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23-613: 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 . The Downham Estate provides an example of the programme of building council housing occurring in Britain between the First and Second World Wars. The estate was constructed between 1924 and 1930 to plans by

46-559: 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), which encouraged the London authority to improve the housing in their areas. It also gave them the power acquire land and to build tenements and houses (cottages). As a consequence London County Council opened

69-548: A Home (1901), Parker and Unwin aimed to popularise the Arts and Crafts Movement , and as a result of their success thousands of homes were built on their pattern in the early part of the 20th century. A notable example of one of their earliest collaborations at Clayton, Staffordshire, is dated to 1899, and was originally called the Goodfellow House after the man who commissioned it. Parker and Unwin were involved in designing many of

92-566: 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

115-622: A full list of what was needed. Raymond Unwin Sir Raymond Unwin (2 November 1863 – 29 June 1940) was a prominent and influential English engineer, architect and town planner , with an emphasis on improvements in working class housing. Raymond Unwin was born in Rotherham , Yorkshire and grew up in Oxford , after his father sold up his business and moved there to study. He was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford . In 1884 he returned to

138-704: A model village at New Earswick near York for Joseph and Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree , and the following year they were given the opportunity to take part in the creation of Letchworth (loosely based on the Utopian plan of Ebenezer Howard), when the First Garden City Company asked them to submit a plan. In 1903 they were involved with the "Cottages Near a Town Exhibit" for the Northern Art Workers Guild of Manchester. In 1904 after their plan

161-617: A partnership in 1896 based in Buxton , Derbyshire. The partners preferred the simple vernacular style and made it their aim to improve housing standards for the working classes. They were also members of the Northern Art Worker's Guild and were close friends of Edgar Wood (1860–1935) the leading Arts and Crafts architect in the North of England and a founding member of the group. In their various writings, including their book The Art of Building

184-522: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . London County Council cottage estate The City of London Corporation built tenements in the Farringdon Road in 1865, but this was an isolated instance. The first council to build housing as an integrated policy was Liverpool Corporation , starting with St Martin's Cottages in Ashfield Street, Vauxhall, completed in 1869. That year

207-524: The Boundary Estate in 1900, a block dwelling estate of tenements in Tower Hamlets . 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 . He worked on the influential Tudor Walters Report of 1918, which recommended housing in short terraces, spaced at 70 feet (21 m) at

230-571: The Labour Church . He also became a close friend of the socialist philosopher Edward Carpenter , whose Utopian community ideas led to his developing a small commune at Millthorpe near Sheffield . In 1887 he returned to Staveley Iron as an engineer, working on development of mining townships and various other buildings, and joined the Sheffield Socialist Society . In 1893 he married Richard Barry Parker 's sister Ethel, and formed

253-452: The London Borough of Bromley ); altogether it covered a distance of 1.25 miles (2 km). The land had previously been mainly rural although around Grove Park railway station in the east of the area there had been some development; between Lewisham and Bromley was virtually the end of London at that time. 5659 houses were constructed of varying sizes; and there were also 408 flats (apartments) in blocks up to four storeys in height. Downham

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276-566: The LCC architect George Topham Forrest. One of the first houses to be completed was ceremonially opened in 1927 by King George V . Among other similar developments around London (for example Becontree ), it was developed to help alleviate the chronic shortage of housing in London, partly brought about by the complete cessation of building during World War I. It was intended to show what could be achieved by public-sector house-building: particularly in order to provide better housing for those who had lived in

299-482: The North to become an apprentice engineer for Stavely Iron & Coal Company near Chesterfield . Unwin had become interested in social issues at an early age and was inspired by the lectures and ideals of John Ruskin and William Morris . In 1885 he moved to Manchester and became secretary of Morris's local Socialist League . He wrote articles for the League's newspaper and spoke on street corners for its cause and for

322-649: The development of Brentham garden suburb. Unwin joined the Local Government Board in December 1914. In 1915 he was seconded to the Ministry of Munitions to design the villages of Gretna and Eastriggs and supervise others. From 1917 he had an influential role at the Tudor Walters Committee on working-class housing whose report was published in 1918, the year in which he was appointed Chief Architect to

345-484: The interior fittings, which remain in the house to this day, and the initial layout of the large gardens. Goodfellow sold the house in 1926 to Colley Shorter who ran the nearby pottery works of Wilkinson's and Newport. He renamed it Chetwynd House and when he married his star designer Clarice Cliff in 1940, she moved into the house and lived there until 1972. It is her association that has made the house particularly famous since. In 1902 Parker and Unwin were asked to design

368-764: The newly formed Ministry of Health. That post had evolved into the Chief Technical Officer for Housing and Town Planning by the time of his retirement in November 1928. His demonstration during the Great War of the principles of building homes rapidly and economically whilst maintaining satisfactory standards for gardens, family privacy and internal spaces, gave him great influence over the Tudor Walters Committee and hence, indirectly, over much inter-war public housing. This report marked Unwin's definitive break from

391-481: The next few years in cottage estates . 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

414-489: The provision of subsidies. without a parlour with a parlour 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. Source: The Addison Act provided subsidies solely to local authorities and not to private builders. Many houses were built over

437-656: The slums of the city. The building of the Estate attracted subsidies from central government and was constructed under the auspices of the London County Council . The estate covered an area of 522 acres (2.1 km), of which 461 acres (1.9 km) were in the Metropolitan Borough of Lewisham , (from 1965 the London Borough of Lewisham ) and 61 acres (0.2 km) in the Municipal Borough of Bromley (from 1965

460-592: The traditional 'garden city' concept, as it proposed that the new developments should be peripheral 'satellites' rather than fully-fledged garden cities. Unwin became technical adviser to the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1929 and largely wrote its two reports, the first published in that year and the second in 1933. Unwin was President of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) from 1915 to 1916, President of

483-682: The worse conditions, and could not afford to pay the higher rents of the new houses. Examples of these were built at the Downham Estate in London , Blocks of flats were also built. 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

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506-414: Was adopted they opened a second office at Baldock . In 1905 Henrietta Barnett asked them to plan the new garden suburb at Hampstead , now known as Hampstead Garden Suburb . Unwin moved from Letchworth to Hampstead in 1906, and he lived here for the rest of his life at the farmstead Wyldes Farm . In 1907, Ealing Tenants Limited, a progressive cooperative in west London, appointed him to take forward

529-511: Was named in honour of Lord Downham , who was chairman of the London County Council during 1919–20. The first tenants of the estate were mainly former residents of inner city areas, such as Rotherhithe and the accommodation was spacious and luxurious compared with their former dwellings. Source: 51°25′37″N 0°00′43″E  /  51.427°N 0.012°E  / 51.427; 0.012 This London -related article

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