HERITAGE STATEMENT Six Pillars House Crescent Wood Road Sydenham London SE26 1 Index: Section Content Page Number 1.0 Site History 3 1.1 Introduction 1.2 English Heritage Listing 1.3. Site Background 4 1.4 Proposal Summary 5 2.0 History and Heritage Assets 6 2.1 Crescent Wood Road 2.2 Dulwich Estate 2.3 Six Pillars House 3.0 Property History 7 3.1 Planning History 3.2 Historic Plans 3.3 Summary of Historic Alterations 8 4.0 Design Proposal 10 4.1 Proposal 4.2 Impact 11 4.3 Existing Drawings 12 4.4 Proposed Drawings 13 5.0 Planning Policy 16 5.1 Dulwich Estate Neighbourhood Plan 5.2 Southwark Local Plan: Listed Buildings 5.3 Southwark Local Plan: Conservation Area 17 6.0 Conclusions 18 7.0 Appendix 1 Photographic Survey 19 2 1 Site History 1.1 Introduction This Heritage Statement has been prepared in support of a full planning and listed building application for works at Six Pillars, Crescent Wood Road, London. Historical research from archival and secondary material and a site inspection have formed the justification for this proposed scheme. Six Pillars is widely regarded as one of the most important and successful examples of the Modern Movement in Great Britain. It was designed in 1932 by Valentine Harding and Tecton, a London-based architectural practice led by Berthold Lubetkin and became a Grade II* listed building in 1981. It is located adjacent to the Dulwich Estate in Sydenham, within the Dulwich Wood Conservation Area. Figure 1: Six Pillars Building Profile - The Modern House in England, F.R.S. Yorke 1.2 English Heritage Listing List Entry Number: 1385456 Listing Grade: II* County: Greater London Authority District: Southwark (London Borough) Date first listed: 16-Jan-1981 Statutory Address: SIX PILLARS, CRESCENT WOOD ROAD House. 1935. By Harding and Tecton. Stock brick and concrete. Named for the 6 cylindrical piers which support an overhanging first floor and divide the ground floor into 5 unequal bays. Central feature is a cylindrical brick stair shaft which rises to give access to a roof terrace and is seen through a balconied space in the tall concrete parapet. Concrete also the first floor and the canted, recessed ground- floor right bays which hold angled front door and a shaped, tapered seat. First floor has continuous strip of top glazing. More conventional windows of differing sizes in brick left section of ground floor. Brick garage extension at left. INTERIOR: severe, with detail deliberately suppressed. Stair well lit by a large 2-storey rear window. Figure 2: Six Pillars Front Elevation Photo 3 1.3 Site Background Six Pillars in Sydenham Hill, South London was originally built in 1935 for John Leakey, headmaster of Dulwich College Preparatory School. It was one of two houses designed by Tecton partner Val Harding Six Pillars is the only modernist house in its street, alongside more before his early death in 1940 (the other being his own family home at ordinary town houses or Victorian villas. Other notable residences Burnham Beeches, Bucks). along the street include Beltwood House, a Grade II* Listed three storey mansion built in 1851, and the Peckarmans Wood Development, It is conscientiously Corbusian in appearance, with pilotis and strip designed by Austin Vernon & Partners, and considered to be the finest windows on the street front, and an ensemble of terraces at the rear. of all the 1960s Dulwich houses. Figure 3: Six Pillars Front Elevation Photo - The Modern House in England, F.R.S. Yorke The property has seen one major renovation it its life, by architect John Winter and Associates in 1996, comprising concrete repairs, replacement of the rotten wooden windows with aluminium, redecoration inside and out, as well as resurfacing of the terrace and roof, amongst various colour changes. Most significantly was the addition of a second garage of pre-fabricated construction. 4 Figure 4: Crescent Wood Road 1.4 Proposal Summary The forthcoming proposal is based on the advice and approval of Southwark Council Planning Authority by way of pre-application advice from Catherine Jeater (head conservation officer), Historic England, the Access C20 Society and also the Dulwich Society. All internal layout is determined by the DDA guidelines for spatial The proposed alterations to the property entail construction of a arrangement and access for maximum mobility within the space. sensitively designed, well insulated and comfortable temporary addition Access to the extension will be via an entrance flush with the existing to the house, incorporating a kitchen, bedroom, lounge and accessible ground level, and access to the main property remains unchanged. bathroom. In light of exceptional circumstances, the property must accommodate the client’s son who was recently paralysed from the chest down and is now in a wheelchair, and the additional requirements of allowing him to be cared for at home with specialist living space including necessary accessible equipment that will allow him some freedom and autonomy alongside a live-in carer. The proposal is considered an immediate and necessary alteration to the property, providing a means to an end in assisting with the client’s son’s recovery over the next 5-10 years. Amendments to the original building are minor, with three new openings for passage of a wheelchair into the disabled bathroom and rehabilition gym from the proposed extension. Due to the existing structural layout of the building and ancillary nature of the propsed scheme, no structural elements are affected by the proposed works. Materially, the scheme uses painted white render, London stock brick and painted metal windows to match existing. 5 2 History and Heritage Assets 2.1 Crescent Wood Road At the inception of Crescent Wood Road, along the ridge of Sydenham 2.3 Six Pillars House Hill, there was a conscious effort made to preserve the former common and woods but also to create generous size building plots where In 1933 Valentine Harding, a member of Berthold Lubetkin’s Tecton houses would not impair the views. practice, was commissioned to build a house on the Dulwich Estate for the headmaster of Dulwich College Preparatory School. The Managing director and surveyor to the Crystal Palace Company, estate’s trustees were anxious that the house not be ‘injurious to the Francis Fuller, had the intention to build on the site as part of his amenities of the neighbourhood’ and initially objected to his radically Sydenham Place Estate, and leased 105 acres of land on the west side modernist design in the Georgian and Victorian setting. They eventually of Sydenham Hill from the Dulwich Estate. consented but insisted on a location at the very boundary of the estate and only after London stock brick was incorporated into the By the 1930’s, the houses he built were too large for less affluent construction of the facade. single families, the cachet of living in the area had long since gone and the houses were mostly let out into flats. During WW2 many were empty and let by the Dulwich Estate to store the furniture from bomb damaged or abandoned houses. Some of the houses themselves were bomb damaged, left unrepaired and suffered deterioration. Of the original houses, only number.1 and 3 remain, No. 5 was replaced in the late 1930s by the current house on the site, while the remainder were demolished in the late 1950s and early 1960s for the construction of Peckarmans Wood. 2.2 Dulwich Estate The Dulwich Estate, previously the Estates Governors of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift at Dulwich, is a registered charity in England, one of the successors to the historic charity Edward Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift that was founded in 1619. It owns the freehold of around 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) in Dulwich, South London, including a number of private roads and a tollgate. The estate properties range from Regency and 19th century buildings to distinguished modernist 1960s buildings. 6 Figure 5: Dulwich Estate Map 3 Property History 3.2 Historic Plans 3.1 Planning History REF: 00/AP/0311 25.04.2000 GRANTED Details relating to Georgian wired cast glass condition 3 of planning permission dated 9.3.99 Reg No.9801838 for erection of extension at rear of garage, replacement of windows and terrace screens at rear REF: 99/AP/1036 15.09.1999 GRANTED Details relating to the glazing and frames condition 2 of planning permission dated 9.3.99 for erection of extension at rear of garage, alterations and minor works. REF: 98/AP/1838 09.03.1999 GRANTED Erection of extension at rear of garage, replacement of windows & terrace screens at rear, replacement dwarf wall at front of property plus other minor works. REF: 95/AP/0418 29.06.1995 GRANTED External and internal restoration works, including windows, and alterations to 2 window openings. Figure 6: Original Plans - The Modern House in England, F.R.S. Yorke 7 3.3 Summary of Historic Alterations Figure 7: Original Front Elevation - The Modern House in England, F.R.S. Yorke Extension to rear of garage Additional garage Glass railings Figure 8: Existing Plan Figure 9: Existing Elevations 8 Figure 10: Photo of Living Room, Dell & Wainwright, 1934 Figure 11: Photo of Central Hallway, Dell & Wainwright, 1934 9 4 Proposals 4.1 Proposal Internally the extension allows a bedroom for the disabled occupant, a The drawings show a proposal for the sensitive addition of an living room for necessary guests, a shower room and a small kitchen accessible extension to the property in place of the second non-original with rise and fall worktop for ease of use from a wheelchair.