Hillside

Hillside is a wooded slope on the north edge of the city, developed in a single burst between 1958 and 1974 and barely touched since. The streets follow the contour rather than cutting across it, which is why none of them go anywhere. There is no through route, and the traffic you hear is your neighbour arriving home.

What was built here

The stock is post-war modernist and unusually consistent: single and split-level houses, low pitched or flat roofs, deep oversailing eaves, and a great deal of glass facing the view. Materials repeat across the slope — board-formed concrete, warm limestone, stained timber fascias, terrazzo underfoot. Several were built by the same three practices for clients who knew each other, which accounts for the coherence.

The deep overhang is the signature and it is not decorative. On a south-west slope it shades the glazing through the afternoon and lets the low winter sun in. Houses here are comfortable in August without mechanical cooling, which is the whole argument for the type.

Living here

Plots are large and mature. Gardens are terraced rather than flat, and most carry retained structure — steps, walls, a plinth — that needs maintaining. Ask about drainage on any house below the mid-slope.

There is no high street. What Hillside has instead is quiet, canopy, and a long view that will not be built out, because the slope above it is covenanted woodland.