Garden Royal / Heath Royal, Putney
Architect: Unknown
Year built: 1960s

I don’t know much about the history of these two developments in Putney other than that they look, to my untrained eye, a bit 1960s. Given the similarities between the two blocks – Garden Royal (orange frontage) and Heath Royal (dark grey frontage) – I assume that they were built as two phases of the same development at around the same time.

Each of Garden Royal and Heath Royal consist of three perfectly cuboid four-storey blocks angled around some nicely kept gardens and rather suburban-looking garages. Whilst the development is evidently a 1960s build with vaguely retro stylings, there is a distinct absence of design flourishes or interest: I don’t think either block would warrant being part of the Open House scheme, for instance.

Each flat within Garden Royal and Heat Royal is a split level duplex spanning either the ground and first or second and third floors with a layout reminiscent of the dream flat that I visited in the Golden Lane Estate last year (kitchen and living room downstairs, open staircase in living room leading to two bedrooms and the bathroom upstairs). I viewed two flats with exactly this layout: one in Garden Royal and another in Heath Royal.

Both flats were attractive and bright, with the original parquet flooring in the living rooms and the open staircase providing an element of architectural interest. I liked the flats enough to put an offer in on one of them but ended up having to withdraw for reasons that I won’t go into here. As far as I’m aware, at least one of the two flats is still on the market for £475,000.