1-16 Coleridge Court

Block of sixteen flats built 1954-6 by Eric Lyons for Bargood Estates Ltd, subsequently Span Developments Ltd. Geoffrey Paulson Townsend was developer and G Scoble project architect, with Wates as builders. The building stands at Parkleys, Ham Common.

The construction uses brick end and partition walls, concrete, tile hanging and Eternit blocks, with flat felted roofs and brick stacks. The block follows an 'H'-plan with three storeys, containing four flats per floor accessed via a centre entrance and large stairwell. A two-storey projection to the left of the entrance front contains four flats with their own central entrance and stairs.

The three-storey block presents an entrance front with four fully glazed bays set in metal panes, with the open entrance to the right side. The ground floor is masked by a covered timber walkway bearing the block's name. Concrete lattice ventilation panels feature in the sides, and the rear centre façade comprises a tripartite composition of such panels. The flank walls display continuous horizontal glazing in timber frames.

The four-bay side elevations are designed so that principal rooms are denoted on the first and second floors by groups of three bays: each group has two deeper windows with window boxes (divided at sill level) and one window per pair with top opening. The ground floor alternates between three windows, one with French doors, then two with sill rail. Tile hanging divides each storey.

The two-storey wing extends five bays, divided by exposed ends of brick crosswalls. Both façades feature full-width windows of three square panes per bay, some with top opening casements, with tile hanging between storeys. The central entrance displays large plate glass windows divided at sill level, with original lettering and numbering on this band. To the rear is the ground-floor entrance-way and a vertical staircase window of two panes serving the first floor, with louvres to both storeys. Other bays mirror this composition around the centre: the front elevation has two deeper windows in inner bays (divided at sill level with window boxes) and blind outermost windows; the rear has blind innermost windows, then a tripartite composition with central top-opening casement and blind windows in the end bays.

The entrance hall to flats 1-4 contains an open well staircase with red-brown terrazzo stairs and steel balustrade with timber panels to the first flight and landing. The entrance hall to flats 5-16 has terrazzo floors and steel balustrades. The interiors of flats originally featured timber floors, though these have not been inspected.

In front of the building stands a line of distinctive posts forming part of the planning of Parkleys.

Eric Lyons and Geoffrey Townsend first met in the late 1930s and renewed their partnership after wartime service. They developed several select private schemes in south-west London and the north Surrey borders until 1954, when Townsend established himself as a developer and relinquished his RIBA membership. Coleridge Court represents their first mature work and their first as Span Developments Ltd. It was built on the site of a nursery, and the blocks were carefully positioned to preserve existing trees. The nursery stock and its gardener were absorbed into the development. The estate was laid out as a series of cul-de-sacs with taller blocks marking distinctive 'points' within a grid of lower development. The combination of two and three-storey blocks is distinctive to Parkleys, as is the use of brick and tile hanging, a material palette subsequently repeated in later Span works, particularly at Blackheath. The three-storey blocks at Parkleys, with their open concrete panels, represented Lyons's most convincing exploration of the contemporary style.

Parkleys was developed for first-time buyers, and Span was among the first companies to promote the endowment mortgage. The estate also pioneered Span's system of residents' management companies, which has maintained most of their developments in exceptional condition. Each leaseholder contributes to funding paid maintenance staff and serves as a member of the management company running the estate. Lyons was admired for bridging the gap between speculative work and the creativity his generation of architects typically found only in the public sector. As the Architectural Review observed 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." The close partnership with a sympathetic developer enabled Lyons to pursue his own ideas in materials, layout and design, yet the blocks had to remain simple. As Townsend told 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."