Numbers 1-6 And Common Room

Paired and terraced bungalows, a two-storey wardens' house and dayroom forming part of a housing estate for elderly persons, built by the former Loddon Rural District Council in 1962-63. The architects were Tayler and Green.

The buildings are constructed in brick with colours of red, black, yellow-grey and dapple light, with ornamental treatment of the gable ends. The date '1963' is picked out in black bricks on the yellow-grey gable end of No 4 Davy Place. Orange and brown pantiled roofs are fitted with wood bargeboards, ornamentally scalloped and pierced on No 4 Davy Place. Brick chimneystacks have angled concrete coping and clay pots. The eaves are flush with rainwater pipes carried down without swan-necks.

The plans are wide, measuring approximately 13 metres. The site experiences changes of level within Davy Place itself, this being the site of an old gravel pit. Variations in elevational treatment are due to orientation and aspect. The standard arrangement includes a recessed entrance with a half-glazed door flanked by white painted wood trelliswork, carried over subsidiary windows. There is one main three-light steel casement window and a boarded door to an external store with a solid glazed panel.

The warden's house is two storeys, built in black brick with an orange pantiled roof. The first floor has one three-light and one two-light steel casement window. Twin arched openings with two-light windows are positioned at the left, with white painted weatherboarding above and below. The centre of the front has an entrance door set beneath a curved segmental doorhood supported on twin tubular steel columns, with a store door at the extreme right.

To the right is a single-storey communal day-room in dapple light brick with a black pantiled roof. It features a timber-framed picture window with a central mullion, projecting as a shallow bay in line with the eaves, with a glazed entrance door at the right.

A plaque in black slate with incised gold lettering records the opening of the scheme by Lord Balneil in 1963, naming Loddon RDC, the architects and the builders Thistle and Harris. A circular gold engraved slate plaque records the award of a Ministry of Housing Medal in 1964. There is a triangular bronze Civic Trust Award plaque dated 1965 immediately below.

Davy Place is a fine example of the architects' attention to detail and re-use of vernacular forms without pastiche. The street picture along Davy Place is carefully composed. On the north is a terrace of four bungalows along the frontage, followed by a set-back paved square fronted by a single bungalow, succeeded by the day-room and finally the warden's house giving a two-storey accent. Opposite are the raised gable ends of the groups south of Davy Place, with linked brick crinkle-crankle walls screening the gardens. The houses are interesting in their internal plan, though the interiors are not of special decorative interest.

This block forms an integral part of the housing estate for the elderly, which also includes Nos 10-20 (Consecutive) Davy Place, Nos 5-9 (odd) High Bungay Road, Nos 6, 8 and 10 Low Bungay Road and Nos 3-13 (odd) Davy Terrace, Low Bungay Road. The scheme is a fine example of these architects' picturesque approach to design, in this case responding to a semi-urban setting.