Numbers 29 To 45 And Attached Garden Walls

Hampstead Garden Suburb: Numbers 29 to 45 (Odd) Willifield Way and Lucas Square

A close of semi-detached houses and four-unit blocks built in 1908–09, designed by Geoffrey Lucas as part of the development of Hampstead Garden Suburb. The group is linked by a garden wall pierced with round-arched openings and laid out on a trapezoidal green known as Lucas Square, which sits at a slightly lower level than Willifield Way.

The buildings are constructed in light brown brick in English bond with red brick dressings and painted pebble dash, with some tile hanging. The garden walls are of brick with tile copings. Roofs are hipped and gableted in tile, with gablets abutting angled axial ridge stacks and swept and boxed eaves. Pebbledashed panels feature quoin-like edging strips throughout. All openings are flat arched unless otherwise stated. Windows and doors are of an original design throughout. To provide views across the road, the architect has placed some sitting rooms on the first floor.

The group follows a rough symmetry, with the end units matching one another very nearly, though points of difference between blocks are significant.

Numbers 29 and 31, and 43 and 45 form end pairs that are near mirror images of one another, each having a full-height canted bay with oversailing dormer gable at the outer corners. The former pair has entrances set under a single hipped porch either side of the party wall, with a four-window range. The latter pair has entrances to the left of the bay and at the left corner, each set under a tile-hung and gable-facing porch on plain uprights, with a three-window range. Both have setback outshuts to returns and hipped rear wings, with roof lines forming an integral part of each elevation conceived in depth rather than as mere facade.

Numbers 33, 35 and 37 form a single block with a six-window range. The outer ranges project to finish in canted bay and oversailing gabled dormer motif. An entrance under a broad porch with gableted roof serves the third-window range, while entrances to the end blocks are on returns, reached through openings in the garden walls. The window disposition is asymmetrical, reproducing the slight variations in design found in the end units.

Numbers 39 and 41 are bilaterally symmetrical, conceived as the inverse of Numbers 25 and 27 Willifield Way (odd), with a pair of canted bays flanking the party wall to form a two-window range. The overall silhouette is similar to the end units. Each corner has an entrance with a gable-facing and tile-hung porch. An axial stack to Number 35 sits on the rear roof slope.

Number 47 has a one-window range and is a box-like structure that serves as an endpoint to the design and acts as a transition to the group of buildings designed by Crickmer at the crossing of Temple Fortune Hill and Willifield Way. It is included for its group value.

This group forms the principal element in a Lucas-designed ensemble comprising Numbers 25–45 (odd) Willifield Way; the gable-headed oversailing dormer and canted bay motif is repeated throughout most of the units.