Listed building campaigns

The Environment Trust works to identify buildings that are at risk either because of their fragile condition or because they are seen as standing in the way of development. Where a building is of historic interest or character, and especially where it has significance within a group or landscape, we gather advice and research its history to put together an illustrated report to send to English Heritage as an application for listing. English Heritage issues a listing if the case is well enough made and the building merits it.

Over the past few years, the Trust has achieved success with several buildings that make a vital contribution to the borough's diversity and heritage.

Lichfield Court, Richmond: 1930s apartment block

With 20th Century Society, successful application: Grade II listing

Built in 1935 by Bertram Carter, the development comprises two large blocks of flats located on an irregular site off Sheen Road. The blocks themselves are arranged around courtyards and accessed from a driveway, which runs between the two buildings through a wrought iron gate.

Lichfield Court remains in excellent condition with a high level of consistent detailing throughout. The ground levels of the street frontage accommodate shop premises and there are five types of flats within. The apartment blocks were positioned to provide a southerly aspect to the largest possible number of flats and only a small proportion face north. An excellent Art Deco entrance foyer remains completely intact.

The elevations of this steel-framed structure are faced with red coloured brick from which the white-stuccoed reinforced concrete balconies are cantilevered. Lichfield Court is streamlined with these bands of white balconies alternating with fenestration curved at the corners of the blocks: highly reminiscent of the design of an ocean liner, which the architecture of this era emulated.

The balconies are an important feature of this development on both a private and a public scale: each flat, whether generously proportioned or more modest in size, has its own enclosed section arranged on the outside perimeter of the building's envelope. Perhaps more interesting for an apartment block of this date is the use of balconies as an external walkway.

Langham House Close, Ham (by architects Stirling and Gowan)

The flats are already listed Grade II but it is the view of the Twentieth Century Society, supported by the Environment Trust, that the distinctive interiors that remain justify the addition of a star to the listing.

Stirling and Gowan went into partnership in 1955 to design two projects: Langham House Close and a house on the Isle of Wight. Shortly after these were completed, they began work on the Engineering Building at the University of Leicester, a project that made them internationally famous.

The architects drew on various influences for the design of Langham House Close – the Dutch De Stijl movement, 19th-century industrial architecture, Le Corbusier's Maisons Jaoul – but whatever the source, they introduced a tough new aesthetic of raw concrete and unadorned brickwork to British architecture that was a million miles from the Festival of Britain whimsies popular at the time.

Richmond Central Library

Successful: Grade II listing

The DCMS, in granting the listing referred to the impressive top-lit interior space framed by a cast-iron arcade, the dignified gothic facade, and the group value with other listed buildings on Richmond Green

Clifton Lodge

In support of LBRuT Historic Buildings team and English Heritage, successful application: Grade II listing

Poulett Boathouse, Thames Eyot

In support of LBRuT Historic Buildings Team, application ongoing

The Environment Trust takes a special interest in the River Thames and buildings that reflect the history of boating and recreational use of river. We have opposed the loss of several boathouses and boatyards, and we are concerned that so few examples now remain of the wet boathouse that used to be such a familiar sight along the river. On the stretch between Richmond Lock and Teddington Lock, we are aware of only two, with a further one in a derelict state.

Poulett boathouse is a rarity in that its facade is built of stone with classical details, and its roof is a brick vault. It forms a fine culmination to the balustrading running in front of Thames Eyot. Both have been neglected over many years.

United Reformed Church, Richmond Green

Successful: Grade II

Langholm Lodge

Successful: Grade II

Terrace Gardens Hut, Richmond

Successful: Grade II