Description

TQ 3282 SW
627-0/3/10171

FANN STREET (east side)
Cuthbert Harrowing House

GV
II
Block of eighteen maisonettes. Design won in competition in 1952, built to revised designs 1954-56; competition winner Geoffry Powell, architects for built scheme Charnberlin, Powell and Bon. Ove Arup and Partners engineers; Wimpeys builders for the superstructure.

Pink brick crosswall construction (with pink mortar) with concrete floor and roof slabs, concrete balconies (now painted) and glass infill panels. Flat roof. Four storeys over basement stores. The maisonettes set in pairs along two rows, nine per pair of floors. Balconies to Fann Street elevation, the lower maisonettes with steps paved in quarry tiles leading down to shared garden. The flats reached from access galleries, the upper maisonettes via glazed end staircase, with secondary escape stair in penultimate bay of opposite end. Most maisonettes have two bedrooms, those either side of the escape stair have three.

On Fann Street elevation the cross walls project forward to give privacy to each maisonette, and the block reads as two terraces of houses, one on top of the other. Aluminium windows with timber facing to living room, some on ground floor behind balconies renewed. The aluminium system continues as the framework for the bright blue cladding panels set in bands under the windows. Upper floor bedroom windows project: set-back staircase windows to each unit on lower level; continuous bands of glazing and blue panels to top floor of upper maisonettes. Blue-clad projection to end maisonettes at rear of escape stair. Concrete balconies with steel rails. Brick piers to courtyard (entrance) side mask timber doors set in pairs. Access galleries with steel railings, wired glass balcony fronts on first and third floors serve fire escape balconies between bedrooms, those at end serve escape stairs. Fully glazed staircase at end, with storey-high panes set in timber frames, and monopitch roof set over top. Concrete
stairs expressed as a continuous floor slab on the sides of the building. Rubbish shute at rear (Fann Street) side, on the wall of which is mounted a three-dimensional plan of the estate. Original signs survive. Thomas Cuthbert Harrowing was the former chair of the Public Health Committee. To side, ramp leads to basement carpark.

Interiors with hardwood veneer floors, and glazed screens between kitchen and dining space. This combines with the double height of the stairwell to give a sense of greater spaciousness than is actually the case, for the dimensions of the units were restricted under reduced minimum standards introduced in 1951. Staircases with open treads increase this sense of airiness. On the lower level the staircases rise from within the living room, but those on upper floor rise from opposite the front door. Upstairs the upper levels have central bathrooms with clerestory glazing. Fitted cupboards and shelving of interest where they survive, though kitchen and bathroom fittings are not of special interest.

HISTORY AND ANALYSIS
The development and importance of the Golden Lane Estate is explained in the entry for Great Arthur House.

(City of London Corporation Record Office: Records of Competition, 1951-2, and surviving drawings.; Derek Bean: The Golden Lane Competition, Bartlett School MSc Thesis: 1987-; The Builder: 29 February 1952: 324-8; The Builder: 7 March 1952: 371-81; Architects' Journal: 20 March 1952: 354, 358-62; Architectural Design: July 1953: 190-4; Architectural Design: September 1956: 294-8; Architectural Review: June 1957: 415-26; Architects' Journal: 27 June 1957: 947-8;.The Builder: 15 November 1957: 850-6).

Listing NGR: TQ3220282040

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26272411

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)