Numbers 1-72 And Community Hall

A development of 72 charitable houses and bungalows for the poor with a community hall, built in 1934 by the architect T Cecil Howitt, following a bequest by Elizabeth J Jones of Fulham. The estate was built on the site of a market garden and was intended to provide homes for people in needy circumstances, whether through age or ill health.

The buildings are constructed of two-inch Berkshire bricks with thick joints, with Staffordshire tile roofs and tile hanging, and tall chimney stacks. The layout is formal and symmetrical, arranged around a quadrangle with the central community hall positioned opposite the entrance between numbers 36 and 37, and with wings along Staines Road.

The 72 houses are arranged in varied groupings. Numbers 1 to 8 and 65 to 72 are two-storey symmetrical compositions facing Staines Road. Numbers 3 to 6 and 67 to 70 consist of a single tile-hung unit with brick houses flanking it. Numbers 7 to 8 and 65 to 66, which mark the entrance to Fairholme, feature Dutch gables, diapering and two chimney stacks. Their Arts and Crafts character is repeated in numbers 13 to 14 and 59 to 60, which have lead torcheres that formerly held window boxes. Numbers 9 to 12 and 61 to 64 are symmetrical pairs of two-storey houses with hipped roofs and central stacks, with deeper roofs falling to single storey either side and continuing over archways. Numbers 15 to 16, 20 to 21, 26 to 27, 46 to 47 and 52 to 53 are paired bungalows with side entrances, projecting windows and central stacks over steep hipped roofs. Numbers 17 to 19, 28 to 30, 43 to 45 and 54 to 56 are three-unit houses with central doors and two Dutch gables and two stacks, marking the corners of the quadrangle. Numbers 22 to 25 and 48 to 51 have tile-hung first floors set in stepped rooflines rising from single storey either side to a two-storey centrepiece with central moulded stack. Numbers 31 to 34 and 39 to 42 are similar but plainer, without tile hanging. Numbers 35 and 38, which are single-storey, form 'bookends' with numbers 36 and 37 (two storeys with Dutch gables) to the central community hall. All these units are linked by single-storey archways leading to side doors and private rear gardens.

Original windows survive in part, featuring thick white mullions and black leaded casements. Some houses have scroll-moulded door cases. Buildings are finished with deep eaves with rosette mouldings.

The interiors, although not inspected, were built with oak floors and many fitted cupboards.

The community hall comprises a seven-bay arcade with timber columns and lintel. It is surmounted by a cupola with copper cladding, a seagull weathervane and clock. The interior contains a panelled reading room or meeting hall with a decorative plaster barrel vault in an early seventeenth-century style, an octagonal rest room, and a kitchen and service facilities. The estate was remarkable for its date in having a communal hot water system.

The design was admired at the time for its 'artistic layout and the pleasing design of the homes' (Middlesex Chronicle, 15 February 1936). Its combination of Arts and Crafts detailing with a formal, symmetrical layout and excellent materials forms a dramatic contrast to the unimaginative quality of most 1930s domestic building.

T Cecil Howitt (1889 to 1968) was Nottingham's leading architect of the twentieth century. He designed a remarkable amount of low-cost public housing in the 1920s for Nottingham City Council before entering private practice and becoming a noted designer of commercial offices and civic buildings. Fairholme is his only work in the south of England.