10-16, Chestnut Grove

This is a terrace of two pairs of cottages, built around 1909-1914 by Parker and Unwin for the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust. The construction combines brickwork with a French tile roof. The layout features a lobby entry leading to a living room and a scullery. The cottages are two storeys high, with seven first-floor windows in total, and each pair has a central gable clad in weatherboarding. Half-glazed doors and standard “New Earswick” window panes are consistent throughout. The central passage, originally round-arched, is now blocked and contains a two-light casement window of an unusual size. Each pair of cottages incorporates two four-light canted bay windows, flanked by doorways beneath round arches that have been blocked with diagonally-set quarry tiles. A continuous string course runs along the facade. The first floor features a central, flat-topped two-light dormer flanked by single-pane casements set at a slightly lower level. Each gable has a pair of three-light casements. The roof is hipped, and the chimney stacks have been removed. The development at New Earswick is historically significant for its contribution to the advancement of low-cost housing in Britain, influencing the Tudor Walters Report of 1918 and subsequently the Addison Act of 1919, as well as government guidance on low-cost housing.