Cottage flat

Cottage flats in Noel Park, London

'Cottage flats', also known as 'Four-in-a-block flats', are a style of housing common in Scotland, where there are single floor dwellings at ground level, and similar dwellings on the floor above. All have doors directly to the outside of the building, rather than into a 'close', or common staircase. The majority consist of four dwellings per block (which appear like semi-detached houses), although such buildings are sometimes in the form of longer terraces. Many were built in the 1920s and 1930s as part of the 'Homes Fit For Heroes' programme but it has proved a popular housing model and examples are still being built today. Cottage flats are the predominant form of housing in many parts of Glasgow, including Knightswood, Mosspark and Carntyne.

In Edinburgh, colonies are mid-Victorian cottage flat-type dwellings in terraced streets which are a similar idea, but of a very distinctly different architecture, being always found in terraces, never as semi-detached type cottages.

Tyneside flats in Newcastle and Sunderland, and Warner houses in Walthamstow, London are also similar in form. Some of the model dwellings in Noel Park, London are cottage flats, typically in the middle of ordinary terraced housing.