The Martinswood Estate was built in the early 1970’s. Martinswood is in the Pin Green area of Stevenage which is to the North East of the town.
The Estate comprises 12 houses; 174 to 192 Mildmay Road with 1 and 2 St Michael’s Court, and two small blocks of flats; St Michael’s Court and Hellebore Court.
Two of the houses, 174 and 176, are on one of the side spurs of Mildmay Road. In common with many of the “New Town” areas of Stevenage most houses are arranged so that their front doors open on to networks of pedestrian only pathways. The back gardens and garages exit on to service roads or spur roads off a main road. This is not so for the Martinswood Estate. The front doors of 174 and 176 open on to the Mildmay Road spur road. The remainder of the houses face on to two sections of private road. 178 to 192 are accessed from the Mildmay Road spur. 1 and 2 St Michaels Court are accessed from Sandown Road.
A small map of the site can be found on the here..
The two blocks of flats, Hellebore Court and St Michael’s Court, are identical in construction. Each block comprises 12 flats (1 to 12 Hellebore and 3 to 14 St Michael’s). These are laid out on three floors with 4 flats on each floor. There are 3 different sizes of flats in the blocks.
- 1 Studio flat / Bedsit on the ground floor.
- 6 Single bedroom flats.
- 5 Two bedroom flats.
In addition to the flats themselves each block has :-
- A central stairwell / atrium with a large skylight in the roof giving a light airy feel.
- A discrete shared drying area in the communal gardens.
- A number of shared storage cupboards (4 cupboards are shared between 3 flats each.)
- A communal bin room and recycling centre.
- The original layout included a shared drying room with coin fed electrically heated cupboards to dry laundry in. However these had to be decommissioned due to issues with the heaters no longer meeting modern safety standards.
Entry to the flats is controlled via an entry phone system.
The flats are situated in communal gardens with ground floor flats having access to the gardens via French windows which open on the gardens.