Hatfield House, including garden walls to rear

Hatfield House is a residential block of fourteen flats and forty-two maisonettes, located on the east side of Baltic Street. The building was designed following a competition in 1952, with the site extended in 1955 and construction completed between 1958 and 1961. The design was won by Geoffry Powell and developed and built by the architectural practice Chamberlin, Powell and Bon.

The structure uses pink brick crosswall construction with pink mortar, reinforced concrete floor and roof slabs, and concrete balconies. Blue panels, some of opaque glass, provide cladding. The building rises to seven storeys and comprises basement flats with their own gardens, with three tiers of two-storey maisonettes above them. The maisonettes are arranged in pairs along two rows, with fourteen pairs per set of floors. The basement flats and maisonettes are accessed by lifts and stairs at the corner of Crescent House. Flats and maisonettes are reached by access galleries on the north elevation, with an escape stair positioned near the eastern end. Most maisonettes contain two bedrooms, while three-bedroom flats occupy positions either side of the escape stair; the remaining units are bedsits.

The south elevation features balconies and is characterised by the crosswalls projecting forward to provide privacy to each unit, creating a visual effect of a series of terraces stacked one above the other. Living room windows are of aluminium with timber facing. The aluminium system is repeated on the north front, where it serves as the framework for bright blue cladding panels arranged in bands beneath windows. Upper floor bedrooms project; set-back staircase windows serve each unit at lower levels, whilst continuous bands of glazing and blue panels extend across the top floor of the uppermost maisonettes. A blue-clad projection marks the maisonettes at the rear of the escape stair. Concrete balconies have steel top rails. Brick piers on the north elevation conceal timber doors set in pairs. Access galleries feature steel railings with wired glass balcony fronts on the first, third and fifth floors, serving fire escape balconies between bedrooms and escape stairs. Original signage survives.

The interiors are simple in character. Staircases have solid risers that develop toward the rear as a series of shelving. The living room features a parquet floor, separated from the kitchen by a partially glazed screen. Original fitted cupboards survive in some units and are of interest. On lower levels, staircases rise from within the body of the living room; on the top level they rise opposite the door. The top floor incorporates centrally positioned bathrooms beneath clerestory windows. Kitchen and bathroom fittings are not of particular architectural interest.

Pink brick garden walls to the south continue the lines of the main block. A brick and concrete ramp to the north provides access to an underground car park beneath the later part of the scheme and serves the service road to shops in Crescent House.

Hatfield House occupies a particularly significant position within the estate design, forming the northern boundary and providing a backdrop to the tenants hall, recreation centre and children's playground. The building is also significant as an intermediary structure between the early and later phases of development. Its importance to the Golden Lane Estate is further explained in the entry for Great Arthur House.