Description
Book Synopsis‘It was like heaven! It was like a palace, even without anything in it … We’d got this lovely, lovely house.’
In 1980, there were well over 5 million council homes in Britain, housing around one third of the population. The right of all to adequate housing had been recognised in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but, long before that, popular notions of what constituted a ‘moral economy’ had advanced the idea that everyone was entitled to adequate shelter.
At its best, council housing has been at the vanguard of housing progress – an example to the private sector and a lifeline for working-class and vulnerable people. However, with the emergence of Thatcherism, the veneration of the free market and a desire to curtail public spending, council housing became seen as a problem, not a solution.
We are now in the midst of a housing crisis, with 1.4 million fewer social homes at affordable rent than in 1980.
In this highly illustrated survey, eminent social historian John Boughton, author of
Municipal Dreams, examines the remarkable history of social housing in the UK. He presents 100 examples, from the almshouses of the 16th century to Goldsmith Street, the 2019 winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize. Through the various political, aesthetic and ideological changes, the well-being of community and environment demands that good housing for all must prevail.
Features:
- 100 examples of social housing from all over the UK, illustrated with over 250 images including photographs and sketches.
- A complete history, dating from early charitable provision to ‘homes for heroes’, garden villages to new towns, multi-storey tower blocks and modernist developments to contemporary sustainable housing.
- Iconic estates, including: Alton East and West, Becontree, Dawson’s Heights, Donnybrook Quarter, Dunboyne Road and Park Hill.
- Projects from leading architects and practices, including: Peter Barber, Neave Brown, Karakusevic Carson, Kate Macintosh and Mikhail Riches.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
CHAPTER 1: A ‘Prehistory’ of Social Housing – early parish and charitable provision; 19th century sanitary reform and building regulation; philanthropic provision
1. Almshouses and Parish Housing
1. Powis Almshouses, Chepstow
2. Parish provision in Mursley, Buckinghamshire
2. Sanitary and building reform and regulation
3. Footdee, Aberdeen
3. Philanthropic provision
4. Peabody: Peabody Square, Islington
5. Artizans', Labourers' and General Dwellings Company: Noel Park, Haringey
6. Edinburgh Co-Operative Building Company: Edinburgh Colonies
CHAPTER 2: 1890-1914 – varying early forms of local authority housing and some co-partnership models
1. Municipal tenements and cottage flats
7. Millbank Estate, London
8. Hornby Street, Liverpool
2. Balcony access
9. High School Yards, Edinburgh
10. Valette Buildings, Hackney
3. Garden villages and co-partnership models
11. Burnage GV, Manchester/Brentham Garden Suburb, Ealing
4. Garden Suburbs
12. Flower Estate, Sheffield
13. Old Oak Estate, Hammersmith
CHAPTER 3: 1914-1930 – the impact of the First World War; the influence of evolving policy choices on housing forms in the 1920s; prefabrication and other forms of provision
1. Munitions estates
14. Rosyth Garden City, Scotland
15. Well Hall, Greenwich
2. ‘Homes for Heroes’
16. Moulescombe Estate, Brighton
17. Wollaton Park, Nottingham
18. Townhill Estate, Swansea
19. Moss Park, Glasgow
20. Sea Mills or Hillfields, Bristol
21. Becontree Estate, London
3. Early forms of prefabrication
22. Nissen-Petren Houses, Yeovil
23. Norris Green, Liverpool (Boot houses)
4. Housing associations
24. St Pancras Housing Association
CHAPTER 4: 1930-1939 – the policy shift to slum clearance and rehousing; new forms of tenement housing; architectural debates and the relative insignificance of Modernism in Britain
1. Slum clearance estates
25. Knowle West, Bristol
26. Deckham Hall Estate, Gateshead
27. Wythenshawe Estate, Manchester
2. New-style tenements
28. White City, London
29. Liverpool’s 1930s flats
30. Lennox House, Hackney
3. Modernist design
31. Kensal House, London
32. Quarry Hill, Leeds
CHAPTER 5: 1940-1955 – the significance of wartime planning; temporary and permanent prefabs; Bevan houses; neighbourhood units; mixed development; Radburn; New Towns and Expanded Towns; model rural council housing; the origins of multi-storey
1. Temporary and permanent prefabs
33. Inverness Road and Humber Doucy Lane, Ipswich
34. Bilborough Estate, Nottingham (BISF and No-Fines houses)
2. Early post-war
35. Minerva Estate, Tower Hamlets
36. Pollok, Glasgow
37. The Creggan, Derry/Londonderry
3. Bevan houses
38. Moorlands Estate, Bath
39. Ermine Estate, Lincoln
40. Gaer Estate, Newport
4. Neighbourhood units
41. Lansbury Estate, Poplar
42. Stowlawn, Bilston (Reilly Greens)
43. Rathcoole Estate, Newton Abbey, Northern Ireland
44. New Parks Estate, Leicester
5. Mixed development
45. Somerford Grove, Hackney
46. Orlando Estate, Walsall
47. Churchill Estate, London
6. Radburn
48. Queen’s Park, Wrexham
49. Middleton Estate, Gainsborough
7. New Towns and Expanded Towns
50. Crawley New Town
51. Cwmbran New Town, Wales
52. Cumbernauld New Town, Scotland
53. Thetford, Norfolk (expanded town)
8. Rural council housing
54. Elwy Road Estate, Rhos on Sea, Wales
55. Tayler and Green, Loddon RDC
9. Early multi-storey
56. Redcliffe flats, Bristol
CHAPTER 6: 1956-1968 – New-style suburban estates; the rise of multi-storey; deck access; system-building and high-rise
1. New-style suburban estates (and a ‘New City’)
57. Gleadless Valley, Sheffield
58. Alton East and West, London
59. Cranbrook Estate, Bethnal Green
60. Chinbrook Estate, Lewisham
61. Orchard Park, Hull
62. Craigavon New City, Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland
2. Multi-storey
63. Loughborough Road, Southwark
64. Aberdeen Multis
65. Red Road, Glasgow
66. Pepys Estate, Lewisham
67. Divis Flats, Belfast
68. Wyndham Court, Southampton
3. Deck access
69. Park Hill, Sheffield
70. Hyson Green, Nottingham
71. Killingworth, Newcastle
4. System-building and high-rise
72. Pendleton Estate, Salford (early 1960s)
73. Red Road, Glasgow (mid 1960s)
74. Freemason’s Estate (Ronan Point) (1966)
CHAPTER 7: 1968-1979 – Developing forms of high-rise; the backlash against high-rise in the form of rehabilitation, municipalisation and low-rise, high-density forms; alternative models of social housing provision
1. High-Rise and multi-storey
75. North Peckham, London
76. Derwent Tower, Whickham
77. Dawson’s Heights, Southwark
78. Coralline Walk and Binsey Walk, Thamesmead
2. Low-rise, high-density
79. Ketts Hill, Norwich
80. Duffryn, Newport
81. Cressingham Gardens, Lambeth
82. Dunboyne Road, Camden
83. Dartmouth Park Hill, Camden
3. Rehabilitation
84. General Improvement Area study
4. Municipalisation
85. Municipalisation in Islington
5. Short-life and Housing Coops
86. Sanford Housing Coop, New Cross
CHAPTER 8: 1980s-1990s – the sea-change of 1979; new emphasis on regeneration and a revival of traditional streetscapes; new models of provision emphasising cross-subsidy and the role of the third sector; alternative models
1. Regeneration
87. North Hull Estate (HAT)
88. Raffles Estate, Carlisle
89. Hulme, Manchester
90. Five Estates, Peckham
91. Broadwater Farm, Haringey
2. Self-build
92. Segal, Lewisham
CHAPTER 9: 2000s – contemporary regeneration; newbuild; sustainable housing
1. Regeneration
93. Sighthill, Glasgow (Transformational Regeneration Area)
2. Newbuild
94. Donnybrook Quarter, Tower Hamlets/Ordnance Rd, Enfield (Peter Barber)
95. Dujardin Mews, Enfield (Karacusevic Carson)
96. Scottish new build (Midlothian/West Lothian/?)
97. Richeson Close, Bristol
3. Sustainable housing
98. Chester-Balmore Scheme, Camden
99. Wilmcote House, Portsmouth
100. Goldsmith Street, Norwich
Afterword
A brief discussion of the current shifting and contested regarding social housing; a hopeful prediction or manifesto of the forms that new social housing might take. (500-750 words)
