The architect Geoffry Powell was a founder member of the renowned practice Chamberlin, Powell & Bon. He was one of the trio of lecturers from Kingston Polytechnic who got together in the early 1950s after they won the competition to design the Golden Lane Estate in the City of London. The success of the scheme led to their most high-profile commission, the adjacent Barbican Estate, which was built in the 1960s.

The Rossdale House is the only private residence ever designed by the practice. It was designed in 1958 and built the following year. The client was a Dr Rossdale and his wife, who had a grown-up son.

It has featured in a number of publications, including the book ‘Houses’ by Theo Crosby and Monica Pidgeon:

“The core of the house is built of dark charcoal grey Uxbridge flint bricks, and these are exposed not only externally but also internally around the inner living room. The surrounding part is of timber frame, well insulated both sides with fibreboard, plastered internally and with weatherboarding externally. The weatherboarding has two coats of creosote of natural dark brown colour, and the timber frames, windows, fascias etc. are painted gloss white to provide a sharp definition. The projected parts of the house are supported on 3in. diameter steel tubes set on concrete footings.”

The house was featured as an example of modern architecture, in fact the only private building, in a 1992 booklet produced by English Heritage entitled ‘A Change of Heart – English Architecture Since the War, a policy for protection’.

More recently, it was published in Elain Harwood’s ‘England – A guide to post-war listed buildings’:

“Geoffry Powell of Chamberlin, Powell & Bon… designed this house. The firm’s only private house, it adopted the plan, popular around 1960, of setting all the living accommodation in a single storey over garages. A brick core rises through the centre, culminating in a central clerestory, and it is surrounded on the first floor by a timber-framed structure, clad in weatherboarding and reached by an external stair… The expression of materials and plan is intelligent and logical. As Ian Nairn said, the architects ‘saw the problem fresh, and the result is delightful’.”