Creswick, Wordsworth, Coleridge Walks
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To the south of Addison Way, Creswick Walk (1911) is an attractive cul-de-sac designed by G L Sutcliffe (his first in the Suburb). The architecture is characteristically fussier than Parker's, but Sutcliffe had a sure sense of scale in terms of the relationship between families. A short asymmetrical terrace on each side is followed by a pair of three-sided courtyards in whitewashed brick, the end of the cul-de-sac being closed by another three-sided block, with four small hipped roofs as the only strong accent.

A footpath leads from this end to Hogarth Hill, a steep road connecting Willifield and Addison Ways, with more roughcast cottages by Parker and Unwin (1911). Neatly opposite the Creswick Walk footpath there opens off Hogarth Hill another cul-de-sac, Wordsworth Walk (1910-11) by Herbert Welch. Welch, then aged twenty-seven, never did better than in these white walled terraces, with delicate arched hood moulds to the windows enclosing tympana patterned in brick. Only the half-timbered gable at the end now seems self-conscious - Unwin, in spite of his medievalist leanings, was influenced by current American ideals of the "City Beautiful" and liked to provide strong accents symmetrically at the end of each axis.

From the end of Wordsworth Walk, footpaths lead in one direction to Willifield Green and in another to Welch's second cul-de-sac of 1911, Coleridge Walk, a similar design, but this time in brown stock brick, with dressings of dark red brick. Welch's terraces are carefully positioned, first projected forward, then set back, so as to constantly vary the frontage, providing an even smaller sense of identity within each part of each cul-de-sac. There are some tile-hung bay windows, as well as rusticated quoins and the same relieving arches over the windows. Welch had a greater preference for symmetry than Barry Parker.

Where Coleridge Walk joins it, Addison Way has slightly later terraces by Parker and Unwin with more Georgianising detail, including arched tympana over the ground floor windows.



 
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