Michael Searles

[1] Landowner John Cator granted development leases to Searles and builder William Dyer to design and build a series of high quality dwellings, intended to appeal to upper middle class buyers, situated on the south-east side of Blackheath.

[3] However, Searles's masterpiece was the adjacent Paragon, a 14-house perfect crescent occupying a semicircular plot in the corner of the Heath.

However, the scheme nearly ruined Searles financially; the development took ten years to build, with the last house not occupied until 1805.

It was later extended to a complete semicircle fronting New Kent Road by the addition of a pair of houses at each end.

It was demolished in the 1890s to be replaced by more modest housing and a Council school, which has since been converted into apartments and been given the name The Paragon.

A Southwark street commemorating Michael Searles in its name
The Paragon, Blackheath.
Searle's surviving gate piers from The Paragon, New Kent Road (subsequently removed for road widening) were re-erected at the Royal Arsenal , Woolwich in 1985.