Cuthbert Harrowing House

Cuthbert Harrowing House

A block of eighteen maisonettes on Fann Street, designed following a 1952 architectural competition and built to revised designs between 1954 and 1956. The competition was won by Geoffry Powell, with the built scheme designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, engineered by Ove Arup and Partners, and constructed by Wimpeys.

The building employs pink brick crosswall construction with pink mortar, concrete floor and roof slabs, concrete balconies (now painted) and glass infill panels, finished with a flat roof. It rises four storeys over basement stores, with maisonettes arranged in pairs along two rows, nine pairs per pair of floors. Balconies face Fann Street; lower maisonettes have steps paved in quarry tiles leading down to a shared garden. The flats are accessed via access galleries, with upper maisonettes reached through a glazed end staircase and a secondary escape stair in the penultimate bay of the opposite end. Most maisonettes contain two bedrooms, though those flanking the escape stair contain three.

On the Fann Street elevation, cross walls project forward to provide privacy to each maisonette, creating the visual effect of two terraces of houses stacked one above the other. Aluminium windows with timber facing serve the living rooms; some ground floor windows behind balconies have been renewed. The aluminium system continues as a framework for bright blue cladding panels set in bands beneath the windows. Upper floor bedroom windows project; set-back staircase windows serve each lower-level unit, whilst continuous bands of glazing and blue panels extend across the top floor of upper maisonettes. A blue-clad projection marks the end maisonettes at the rear of the escape stair. Concrete balconies feature steel rails. Brick piers on the courtyard entrance side mask timber doors set in pairs. Access galleries with steel railings and wired glass balcony fronts on the first and third floors serve fire escape balconies between bedrooms and escape stairs. A fully glazed staircase at the end contains storey-high panes set in timber frames with a monopitch roof above. Concrete stairs are expressed as continuous floor slabs on the building's sides. A rubbish shute at the rear (Fann Street) side carries a mounted three-dimensional plan of the estate; original signage survives. The building is named after Thomas Cuthbert Harrowing, former chair of the Public Health Committee. To the side, a ramp leads to the basement carpark.

Interiors feature hardwood veneer floors and glazed screens between kitchen and dining spaces. The double height of the stairwell, combined with open-tread staircases, creates a sense of spaciousness despite the restricted dimensions of the units, which reflect minimum standards introduced in 1951. On the lower level, staircases rise from within the living room; on the upper floor, they rise opposite the front door. Upstairs levels contain central bathrooms with clerestory glazing. Fitted cupboards and shelving of interest survive in places, though kitchen and bathroom fittings are not of special interest.

The development forms part of the Golden Lane Estate, a significant post-war housing scheme for the City of London Corporation.