Barbican Living
Description of Willoughby House
Willoughby House (completed in April 1971) is a terrace block which forms the eastern edge of the Barbican Estate. Beyond is Moor Lane. At the back, Willoughby House overlooks some 1960s commercial buildings and the spectacular Britannic Tower. At the front, it overlooks the lake past the plastic domes of the Brandon Mews houses. Willoughby House connects Speed and Andrewes Houses and it contains 148 flats and maisonettes. There are 6 storeys of flats with penthouse maisonettes above. The flats are numbered 101 - 124, 201 - 204, 301 - 344, 401 - 404, 501 - 544, 601 - 604, 701 - 724.
Willoughby Highwalk (the section of the podium surrounding Willoughby House) is exceptionally well served with ornamental boxes of flowers and bushes. At the back of the house, there are attractive log boxes full of shrubs and bushes. At the front, the boxes have an exotic Torquay look, with palm trees and pretty flowers in the base. At the Andrewes House end, at podium level, there is a police office, where the police hold surgeries every second Wednesday of the month from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and every last Sunday of the month from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
Corridors run from one end of the block to the other, with lifts and stairs at either end. There is a central stairwell and lift as well. The flats' entrance doors are all on one side of the corridor on floors 1, 3 and 5. These doors are unlike those in any of the other buildings. They all have glass panels with wire in them, which I believe is ludicrously called 'Georgian glass', but which I associate with primary school classrooms. Clearly everyone would prefer the more usual wooden door, because there is not one door which is not covered completely by heavy curtain, blinds, or Penguin books. The woodwork is generally painted blue. The car park is on several levels – 01, 02 and 03.
A particular peculiarity is that the lowest level of flats seems to include the glazed area overlooking the Podium and the flat owners put their mouldy old trainers and sneakers there for us all to see as we walk underneath.
