Salix, Conduit Head Road

[5][7][9][10] The client in this case, the Australian physicist Mark Oliphant (1901–2000), came to Cambridge in 1927 to work at the Cavendish Laboratory under Ernest Rutherford, and was elected a fellow at St John's College in 1934.

[3] The architectural historians Nikolaus Pevsner and Simon Bradley describe the road as "a progressive enclave" which attracted academics such as the Cornford and Darwin families.

[14] Salix forms part of a group of three white Modernist houses, which were originally set in extensive grounds and adjacent to the wilderness area.

[2] In March 1939, the house was on the market, described as an "unusually Attractive and Distinctive Residence... Exceptionally well planned to obtain maximum amount of sun.

[2][7] The architectural historian Charles McKean likens the truncated upper storey to the "bridge of a square stranded ocean liner.

In the original layout, this part had a central hall around which were the kitchen, living room and internal garage on the ground floor.

The narrow elongated single-storey east wing (five windows in length), beneath the roof terrace, was devoted to sleeping accommodation.

McKean and the architectural photographer Tim Rawle describe Salix as the earliest Cambridge building to emphasise the placement of windows around corners, writing that it shows the walls to be independent of the concrete frame.