22-24 Canberra Road, Gretna

22-24 Canberra Road, Gretna

A row of five semi-detached double villas, built in 1916 as part of the munitions workers' housing programme during the First World War. Designed by the renowned town planner Raymond Unwin, with Courtenay M Crickmer acting as resident architect.

The buildings are constructed of red brick—an unusual residential material for Scotland—arranged as 2-storey structures. The roadside elevations are predominantly six bays (3 + 3), except for the central block at numbers 22 and 24, which displays an eight-bay elevation and bears a 1916 datestone. The end blocks at numbers 14, 16, 30 and 32 feature outer bays that are shallow and advanced, with tripartite windows. Doorways and porches are set into the flanks of the buildings.

The ground floor windows are set within segmental arches. The original glazing consisted of small-paned timber sash and case windows, though by 1987 most had been replaced with modern alternatives. Number 28 has a canted window, and number 32 has been painted.

The roofs are piended slate. A notable architectural feature is the prominent chimney stacks, which are ribbed with decorative brick copes. End and shared central axial stacks rise prominently from the roof line.

The buildings form part of the planned Garden City townscape of Gretna, which was developed to accommodate workers at the nearby munitions factory that stretched nine miles along the Solway and produced Cordite explosives. Each house is set back from the pavement with its own private garden, conforming to Garden City principles. The gently curving street line is characteristic of Gretna's informal town planning. The township included churches, a dance hall, school, cinema and other community facilities alongside the housing. After the war, the munitions factory was dismantled, though the residential core of Gretna survives as an important record of early 20th-century social housing design.