Barons Down Housing, Lewes. Phippen, Randall and Parkes, Architects

In 1962, when I went to the Architectural Association, School of Architecture to further my studies, my first-year tutor was Peter Phippen.

Peter, who was at the time working for the LCC, was in the process of setting up his own practice with his friends Peter Randall and David Parkes (PRP).  They had just won their first job, a housing scheme at the Ryde, Hatfield and when Peter realised that I could draw a straight line and knew something about building construction (I had been working for two years for Dalgliesh and Pullen and Eric Lyons) he employed me as the practice’s first assistant.  I then worked for the practice on and off during my time at the AA and for a year after I finished the course in 1969.

One of a number of projects that I worked on during my time at the AA was a housing project at Barons Down in Lewes which I visited during my recent trip to Brighton and Hove, my first visit since the project was completed in 1967.

The practice utilised contour planning and timber frame construction for the first time at Barons Down.  The development took the form of a number of terraces built along the contours and the steep slope (1:6) allowed the ground floor living rooms of the upper terraces to look over the roofs of the terrace below.  Parking and garages were located on the more gently sloping northern part of the site and there is a small children’s play area in the centre of the site. 

To comply with the newly established Housing Corporation’s cost limits and to maintain the required density, conventional medium and narrow frontage two-storey house designs were used throughout with timber cladding to front and rear elevations, continuous strip glazing to the first floor, large windows to the living rooms on the ground floor and brickwork gable end walls.

The client at Barons Down was a housing society funded by the Housing Corporation through an early form of shared equity.  The client and PRP were approached by a contractor, Walter Llewellyn Ltd, with a proposal to use their newly imported Quickbild timber frame system for constructing the houses.  The factory assembled floor and roof panels provided a great deal of flexibility in planning and allowed PRP to develop new three-, four- and five-person house types using a range of frontage widths and house depths.

The first floor and roof loads were carried by the timber-framed party walls and the front and rear walls could therefore be constructed of lightweight timber framing with horizontal shiplap boarding externally and continuous glazing between the party walls.  Very cheap, overburnt bricks were used for the end flank walls, garden walls and retaining walls and these provided a rich texture at a very low-cost but gave the bricklayers many problems in laying them due to their uneven size and shape.

The terraces step down the hillside with a number of external staircases between the housing blocks that lead from the access road at the bottom to the housing at the top of the site.  Access to the houses is from paths that run along the contours situated at the rear of the terraces with a small, planted area in front of each house and each house has a private garden at the front.  The whole site was landscaped and heavily planted and 65 years later the trees are fully grown, the planting has matured and the landscaping is being well maintained.  The many steps up the site are in good condition, the grass is being cut and the trees and shrubs are being looked after,

Unfortunately, the houses themselves are generally not in such good condition.  It would appear that the responsibility for maintaining the houses has now been devolved to the individual householders and some houses are being well maintained but many others are in need of repairs.  The garages in particular are in very bad condition with fascia boards and up-and-over doors that need replacement.  All of this is in contrast to the flats at Park Gate in Hove which are being looked after by a committee of owners and which are being very well maintained.

More details of PRP’s housing schemes can be seen in ‘Place and Home, the search for better housing’ by PRP Architects, published by black dog publishing.

Photos of Barons Down housing can be seen in the photo gallery below.

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Architecture in Developing Countries: A Resource

The design and construction of appropriate, low-cost buildings for education and health in rural areas of the developing world.

Nigel Wakeham is an architect who lived for 23 years in Southern and West Africa and the SW Pacific working on education, health and other projects. He has since worked for over 20 years as a consultant for national governments and agencies such as the World Bank, DFID, ADB and AfDB on the implementation of the construction components of education and health projects in many countries in the developing world.​

​The objective of this website will be to provide the benefit of more than 45 years of experience of working in developing countries to architects and other construction professionals involved in the design and construction of appropriate, low-cost buildings for education and health. It will provide reference material from the projects that Nigel has worked on and technical information on the design, construction and maintenance of educational and health facilities and other relevant topics and these will be added to from time to time.

I am happy to be contacted by anyone requiring further information on any of the projects or resources referred to in this website or by anyone wishing to discuss work possibilities.

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