24-29, LAMMAS GREEN

A terrace of six houses, numbers 24 to 29, was built between 1955 and 1957 by Donald McMorran of Farquharson and McMorran, with Peter Nuttall as assistant, for the Corporation of the City of London. The construction is brick, colourwashed, with pantiled roofs and brick stacks. Each house is two storeys high with three bedrooms, and the houses are designed to a similar plan, with numbers 24, 25 and 26 mirrored by numbers 27, 28 and 29. Round-arched entries are located between numbers 25 and 26 and numbers 27 and 28. The windows are metal, with side-opening casements and toplights; those to numbers 26 and 27 have been replaced but retain the original design. Timber doors are set within timber porches with pointed hoods.

The interiors feature living rooms with picture rails and staircases with timber balustrades. A considerable number of fitted cupboards exist, particularly on the upper floors. Kitchen and bathroom fittings are not of particular architectural interest. Donald McMorran is considered a significant architect who worked in a traditional style in the 1950s, combining traditional composition, proportion, and texture with progressive building types such as public housing and schools. His influences include Vincent Harris, for whom he worked previously. This is the smallest, but finest, of four housing schemes by McMorran, two commissioned by the City Corporation. The terrace is arranged around a village green, with views of the North Downs, and two blocks of flats act as a buffer to the road. The density is set at 57 dwellings per acre, lower than the allowed seventy, to encourage a thriving community. The combination of the flats and colourwashed cottages is considered particularly distinguished, and the form of the terraces reflects the work of Tayler and Green, adapted for an urban environment.