Cropthorne Court

Cropthorne Court is a block of flats built between 1928 and 1930, designed by the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. It is a building of group value, representing an important transitional style. The building is a long, rectangular range, approximately 400 feet long and 70 feet deep, faced primarily in brown-pink brick with a buff-coloured faience finish to the ground floor. The plan is a distinctive saw-tooth shape, featuring three entrances, each flanked by projecting, bastion-like features. Lifts and staircases are located behind these entrances, serving two flats per floor. At the rear are six projecting towers containing bedrooms.

The exterior is seven storeys high. The three entrances have low, rectangular recessed openings leading to paired doors, with concierge windows to the right. Decorative Moderne motifs are present on the window lintels of the ground floor, originally a bank. The upper floors are arranged around a strongly rhythmic series of projecting angles, with tall arched recesses above the entrances, featuring low screens supported by square columns. A low band of faience runs along the top of the window level on the first floor, beneath a band of end-set brickwork. Metal casement windows are used throughout, with those on the fifth floor being arched to resemble thermal openings. The sixth, attic storey has a band of faience at eaves level, beneath a shallow, projecting hipped roof. The rear elevations incorporate tradesman’s entrances and garages. Neoclassical gate piers mark the ends of the block.

The interior of the flats was not inspected. Each of the two flats per floor has a standard layout, including interconnecting living and dining rooms, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a maid's room.

Cropthorne Court reflects a stylistic shift away from historicism toward a more modern approach, maximizing light into the south-west facing rooms. The flats were originally let at annual rents ranging from £375 to £425.