Regular flats

A lift and a staircase serves a pair of flats on each floor, one on either side of the lift, so entrances to the block are at regular intervals along the podium, and in the car park. The flats are very similar. Each flat has a living area at the front, overlooking the gardens, and a bedroom or bedrooms at the back, overlooking Shakespeare Tower, with a corridor in between, off which you find the kitchen, the WC and the bathroom. The differences are in the shapes of the living and bedroom areas, which are dictated by the space taken up by the lift shaft, the emergency exits and the stairs outside the flat. Some flats have a larger living room (more window), like an L-shape, and a smaller bedroom (Type 20 and Type 58). Some have a narrower living room, but one L-shaped bedroom (or two bedrooms in a squeeze) (Type 21). Some (like baby bear’s porridge) are just right, with good sized living room and bedroom (Type 57). There are a few bigger flats at the ends of the building, with a living area almost in the middle (taking advantage of the extra side of windows) a dining area and a study/ bedroom at the front, and two reasonable bedrooms at the back (Type 54 and Type 56).

Penthouse Flats

The penthouses come in three types. Two are almost identical to flats already described, except that they are at the top. Type 23 is more or less Type 57; Type 60 is Type 57 but with a slightly wider bedroom. Type 61 is quite different: the large living area is a bulge in the middle opposite the kitchen, bathroom and WC, narrowing to a dining room at one end and a bedroom at the other.

Garden Flats

The flats look out over the garden. In the small one floor flats, they either have a living room right across the front, with the kitchen, the bathroom, and one (windowless) bedroom at the back (Type 49); or a living room and a bedroom at the front, and the kitchen and bathroom at the back (Type 52 and Type 53). In the larger, two floor flats, you enter at the upper level, which is an open plan living area and a kitchen, and you go down to two bedrooms, a bathroom and a WC (Type 51). Unlike the garden flats in Thomas More House opposite, which have large windows at garden level and nearby access to the gardens themselves, the Defoe House ones only have windows (with little window boxes) at the higher level and no direct access to the gardens. There are ventilation grills instead of windows at the garden level. There are separate stairs at podium level down to the sub-podium entrances of the garden flats.