18-24, Poplar Grove

Nos 18-24 on Poplar Grove is a terrace of cottages built between 1902 and 1905 by architects Parker and Unwin for the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust. The cottages are constructed from whitewashed brick and topped with a French tile roof. They are two storeys high and feature a through living room plan. The terrace has eight first-floor windows, with paired gables on the second and third bays, as well as the sixth and seventh bays.

Each cottage has original half-glazed double doors set beneath a fanlight, with a porch flanked by a 2-light casement window and an altered opening that now contains a window but was originally the entrance to a WC. There is also a single-pane larder window. A continuous tile trim runs above all these features. On the first floor, there are 3-light casement windows in the gables, with low 3-light casements on the left and right sides. The original chimney stacks have been removed.

New Earswick is particularly significant for its role in the development of low-cost housing in Britain. The experiences and practices established here were incorporated into the Tudor Walters Report of 1918, which played a key role in the passing of the Addison Act of 1919. Plans from New Earswick also influenced the Government Manual on low-cost housing that followed the Act.