The New Town.
Heelands
Summersgill to Ellisgill Courts off Langcliffe Drive, Local Centre and Sheltered Housing, Glowers Lane, Heelands, Milton Keynes was built in 1976 for the Milton Keynes Development Corporation
Architect: Henning Larsen
Executive UK architect: Peter Denny
The 268-unit housing for rent clustered around the southern edge of Langcliffe Drive represented an adherence to some of the early MK themes
- economic terrace forms;
- dense configuration set in expansive communal landscapes;
- communal areas and semi-communal areas at close quarters;
- shared, unallocated parking.
Most of the houses have front doors facing the courts. Parking is provided in a variety of locations close by and mostly overlooked by houses. Small private gardens front the courts. These are delineated sometimes with ‘all-weather’ hedges in the majority of cases with occasional masonry front walls to confirm and strengthen and maintain the public/private boundary, albeit in a way that emphasises the whole as a social unit.
There is a sense of Scandinavian vernacular with soft landscaping and coloured window casements (specified in three colours across the estate) bordered by white frames. The monopitch roofs provide emphatic roof planes for compositional unity but with Danish pantile coverings.
The buildings of the development have block-work walls finished in a two coat render, the top coat of which is a soft mix with vermiculite added for texture and insulation properties, finished with a brushed treatment derived from traditional Danish practice. This gives a patina that weathers attractively.
Whilst the majority of houses have retained their original appearance there is some erosion of detail and building over of gardens with extensions and conservatories.
This based on contribution from Roland Jeffery, Project Advisor at The Prince’s Regeneration Trust, here.
St Lawrence
In the 1990s an extension was built and a gallery was added to the North of the Tower of St Lawrence’s Church, The 1867 pews and wooden floor were removed, enabling flexible interior layouts.
Harry James Stammers (1902-69) career in glass began with an apprenticeship with James Powell & Sons, in conjunction with evening classes at Saint Martin’s School of Art. He stayed with Powells until 1943, when he joined J. Wippell & Co. in Exeter for a couple of years before setting up as an independent artist. In 1947 he was encouraged to relocate to York by the Dean of York Minster, Eric Milner-White, in order to revive the tradition of the York School of Glass Painting. He remained in York until 1960, before spending his final years in Bradwell. He designed the gates to St Lawrence on Vicarage Road.
Source: Henry Hinchcliffe, The stained glass windows of Harry Stammers, (Mindelph Press, 2016)
The physical features of the church were outlined by Ron Baxter in 2009, here
Sources:
English Heritage Listed Building 45800.
N. Pevsner, Buildings of England: Buckinghamshire. London 1960, 71-72.
N. Pevsner and E. Williamson, Buildings of England: Buckinghamshire. London 1960, 2nd ed. 1994, 511-12.
RCHME, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Buckingham. Volume 2 (north). London 1913, 68-69.
Victoria County History: Buckinghamshire. (1927), 287-88.