Nos 2, 4 and 6 Foxes Dale

Nos 2, 4 and 6 Foxes Dale

This is a group of three houses of the Grade II listed status, representative of Span's architectural approach to mid-century residential design.

The houses employ brick cross-wall construction, spanned with reinforced concrete beams that carry the floor and roof joists. The front and rear elevations are constructed of Thermalite blocks, clad in horizontal timber ship-lap boarding (the rear boarding has been replaced with uPVC). The ground floor features coloured asbestos sheets. Windows are timber-framed throughout.

The plan of these three houses is more spatially complex than most Span houses. At ground floor, the entrance lobby and kitchen occupy the front, with a dining area and spiral stair behind. The dining area opens into a single-storey flat-roofed living room and study looking onto the rear garden, arranged in an L-shape around an internal courtyard. The first floor contains a bedroom with connecting dressing room (opened out into a single room at No. 4), and a bathroom. The dressing room accesses a sun terrace above the living room. The second floor has two further bedrooms and another bathroom. A single-storey extension has been added to the rear of No. 2.

The houses are set back from the road behind paved front gardens, separated from the pavement by yellow brick walls and white gates. The exposed ends of the yellow brick cross walls punctuate either side of each front elevation. The front door, recessed into an open porch, is positioned to the right, with a service door to the left providing direct kitchen access. The remainder of the ground floor elevation comprises opening and fixed lights with coloured asbestos panels: turquoise at No. 2, red at No. 4, and olive green at No. 6 (colours selectable from a limited palette by owners). A large full-height picture window marks the first floor; the second floor has a near-continuous band of glazing. Rear windows at first and second floors are arranged in vertical strips, while the ground floor rear elevation is predominantly glazed with timber-framed opening and fixed lights. The buildings share a palette of white, pale blue-grey, and mid-grey to front and rear, believed to be original.

The interiors are largely open-plan at ground floor, organised around an internal glazed courtyard that admits light deep into the footprint. An open-tread spiral stair with hardwood treads and simple curved metal balustrades minimises floor space usage, allowing maximum utilisation of the smaller first and second floors arranged conventionally off a small landing. Original doors and windows survive (though some furniture has been replaced), with simple unmoulded sections.

Notable original fixtures and fittings at Nos 4 and 6 include ground floor muhuhu wood-block flooring and stained pine wall cladding with black and white striped tiled flooring in the entrance lobby. Both houses retain an original built-in dresser between kitchen and dining room, and fitted cupboards in the first floor dressing room. No. 4 retains the original folding door dividing study from living room, and No. 6 retains original study shelving and several original kitchen units. No. 2 was not inspected internally but is understood to be relatively little altered; it originally had a pergola-like structure over the first floor sun terrace, which no longer survives.