5, Pennyfathers Lane

A detached house built in 1953–4 by Mary Crowley (later Mary Medd) and David Medd for themselves.

Construction and Materials

The house is built with external cavity walls faced in London Stock brick, with two areas of painted softwood boarding, principally over the large south-facing window. The floor is a concrete slab. Custom-made softwood windows, painted white with oiled teak cills, are mainly double-paned with integral blinds; all but two of the remainder are double-glazed. The roofs are low-pitched: 20 degrees for the house with 7-degree ceilings, and 9 degrees for the garage and workshops. The original cedar shingle roof has been replaced by the architects with substitute asbestos slates. There is a single brick chimney.

Form and Layout

The plan comprises two rectangles linked by a covered walkway. The larger single-storey rectangular block contains the living accommodation, while the smaller block houses a garage and workshop. The covered walkway link also contains a store and lavatory. The total floor space is less than 1,000 square feet, conforming to the licence limit in place at the time of building. This constraint is somewhat counterbalanced by the internal expression of the roofline, with a lower pitch of 7 degrees, which helps provide a surprising sense of space. The layout ensures that the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom—the sequence the house follows—all enjoy views and light from the east. Maximum space is devoted to the living room, the minimum to circulation.

Exterior

The entrance (south) façade is dominated by the undulating line of the two pitched roofs, also visible on the rear (north) façade. The entrance is concealed in the covered walkway linking the two blocks, the focus being rather on the large living room window. The east elevation, the principal garden front, is decidedly simpler, with low walls contributing to the reticent design. The west elevation is complicated by the double form of the house and workshop/garage ranges.

Interior

The principal internal space is the open-plan living/dining room, with a dividing oiled softwood boarded screen. It has a full-height window echoing the roofline and direct access to the garden. All curtains span from floor to ceiling and can be drawn completely clear of the windows. There is a narrow brick fireplace. The floor is covered with cork tile in the living room, main bedroom, second bedroom, and corridor; lino in the bathroom and kitchen; chequerboard tiling in the entrance hall, lavatory, and boiler room; and wooden boards in the workshop. Walls and ceiling are plastered and painted in accordance with the original colour scheme: grey and white in living areas, green and white in bedrooms, with William Morris design wallpaper used partially in bedrooms and the entrance hall. Doors are of beech plywood and the windows are largely painted white, with some casements and cills left unpainted. The fireplace wall is brick, with a polished slate mantelpiece and hearth. Polished slates are also positioned in front of the large living room window. The heating is by gas-fired boiler and forced warm air is delivered through two grilles, adjustable to give priority either to the house generally or just the sitting area of the living room. There are no ducts, visible pipes, or radiators in the house. The house has original fitted wooden furniture throughout, designed and made to a high specification by David Medd. Kitchen and bathroom retain original fittings.

Setting

The house is at the head of a valley in a semi-rural area, set in a large garden designed by the architects in conjunction with the house to largely screen it once the planting became mature. The house sits very low in the contours of the site at the head of a small valley, and windows along the east side take in views of the rolling hills.

Design and Context

It is a deliberately simple, neat, modest house, an exemplar of building under restrictions in the early post-war period, when few houses were being built at all, much fewer still of this quality. This is expressed in its reticent aesthetic, the small footprint, and also in the choice of materials and fittings which were shared with two other houses being built locally—for Stirrat Johnson-Marshall and Maurice Lee, also of the Ministry of Education's Architects and Building Branch—in order to reduce costs. These houses do not survive.

Historical Background

The years after 1955 saw a rapid expansion in the private house market. Most houses were speculatively built but a small proportion was architect-designed. In the 1960s house prices rose dramatically and property became a focus for investment. Many larger houses were built during this latter period. Many young architects built houses for themselves or their kin, usually quite small properties, to act as examples of their work for potential clients, but they became a fashion in their own right.

Number 5 Pennyfathers Lane was designed in 1953–4 by Mary Crowley and David Medd for themselves. Mary Crowley had come to prominence when, as a young graduate from the Architectural Association in 1936, she had designed a much-praised trio of houses at nearby Tewin for members of her family. Subsequently she went on to work for Hertfordshire Education Department in the war, and transferred to its Architecture Department in 1946, where she met her future husband. They married in 1949.

The decision to build their own house was, however, sudden. After a gruesome visit to Poland in 1951, Mr and Mrs Medd came home via Copenhagen where they stayed with a Danish friend. This experience made them decide they had to 'turn over a new leaf'. Mr Medd gives their specific sources as Carl and Karin Larsson, and subsequent Scandinavian work.

The form of the house was primarily influenced by the very stringent prevailing conditions. Planning permission was dependent on the site being infill between a World War I house and an enlarged 15th-century thatched house, to which the new house had to respond. Building licences, a form of rationing, controlled the size of the house and materials available. This meant that the total cost was limited to £4,000, at February 1954 prices. Above all, the nature of the site and its surroundings could not be appreciated until a topographical survey was made, and the surrounding fallen elms could be banished from the Medds' minds. The contours indicated that the Medds were at the head of a valley, and the siting of the house then became clear.

This is a rare domestic work by Mary Crowley (Mary Medd) and David Medd, subsequent to the much-praised trio of houses by Crowley at Tewin of 1936. These two important architects are best known for their work in the sphere of educational architecture, and some of the features of their work in this field can be seen to have been tested out in this small house. It makes a telling comparison with the couple's listed schools for Hertfordshire County Council and the Ministry of Education. It is a rare survivor of the interest in Scandinavian architecture in the post-war period. The house reflects the couple's long-cherished interest in Scandinavian design—the immediate inspiration for the house was a visit to Copenhagen after a harrowing experience in post-war Poland. It is a remarkably complete house of its date, with built-in furniture, sanitary ware, and light fittings made or designed by David Medd. It is almost entirely unaltered down to the last detail and survives in excellent condition. It is a deliberately unassuming house, demonstrating the controls imposed by building licensing, and is carefully integrated into its rural landscaping.