New homes in London: Greenwich's modern houses and flats in historic centre, with 'affordable rent' and shared-ownership options
A quarter of the new homes are for affordable rent and half are shared-ownership. The scheme is so elegant that you scarcely notice this golden British-brick addition to the handsome old street it stands in.
Smart shop units run along the pavement with housing above. Named The Gramercy Greenwich, it is on the borderline of the Unesco-protected town centre and only moments from Greenwich Docklands Light Railway station.
Clever architects understand that many people don’t want to live in shouty housing blocks, but instead want to feel part of a place, particularly a place as special as Greenwich.
Until the millennium, explains bptw director Alan Wright, the town was cut off from central London by its lack of public transport. A few buses staggered over the river.
Though old Greenwich is awash with 17th-century history, from Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House to Wren and Hawksmoor’s Royal Naval College and Wren’s Royal Observatory, plus fine 18th-century buildings and the 19th-century Cutty Sark, the area beyond the small centre was blighted by derelict dockland and dotted with grim housing blocks in roads you wouldn’t want to walk down. “Unsafe, unloved, and ripe for regeneration,” Wright declares.
All that changed when two DLR stations — Greenwich and Cutty Sark — opened in December 1999, linking the town to Canary Wharf, Tower Hill and Bank. In 2005, Laban dance centre opened. In the hinterland behind Creek Road, which runs from Deptford into the centre of old Greenwich, crossing Deptford Creek, came developer Bellway and then Galliard, which added a Waitrose.
In 2009 there was a long plot of land along Creek Road in 17 pieces, some owned by the local authority, some by housing association Family Mosaic. Like a jigsaw, the latter acquired the parcels and brought in bptw in 2010.
Housing associations must make money to build more affordable homes, so the architects proposed five open-market three-storey mews houses to the rear. As part of the deal, the Up the Creek Comedy Club was restored.
The new six-storey brick blocks of one-, two- and three-bedroom flats, plus some duplexes, hug the street front. The façade is flattish, while the back runs along a lane, with the boxy mews houses on the other side.
The planners agreed to the architects’ wish to mass closer than usual, which gives a medieval, sociable feeling. “And as much glass as possible,” says project architect Pete Woodford. All the flats are higher spec than the London Plan, with higher ceilings and more space. The stairways are airy with views across the city.
From the outside you can’t tell which flats are private, which is called “tenure blind”. Filigree sunscreens add interest. Disappointingly, the planners rejected the architects’ request to cobble the lane and plant trees — a missed opportunity for extra charm and style. Hopefully, the planners will come round in the future. Who doesn’t want trees?
‘I CAN’T BELIEVE I CAN WALK TO THE THAMES IN MINUTES’
Retired GP Phyllis Campbell moved into a private penthouse duplex on the fourth and fifth floor at The Gramercy Greenwich in September last year. The views are fabulous — from her big, south-facing terrace she can see the Royal Observatory one way and the London Eye the other.
Campbell, 72, raised her family in a big old house in Shooters Hill where she lived for 35 years and knew all her neighbours. “My friends teased me because I said I wasn’t moving anywhere without a back door.”
Her family eventually persuaded her to try it. From a five-bedroom house with one bathroom she now has three bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Her spacious living room with pale solid oak parquet floors and white walls is at the top, with its balcony. The bedrooms are below. The children and grandchildren all love it and so does Campbell.
She is working on her friends to move, too. “I couldn’t believe I could walk to the Thames in minutes, and am surrounded by the ever-changing sky, and birds. And the transport is amazing.”
She is fit and active, but all the duplex flats are “future-proofed” — designed so that a lift could be put in if ever one was needed.