Explanation of flat types for Original Barbican
1A 1B 1C 2A 2B 2C 3A 3B 3C 4A 4B 4C 5A 6B 7C 8A 8B 8C 9A 9B 9C 10 12 13 14 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 49 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 58 60 61 63/64 67/68 70 71 72 73 74 76 78 79 80 81 84 85 86 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 118 119 120 121 F1A F1D F1E F2A F2B F2C F3C M2A M2B M2C M3A M3B M3C M3D M3E M4A P1D P2A P2B
Studios | 1 bed | 2 beds | 3+ beds | Towers | Maisonettes | Penthouses | Garden
Explanation of flat types for Frobisher Crescent
7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 9.10
Studios | 1 bed | 2 beds | 3+ beds | Maisonettes | Penthouses
Explanation of flat types for Blake Tower
Flat Types 42 45 46 47 48 49 50 52 54 60 61 65 66 67 70 71 72 76 77 78 82 84 88 93 100 102 108 137 Pen1 Pen 2
Flats LG21 LG22 LG11 LG12 LG13 1 2 3 11 12 13 14 21 22 23 24 25 31 32 33 34 35 41 42 43 44 45 51 52 53 54 55 61 62 63 64 65 71 72 73 74 75 81 82 83 84 91 92 93 94 101 102 103 104 111 112 113 114 121 122 123 124 131 132 133 134 141 142 143 151 152 153 161 162
Floors LG2 LG1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16-17
Studios | One-bed flats | Two-bed flats | Three-bed flats | Bathrooms | Kitchens | Winter Gardens | Balconies
We don’t count kitchens and bathrooms when we talk about numbers of rooms.
In a studio flat you live and sleep in the same room. The old fashioned word for such a flat was ‘bed sit’. (‘Bed-sitting-room’ is the technically correct word and spelling, but In University slang, it was shortened to bed-sitter, bed-sit, and eventually to plain ugly ‘bedsit’.) Most people nowadays prefer ‘studio’ – with its overtones of the Paris South Bank and La Bohème – whereas ‘bedsit’ suggests coin-operated gas meters and greasy plates.
Most of the studio flats in the Barbican are in the north Barbican, in Breton House, Bryer Court and John Trundle Court. The few in the south Barbican are almost all in Thomas More House.
Breton House has large and small studios. The larger Type F2A studios sit back- to-back, facing east or west. The Type F1A studios are much less deep than the F2A flats because the lift and stairwell take up an equal amount of space between them. There are 66 Type F2As and 33 Type F1As.
John Trundle Court is the same. The larger back-to-back studios are Type F2A and Type F2B flats (which are three inches deeper and with its window on the side, not the front). The smaller flats on either side of the lift are Type F1As as in Breton House. There are 74 Type F2As, 38 Type F1As and five F2Bs.
Bryer Court is different. It’s a shallow building and its studios run from front to back. The Type F1D flats on 1st to 5th floors are typical studios. On the 6th floor there are Type F1E flats which lose a piece of the front room. The 7th floor penthouse flats are Type P1D studios which are similar to the F1Es but with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. There are 40 Type F1Ds, eight Type F1Es and eight Type P1Ds.
Thomas More House has 13 studio flats at upper garden level. There are 11 Type 13s, and one each of Types 12 and 14).
Frobisher Crescent has several studio flat Types: 7.3, 7.6, 7.9,7.10, 8.3 8.3A, 8.3B, 8.6, 8.9, 8.10.
Other scattered studios are: Andrewes House, two Type 78s; Gilbert House, a Type 73; and Seddon House, a Type 44 and a Type 45.
These are the sizes of the main types. They are all the same frontage width – 16′ 9″. So the difference is only in the depth. These are the City’s figures. F2A – 19’3″, F2B – 19’6″, F1A – 10’6″, F1D – 18’0″, F1E – 18’0″, P1D – 18’0″, 13 – 20’3″. They are the ‘maximum’ depth, so they ignore the bite out of the F1E and P1D types. They seem to be measured from the window to roughly the kitchen and bathroom area (which are not part of the measurement).