10 Dorchester Drive
The house in 2008
General information
Type	House
Architectural style	Modernist, art deco
Location	Herne Hill
Address	10 Dorchester Drive
Town or city	London
Country	England
Coordinates	51°27′31″N 0°05′52″W / 51.458577°N 0.097780°W / 51.458577; -0.097780
Construction started	1935
Completed	1936 (1936)
Technical details
Floor count	2
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Leslie H. Kemp and Frederick E. Tasker
Designations	Building Preservation Notice (from February 2022) Grade II listed (from June 2022)

10 Dorchester Drive is a 1935 art deco style house in Herne Hill, south London, England, designed by Kemp and Tasker, with the builders Messrs Morrell of Bromley. In February 2022, an emergency Building Preservation Notice was put in place, as the building was threatened with imminent demolition. In June the same year it was Grade II listed.

In 1934, Leslie H. Kemp and Frederick E. Tasker won the Ideal House Competition, to design a home for the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition.^[1][2] Their design used the moderne branch of the art deco style that was then in vogue.^[2] A mock-up "show home" was constructed for the 1935 exhibition, at Olympia, London, in a display called "Village of Tomorrow".^[1]

One feature of the design was that the two downstairs reception rooms could be combined with the hallway, to feature as a ballroom.^[3][4]

The five-bedroom^[3] house on Dorchester Drive, constructed in 1935–1936 by the speculative builders and twin brothers Cyril and Stanley Morrell (born 1908),^[a][2][4] is one of only three examples of the design built.^[b][2] The building was constructed with its plan at an angle to the street, rather than the more usual parallel alignment.^[4] It retains several of its original features, including the bathroom fittings,^[1] iron staircase, Crittall windows and a roof terrace.^[3]

The house was placed on the market in September 2021,^[3][5] having been owned by one family for 60 years.^[1] Once it was sold, noting the attractiveness of its site to property developers and consequently the likely threat of its demolition, The Twentieth Century Society, the Herne Hill Society, and several individuals campaigned for its preservation.^[1] On 24 February 2022, Lambeth Council issued a Building Preservation Notice, preventing alteration or demolition, on pain of criminal prosecution.^[1] The order would have remained in effect for six months,^[1][6] but in June 2022, the house was Grade II listed, giving it permanent protection.^[7]

The house was the home of psychologist Hans Eysenck from 1960 until his death in 1997,^[2][4] and remained occupied by his widow Sybil until she died in 2020.^[4]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 10 Dorchester Drive.

• Ryan, Deborah S. (1997). The ideal home through the 20th century. London: Hazar. ISBN 9781874371816.
• Larmour, Paul (2009). Free State Architecture : Modern Movement Architecture in Ireland, 1922-1949. Kinsale: Gandon Editions. ISBN 978-0948037726.
• "One of the most unusual houses in Herne Hill ..." Fawnbrake News. 26 September 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2022.