The Grampians

THE GRAMPIANS

A block of flats with shops, built 1935-7 on Shepherds Bush Road, designed by Maurice E. Webb (1880-1939) of Sir Aston Webb and Son in conjunction with Stanley Hinge Hamp (1877-1968) of Collcutt and Hamp.

The building is a steel-framed structure with red-brown brick walls and Portland stone dressings on the frontage block. Windows are metal casements with horizontal glazing bars; shops feature glass bricks and metal windows. Balconies are of reinforced concrete painted white or metal painted black. The flat roofs are asphalt.

The west-facing frontage block steps down from a central point reaching eleven storeys above ground level. Two two-storey shop projections with flats above flank the ground floor street entrance, stepping back in curves to form an entrance court. From the second floor upwards, the plan is E-shaped. The narrower, cranked rear block rises to twelve storeys at its highest point and includes a stub projection on its north side.

The frontage façade is Art Deco and Moderne in style with classical references, emphasised by the stepped roofline and curved shop projections. Four vertical stacks of small balconies are distributed across the façade. At the building's top, above the central projection, are triple arched openings with balustrade, forming a Lutyens-like belvedere. A double-height rusticated entrance archway features stylised keystones and raised disc motifs, with two recessed double entrance doors. A horizontal stone band at frieze level displays raised disc motifs based on classical paterae, dividing the ground and first floors of the shop projections. Above the first floor runs a narrower stone band with metal balustrade. The north and south ends of the projections are marked by tall brick pilasters with raked joints and decorative stone finials. The north and south sides of the frontage block each have a pair of triangular projecting bay windows with shared canted balcony. The rear wing is more modern in character, with a reinforced concrete screen on the north side producing a lattice effect and containing access walkways. The south side is punctuated by small balconies alternating between concrete and metal balustrading. The rear east wall is blank.

Internally, a small central entrance lobby in the frontage block provides access to lifts and an adjacent concierge's office, embellished with stylised classical detailing consistent with the entrance portal. Staircases are positioned on the north and south ends of the frontage block, at the intersection between frontage and rear blocks, and in line with the projection on the rear wing. In the frontage block, flats are accessed from a central corridor running north to south. In the rear block, external access corridors on the north side serve all south-facing flats. Flats are compact with several formats, arranged as single or two-storey units. Two basement floors below the frontage block contain sports facilities. Interior finishes are simple: walls and ceilings are painted render with the concrete frame internally expressed, and floors are wooden parquet. The highest flats benefit from additional clerestory lighting. A paved, stepped garden borders the north side of the rear block.

The Grampians was the first part of a proposed series of blocks along a disused railway line. Designed to provide affordable rented housing principally for lower-middle class professionals, it represents a highly characteristic interwar development and is among the finest blocks of its kind, combining Art Deco character in the entrance forecourt with starker Modernist character elsewhere. The design was exhibited at the 1935 Royal Academy.