1, Leycroft Close

A private house built in 1966, designed by Walter Greaves ARIBA, MSIA, with construction overseen by E Morton Wright RIBA.

Construction and Design

The house is built of brown Wealden brick with painted timber details. The flat roof, which slopes in a single direction (mono-pitch), is covered in bituminised felt. The building is divided into three main sections: a central single-storey, split-level living area, a two-storey bedroom wing to the south, and a single-storey service area to the north.

Exterior

The front elevation presents a striking brickwork screen that steps down in height from two storeys on the far left to single storey. A single window punctuates the brickwork. To the left of this window, a deep recess cuts into the elevation, screening the south-facing front door and revealing the steep slope of the mono-pitch roof through a triangular window. Within this recess, the walls are timber and glass. To the right, the elevation recesses again, with a set-back timber garage door facing east and a service door facing north, screened by brickwork.

The rear elevation is staggered, showing a much greater balance between brick and glazing. Sections of brickwork are cut away and replaced with carefully detailed timber panels filled with fixed and opening windows and shiplap boarding. The living room extends into the garden with a fully-glazed south-west corner and French windows. The bedroom wing and garage are set back on either side. The garage originally had a second large door at the rear, which has been carefully replaced with glazing and a smaller door.

Throughout the house, the white-painted window joinery is distinctive, featuring horizontal subdivision, top-opening lights, and deep-sectioned members—details typical of Greaves' work.

Interior Layout

The living area is largely open-plan, composed of interconnected spaces: the dining area, living room, and study, all opening off a loosely defined hall. Despite its compact layout, the well-considered plan and carefully controlled sight lines create light and space balanced with a sense of enclosure.

The study, located to the left of the hallway and intended to double as an occasional spare bedroom, appears almost as a large alcove off the hall. It can be entirely screened by sliding timber doors. The kitchen and dining area are divided by a full-height part-glazed unit and a sliding timber door.

The client had requested a living room with greater than average ceiling height. This was achieved by exploiting the sloping ground: the ceiling height remains constant from front to back, while the floor level in the living room is lowered to achieve extra height. The ceilings are panelled in narrow pine strips, with curtain track sunk flush into the panelling over the windows. A simple horizontal timber balustrade protects the difference in floor level between the dining area and hall, and the living room.

The bedroom wing is reached from the main entrance lobby. A short flight of stairs leads down to the lower bedroom and up to the master bedroom. The master bedroom is accessed from a small landing and overlooks the garden. The room narrows into a dressing area leading to a bathroom, also accessible from a second door on the landing—an arrangement known as a 'Jack and Jill' layout. The lower bedroom has an identical layout to the master bedroom, though the master bedroom has additional cupboards built in under the eaves of the roof.

To the north, the kitchen leads into a lobby, also accessible from outside via the service door. This lobby connects to the garage and utility area. The utility area is now screened from the main garage space with lightweight partitioning, and the garage is used as a bedroom, though the original garage fabric remains unaltered.

Fixtures and Fittings

The house retains extensive built-in furniture and fittings, with detailing and finish that is unpretentious but consistently high quality. Many of the original brushed-metal light switches and sockets remain.

The full-height unit between the kitchen and dining room features a row of timber drawers with shelves above. The shelves are enclosed by sliding glass doors, and both drawers and shelves can be accessed from either side. The unit was designed to contain noise from the built-in labour-saving appliances that Morton Wright incorporated into the kitchen, while maintaining visual connection between the two spaces.

The original fitted kitchen units remain, along with some of the worktop and several fittings and appliances. Other appliances have been removed or renewed, but the design integrity of the kitchen remains intact.

Throughout the living area, simple retractable spotlights are sunk into the ceiling, with others mounted on walls to provide focused, directional lighting. In the living room, low-level fitted units hang on the walls, providing storage without disrupting sight lines into other parts of the open-plan space. The client was a great lover of music, and some of these units were designed to house his stereo equipment and records.

Within the bedroom dressing areas, simple wall-hung dressing tables are positioned to one side, with full-height cupboards with metal louvred doors to the other. Some of the original bathroom fixtures and fittings remain.

History

Number 1 Leycroft Close was designed for Morris Shapira, a lecturer in the Department of English and American Literature at the University of Kent. Moving to Canterbury for this post, Shapira purchased the modestly-sized plot in a quiet close near the university and commissioned Greaves (1925-2004) to design a modern, functional house. When Greaves moved from Blackheath to Sussex in 1968, he handed the project to E Morton Wright. The house had already received planning permission, and Morton Wright designed the details, produced the working drawings, and oversaw the project to completion.

Walter Greaves was a pupil of Peter Moro (1911-1998) at the Regent Street Polytechnic, London, during the 1940s. Moro was associate architect to Sir Leslie Martin on the Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London, which opened in 1951. Moro invited several of his pupils to assist with the project, including Greaves (most of the published perspectives of the Festival Hall interior are his). Greaves went on to work for Moro, and an opportunity to work on a project for an old client of Moro's enabled him to establish his own practice (and eventually to marry the client's daughter). Greaves was a meticulous designer and detailer, known for his exceptional draughtsmanship. He never employed staff and his limited body of work includes only a small number of private houses. Greaves lived in Blackheath, London during the 1960s, where he built several houses, including one for Leslie Bilsby, a prominent local builder and member of the pioneering Span development company. In 1968 Greaves and his family moved to Sussex, where he continued to work until his retirement in 2001.

Morton Wright (1932-) worked initially for the firm Richard Shepherd Robson before starting his own practice in Greenwich in 1965. He undertook commissions covering various building types, including school extensions and church conversions, as well as completing another of Greaves' projects: 24-26 Morden Road Mews, Blackheath (1962), another development of Leslie Bilsby's.

Significance

Number 1 Leycroft Close successfully embodies many characteristics found in the best architect-designed houses of the post-war period, while reflecting the spatial ingenuity and immaculate attention to detail of its architects. The interior and exterior remain substantially unaltered, testament to the building's quality and to the success of the design.