RIBA panel expanded on their opinion stating that the extensive glass used could cause the public to see the occupiers in their pajamas!

The suggested amendemants to the design for 97-99 Park Avenue, with the glazing reduced. Image from Conway.

Of course Amyas Connell was no stranger to this kind of conflict between the planning authorities and those looking to build modernist homes. He had designed High and Over in Amersham for Prof. Bernard Ashmole in 1929, which the local council had only passed the design with “the greatest reluctance", having been unable to find a legal reason to turn it down. The Ruislip appeal was granted, with the council directed to give the architects a list of alterations to consider. These changes included reducing the amount of glazing and adding decorative elements to soften the hard modernist edge, making it more like the other speculative moderne houses found in the area, such as this along Norwich Road and Northwood Way.

High and Over, Amersham designed by Amyas Connell. Image from RIBApix.

The architects did reduce the amount of glazing, but did not add any other elements and their new designs were passed in August 1934. Construction began shortly afterwards on the first semi detached pair and another set of plans were submitted in September for another pair. However due to the various delays, the clamour in the housing market for modernist designs had cooled, with hundreds of speculative Sun Trap houses having been built in the meantime around suburban London. This design, pioneered by the altogether more pragmatic firm of Welch, Cachemaille-Day and Lander, mixed traditional and modern elements to create a more palatable form of modernity for the British house buyer. This lack of interest meant the projected Parkwood Estate, petered out with just three houses built, with the second semi detached pair abandoned with only one house completed.

97 Park Avenue in the 1970s, with its blue painted window frames. Image from RIBApix,

The builders, Walter Taylor, had prepared a brochure to sell the anticipated development, with heavy emphasis on its modern features. It mentioned the "maximum light and air” that the houses would admit, and that their concrete construction would offer “warm, quiet, damp -free rooms”, a rejoinder to the council's opinion on the material. The brochure also called the area's existing housing stock, largely built up over the past 30 years, “imitative, conventional, bad copies of bygone styles..” Despite this rousing call to modernity, the shock of the new was obviously too shocking and Kings College ended buying back some of the land it had sold the builders for the development.

66 Frognal, Hampstead. Image from RIBApix.

Connell, Ward and Lucas continued designing houses until the outbreak of World War II, with another prominent planning dispute of the building of a house for Geoffrey Walford at Frognal in Hampstead, which Reginald Blomfield, called "one of the greatest acts of vandalism ever perpetrated in London". The house was eventually built in 1938, but Walford only lived there for a couple of years. The partnership broke up after the outbreak of World War II, and went their separate ways.The ensuing 90 years has seen the Ruislip houses taken somewhat into the heart of the local population, with them nicknamed variously “the glass houses”, “Casa Blanca” and even “Blue Peter”, (due to their previously blue painted window frames). The houses did sustain some damage during World War II from a nearby bomb hit, but were repaired. In 1989 they were awarded listed status by English Heritage, and well cared for by their current inhabitants, true examples of modernism in metro-land.

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The Inbetweeners: Ealing Common and Hounslow West

Anatomy of a House No.25: Sewell's Orchard, Tewin

Anatomy of a House No.25

Sewell's Orchard, Tewin, Hertfordshire
1936
Mary Crowley

The Archer

Frederick Gibberd and The Modern Flat

The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea

Anatomy of a House No.24: 9 West Heath Road

Anatomy of a House No.24

9 West Heath Road, Hampstead
1964
James Gowan

The Rolls Royce: Serge Chermayeff’s Bentley Wood

Power to the People: The Rise of the Electricity Showroom

Erno in the East End

A Ruckus in Ruislip: The Parkwood Estate

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Anatomy of a House No.25 Sewell's Orchard, Tewin, Hertfordshire 1936 Mary Crowley

Anatomy of a House No.24 9 West Heath Road, Hampstead 1964 James Gowan

Archives

Categories

Anatomy of a House No.25

Sewell's Orchard, Tewin, Hertfordshire
1936
Mary Crowley

Anatomy of a House No.24

9 West Heath Road, Hampstead
1964
James Gowan