1-12 Shelley Court

Block of twelve flats built between 1954 and 1956 by architect Eric Lyons for Bargood Estates Ltd, subsequently Span Developments Ltd. Geoffrey Paulson Townsend was the developer, G Scroble the project architect, and Wates the builders.

The building uses brick for end and partition walls, with concrete, tile hanging and Eternit block as secondary materials. It has a flat felted roof with brick stacks. The structure is three storeys high, arranged in an H-plan with a central entrance and stairwell providing access to four flats per floor.

The entrance front features a centre of four fully glazed bays set in a metal frame, with an open entrance to the right side. The ground floor is partially masked by a covered walkway of timber that bears the block's name. Concrete lattice ventilation panels sit to the side of these windows. The rear elevation is centred on a tripartite composition of concrete lattice ventilation panels. All other windows are timber-framed. The flank walls have continuous horizontal glazing, with main rooms overlooking the side elevations which comprise four bays. On the upper floors, each group of three windows includes two deeper windows with window boxes, divided at sill level and opening at the top; the ground floor has full-length French windows instead of the shorter openings. Tile hanging appears between each storey. The brick end walls each have one square window towards the centre on every floor. The ground floor is paved. Grey terrazzo stairs and landings feature steel balustrades with timber panels. The interiors of the individual flats were not inspected.

Parkleys was the first, largest and arguably most influential of Eric Lyons's schemes for Span Developments. Lyons and Townsend met in the late 1930s and renewed their partnership after the Second World War, developing several small private schemes across south-west London and the north Surrey borders. In 1954, Townsend established himself as a developer and was forced to relinquish his RIBA membership. This building represents their first mature collaborative work and their first under the Span Developments Ltd name.

The site was formerly occupied by a nursery. The blocks of flats were carefully positioned to preserve existing trees, and the nursery stock together with its gardener were taken over and incorporated into the development. The scheme is laid out as a series of cul-de-sacs with taller blocks positioned at the edge of the site, forming a distinctive series of points that contrast with the grid of lower-rise development. The combination of two- and three-storey blocks is distinctive to Parkleys, as is the mixture of brick and tile hanging, which was subsequently repeated at Blackheath. The use of traditional materials in a contemporary manner created a particularly humane environment that was widely admired. The tall blocks with their concrete panels represented Lyons's most distinctive essays in the contemporary 1950s idiom.

Parkleys was developed for first-time buyers, and Span was among the first companies to promote the endowment mortgage. The development was also the first example of the residents' management company system established by Span, a structure that has maintained most of their developments in exceptional condition. Each leaseholder contributes to the funding of paid maintenance staff and holds membership in the management company that operates the estate.

Eric Lyons was notably admired for bridging the gap between speculative work and creative design, a distinction most architects of his generation pursued only in the public sector. As written in the Architectural Review in February 1959: "Twenty years ago he would have been regarded as barely respectable, today he is important. He may even come to be looked back upon as a key figure." This assessment has proven prescient. The close partnership with a sympathetic developer enabled Lyons to pursue his own ideas in materials, layout and design. However, the blocks required simplicity of approach—as Townsend explained to the Architects' Journal on 20 January 1955: "the architect has to design and organise so that buildings can be produced at the same cost as a builder's scheme providing the same accommodation".