London County Council cottage estates are estates of council houses, built by London County Council, in the main between 1918 and 1939.
The City of London Corporation built tenements in the Farringdon Road in 1865, [1] but this was an isolated instance. The first council to build housing as an integrated policy was Liverpool Corporation, [2] starting with St Martin's Cottages in Ashfield Street, Vauxhall, completed in 1869. [3] That year a royal commission was held, as the state had taken an interest in housing and housing policy. This led to the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890 (53 & 54 Vict. c. 70), [4] which encouraged the London authority to improve the housing in their areas. [5] It also gave them the power acquire land and to build tenements and houses (cottages). As a consequence London County Council opened the Boundary Estate in 1900, a block dwelling estate of tenements in Tower Hamlets. [6]
The first four cottage estates were at Norbury, Old Oak, Totterdown Fields and White Hart Lane.
In 1912 Raymond Unwin, published a pamphlet Nothing gained by Overcrowding. [7] He worked on the influential Tudor Walters Report of 1918, which recommended housing in short terraces, spaced at 70 feet (21 m) at a density of 12 to the acre. The First World War indirectly provided a new impetus, when the poor physical health and condition of many urban recruits to the army was noted with alarm. This led to a campaign known as Homes fit for heroes. In 1919 the Government, through the Housing Act 1919 required councils to provide housing built to the Tudor Walters standards, helping them to do so through the provision of subsidies. [8]
House without a parlour | Area sq ft (m2) | Volume cu ft (m3) | House with a parlour | Area sq ft (m2) | Volume cu ft (m3) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Parlour | 120 (11) | 960 (27) | ||||
Living Room | 180 (17) | 1,440 (41) | Living Room | 180 (17) | 1,440 (41) | |
Scullery | 80 (7.4) | 640 (18) | Scullery | 80 (7.4) | 640 (18) | |
Larder | 24 (2.2) | - | Larder | 24 (2.2) | - | |
Bedroom No. 1 | 150 (14) | 1,200 (34) | Bedroom No. 1 | 160 (15) | 1,280 (36) | |
Bedroom No. 2 | 100 (9.3) | 800 (23) | Bedroom No. 2 | 120 (11) | 960 (27) | |
Bedroom No. 3 | 65 (6.0) | 520 (15) | Bedroom No. 3 | 110 (10) | 880 (25) | |
Total | 855 sq ft (79.4 m2) | 1,055 sq ft (98.0 m2) | ||||
Desirable Minimum sizes- Tudor Walters Committee [9] |
London County Council embraced these freedoms and planned 8 cottage estates in the peripheries of London: Becontree, St Helier, Downham, Watling for example; seven further followed including Bellingham. Houses were built on green field land on the peripheries of urban London. [10]
Estate name | Area | No of dwellings | Population 1938 | Population density |
---|---|---|---|---|
Pre-1914 | ||||
Norbury | 11 | 218 | 867 | 19.8 per acre (49/ha) |
Old Oak | 32 | 736 | 3519 | 23 per acre (57/ha) |
Totterdown Fields | 39 | 1262 | — | 32.4 per acre (80/ha) |
Tower Gardens White Hart Lane | 98 | 783 | 5936 | 8 per acre (20/ha) |
1919–1923 | ||||
Becontree | 2770 | 25769 [lower-alpha 1] | 115652 | 9.3 per acre (23/ha) |
Bellingham | 252 | 2673 | 12004 | 10.6 per acre (26/ha) |
Castelnau | 51 | 644 | 2851 | 12.6 per acre (31/ha) |
Dover House Estate Roehampton Estate | 147 | 1212 | 5383 | 8.2 per acre (20/ha) |
1924–1933 | ||||
Downham | 600 | 7096 | 30032 | 11.8 per acre (29/ha) |
Mottingham | 202 | 2337 | 9009 | 11.6 per acre (29/ha) |
St Helier | 825 | 9068 | 39877 | 11 per acre (27/ha) |
Watling | 386 | 4034 | 19110 | 10.5 per acre (26/ha) |
Wormholt | 68 | 783 | 4078 | 11.5 per acre (28/ha) |
1934–1939 | ||||
Chingford [lower-alpha 2] | 217 | 1540 | — | 7.1 per acre (18/ha) |
Hanwell (Ealing) | 140 | 1587 | 6732 | 11.3 per acre (28/ha) |
Headstone Lane | 142 | n.a | 5000 | |
Kenmore Park | 58 | 654 | 2078 | 11.3 per acre (28/ha) |
Thornhill (Royal Borough of Greenwich) | 21 | 380 | 1598 | 18.1 per acre (45/ha) |
Whitefoot Lane (Downham) | 49 | n.a | n.a. | |
Source:
|
The Addison Act provided subsidies solely to local authorities and not to private builders. Many houses were built over the next few years in cottage estates. [11] Following the Geddes Axe of 1922, the Housing, &c. Act 1923 stopped subsidies going to council houses but did extend subsidies to private builders.
The first Labour government took office in 1924. The Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924 restored subsidies to municipal housing but at a lower level. It failed to make any provision for the lower paid, who were living in the worse conditions, and could not afford to pay the higher rents of the new houses.[ citation needed ]
Examples of these were built at the Downham Estate in London, [12] Blocks of flats were also built. [13]
This was dictated by the topology and the desired densities.
Most of the houses were brick built, but due to the shortage of bricks and wood in the early 1920s, and the availability of factories tooled up for war work some interesting experimental designs and prefabrications.
An advertisement offering to complete furnish an Atholl all-steel house in Downham for £78.17.11d, gave a full list of what was needed. [14]
Becontree or is an area of approximately 4 square miles (10 km2) in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It is located 11 miles (17.7 km) east-northeast of Charing Cross and was constructed in the interwar period as the largest public housing estate in the world. The Housing Act 1919 permitted the London County Council to build housing outside the County of London and Becontree was constructed between 1921 and 1935 to cottage estate principles in the parishes of Barking, Dagenham and Ilford, then in the administrative and ceremonial county of Essex. The official completion of the estate was celebrated in 1935, by which time the estate had a population of around 100,000 people in 26,000 homes.
Hornchurch is a suburban town in East London in the London Borough of Havering. It is located 15.2 miles (24.5 km) east-northeast of Charing Cross. It comprises a number of shopping streets and a large residential area. It historically formed a large ancient parish in the county of Essex that became the manor and liberty of Havering. The economic history of Hornchurch is underpinned by a shift away from agriculture to other industries with the growing significance of nearby Romford as a market town and centre of administration. As part of the suburban growth of London in the 20th century, Hornchurch significantly expanded and increased in population, becoming an urban district in 1926 and has formed part of Greater London since 1965. It is the location of Queen's Theatre, Havering Sixth Form College and Havering College of Further and Higher Education.
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A semi-detached house is a single-family duplex dwelling that shares one common wall with its neighbour. The name distinguishes this style of construction from detached houses, with no shared walls, and terraced houses, with a shared wall on both sides. Often, semi-detached houses are built in pairs in which each house's layout is a mirror image of the other's.
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The Downham Estate is a London County Council cottage estate in Downham, south east London. It is mainly in the London Borough of Lewisham and partly in the London Borough of Bromley.
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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, although some do retain a shared entrance. The name 'cottage flats' is confusing as before the mid-1920s cottage housing referred to a single house, normally semi-detached, which contained living accommodation downstairs and bedrooms above. These were phased out by most urban local authorities as wasteful of space and economy after central government subsidies were reduced in the 1924 Housing Act.
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