Meadway
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Both Linnell Close and Hampstead Way open into Meadway, another important approach to the central area, which begins with one of Unwin's "gates", marking the approach to the Suburb from Hoop Lane. Meadway Gate was apparently intended to be more elaborate than it is, as The Builder of 1912 regrets the abandonment of Parker and Unwin's original design for it. Nonetheless there is a handsome symmetrical arrangement of roughcast houses, four on each side, forming a crescent and overlooking a small garden. Through this runs the pedestrian access to Meadway beneath a pergola of the kind familiar from Lutyens's country house gardens.

Meadway itself begins on the left with number 1, another house by Matthew Dawson, an excellent asymmetrical composition with a big brick chimney, an elaborately designed lead gutter placed low down, and also Dawson's usual lintels and voussoirs of pantiles-on-edge. Number 2 opposite is notable for its tall oriel window lighting a two-storey livingroom-cum-studio.

The junction of Meadway and Hampstead Way was intended to be marked by a splendid romantic group of houses design by Baillie Scott. Of these, numbers 6-10 Meadway (and number 22 Hampstead Way) were built, and although later garages have somewhat disturbed the composition, it is still possible to appreciate Baillie Scott's uncanny skill in creating miniature outdoor spaces peculiar to each house, between kitchen wings projecting forward from a main spine of continuous roofs. The windows have his characteristically tender proportions and there is a specially delightful composition towards Linnell Close where the building lies well below the surface of the road.

Opposite is another particularly good informal group in roughcast, numbers 7-13 Meadway, designed by Michael Bunney in his earlier "free style" before he turned to Georgian; number 13 was his own. The houses are joined skilfully by linking walls and garages. At the junction with Heathgate, the only other informal accent is an excellent house of 1911 by Curtis Green, number 20. Before turning to the monumental Banker's Georgian for which he is best remembered, Curtis Green was famous as a draughtsman (on the staff of The Builder), with an understanding of composition and texture almost equal to Lutyens. Number 20 has a thin gable over the entrance, recessed back into the main roof which runs parallel to the road, with weatherboarding at the Heathgate end and big chimneys behind.

Otherwise Heathgate is a prelude to the spire of St. Jude's which closes the vista. Numbers 15-21 Meadway are in the monumental grey-and-red neo-Georgian of Lutyens's central squares and link directly to the Lutyens terraces of the upper part of Heathgate. All this seems to have been freely interpreted from Lutyens's designs, first by Sutcliffe (c 1914-15) and later by Soutar. Number 16 Heathgate, facing down Meadway from the bend, is a clean and competent match for Lutyens, by Soutar's assistant Badcock. It diagonally balances numbers 15-17 by Welch.



 
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