Terrace of eight two storey brick-built council houses
St Owen Gate, Hereford; part of a scheme of 21 houses completed by Hereford City Council in 1902. The Council built 67 more houses before 1914. (my thanks to Mike Rix for image and detail.) Added to my map of council housing built before the First World War.
www.google.com/maps/d/edit?...
You're welcome. As you say, 'council housing is such an important strand in the developments of almost every place in the 20th century'. It's neglected in some local histories so it's great to see it in a comprehensive record.
This is good to see. One thing I like about the newer editions of the VCH is that they give good coverage of council housing.
It's not a place I know. Your house would have been built by Gloucester Rural District Council. Chas Townley is a very good local historian who might know more - he has a website.
Thanks for the detail and good luck with the purchase. Looks like a nice house.
Thanks to everyone who has replied to this post with examples, memories and detail. It's a more common design than I thought.
Thanks, interesting detail.
Two-storey, end-terrace family home with two front doors - one on the right with letter box, plainer one to the left.
Interesting council house design in Bedford - part of a terrace of single family homes with two 'front' doors. I assume the one of the left gave access to a service area - good for muddy boots, bikes, etc. - unless you know better. Tayler and Green did something similar in south Norfolk.
Thank you both - very interesting conversation. As someone with farmers on one side of the family and farmworkers on the other and with my interest in rural housing, the film struck many a chord.
Holland Rise House - 22-storey point block with a serrated profile allowing flats to be distinct rather than just part of a homogeneous facade
Edrich House - 22-storey point block with a serrated profile allowing flats to be distinct rather than just part of a homogeneous facade. Surrey Hall, a community hall built in in-situ concrete with a cantilevered first floor at base.
Holland Rise House and Edrich House, completed 1966 - two of eight blocks designed by George Finch for the London Borough of Lambeth adapting the Wates Large Panel System of construction with a distinctive dentilated profile.
Nice one
Say hi to Pavel from me if he's there - I met him the other day and he's a good guy. You should share your work too.
Yes, absolutely - and I think he treats the buildings with equal respect.
Not at all, it should be widely read.
Limehouse District Board of Works building: a ‘liberal interpretation of Italian Renaissance’ according to Pevsner.
Mile End Old Town Vestry Hall, now the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, Bancroft Road: the 1937 extension showing to the right
My latest Substack post explores the complicated early politics of local government and the fine town halls of Stepney:
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/stepneys-e...
2/ I reviewed tour leader Adam Voelcker's fine new book on the architect here:
municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/12/16/s...
1/ Pleased to see this @c20cymru.bsky.social event on 16 May: 'A Day of Sidney Colwyn Foulkes, the Reluctant Modernist'. Amongst much else, he designed some of my favourite council housing:
secure.c20society.org.uk/Default.aspx...
2/ 'Estates: Fragile Utopia' - 'an artistic investigation of post-war British council housing as a material residue of a now-fractured social contract'. At Lewisham Arthouse till the 20th.
otdelnov.com/en/gallery-e...
1/ An interesting review of 'Estates: Fragile Utopia' -Pavel Otdelnov's fine exhibition at Lewisham Arthouse, on till the 20th (details in next post)
artfocusnow.com/news/homes-f...
It's well worth clicking on the link here to see the brochure in full and the care and attention devoted to the design of the new estate.
Well, I'm impressed (or they talk a good game). It's a lovely brochure too - a housing geek's dream!
Blocks seen from distance; pre-First World War middle-class housing in foreground
Blocks seen in background; early 1920s low-rise council housing in foreground
1988 photo taken from Lewisham High Street
Lewisham Park Towers: three 18-storey blocks - Malling, Kemsley, Bredgar, named after Kent villages - shown in the present and in 1988 (with thanks to Tower Block UK); built by Lewisham Metropolitan Borough Council and completed in 1965. Recently subject to major renovation.
Mile End Vestry Hall, later a local library and archives
Limehouse District Board of Works. 1864
Vestry hall. 1860, by A Wilson. Built of brick with Portland stone facade; slate roof; brick stacks. Double-depth plan. Italianate style. 2 storeys; 8-window range. Plate-glass sashes to all windows. Porch, to third bay from right, has banded Doric columns to triglyphed frieze and keyed semi-circular arched doorway with overlight; steps flanked by iron railings to similar doorway on left. Rusticated ground floor, with square-headed windows, is articulated by pilasters continued to Ionic columns which separate first-floor bays and support a dentilled cornice which has letters ERECTED AD 1860 to frieze; cartouches set in keyed semi-circular arches over first-floor windows each with Corinthian columns to cornice and blind balustrade to apron. Cast-iron railings to front. Interior: vestibule has Doric pilasters to dentilled cornice; cast-iron balustrade to imperial staircase. First-floor doors have brackets to cornice over moulded wood architraves; vestry room to front has panelled dado, Ionic pilasters to dentilled cornice, coffered ceiling and decorative iron balustrade to public gallery.
🚨 New on Substack: my post on Stepney’s Early Town Halls - ‘fine commodious buildings’ ...
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/stepneys-e...
Desire to Create: Baťa's Architecture of Belonging
london.czechcentres.cz/en/program/d...
Mile End Vestry Hall, later a local library and archives
Limehouse District Board of Works. 1864
Vestry hall. 1860, by A Wilson. Built of brick with Portland stone facade; slate roof; brick stacks. Double-depth plan. Italianate style. 2 storeys; 8-window range. Plate-glass sashes to all windows. Porch, to third bay from right, has banded Doric columns to triglyphed frieze and keyed semi-circular arched doorway with overlight; steps flanked by iron railings to similar doorway on left. Rusticated ground floor, with square-headed windows, is articulated by pilasters continued to Ionic columns which separate first-floor bays and support a dentilled cornice which has letters ERECTED AD 1860 to frieze; cartouches set in keyed semi-circular arches over first-floor windows each with Corinthian columns to cornice and blind balustrade to apron. Cast-iron railings to front. Interior: vestibule has Doric pilasters to dentilled cornice; cast-iron balustrade to imperial staircase. First-floor doors have brackets to cornice over moulded wood architraves; vestry room to front has panelled dado, Ionic pilasters to dentilled cornice, coffered ceiling and decorative iron balustrade to public gallery.
🚨 New on Substack: my post on Stepney’s Early Town Halls - ‘fine commodious buildings’ ...
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/stepneys-e...
Artistic representation of Aylesbury Estate seen from Burgess Park
Artistic representation of Glasgow tower block demolitions
Artistic representation of fragment of Robin Hood Gardens undergoing demolition
Highly recommended, Pavel Otdelnov’s 'Estates: Fragile Utopia' - 'an artistic investigation of post-war British council housing as a material residue of a now-fractured social contract'. At Lewisham Arthouse till the 20th.
otdelnov.com/en/gallery-e...
Grade II listing details: C18. Red stretchers, grey headers, hipped old tiled roof with corbelled cornice. 2 storeys, 2 nearly flush casement windows with cambered arches. C19 gabled wood porch over 4 panelled door. Lower back wing.
Married couple standing in porch - man with long white beard and wife in long dark dress
Elderly woman standing at garden gate with sons and daughters; farmhouse to rear
A bit of family and housing history: Norton Green Farmhouse, Stevenage, C18th, today and c1890/1900 with my great grandparents Charles and Sarah Maria Tompson and family - Charles, a tenant farmer of 131 acres on the Knebworth Estate, employing three men and two boys, died in 1900.
Red-brick terrace of council housing
Red-brick terrace of council housing
Red-brick semi-detached pair of council houses
Red-brick semi-detached pair of council houses
Old Knebworth, Hertfordshire: houses on Park Lane built by Hitchin Rural District Council in the 1930s.
Grade II listing details: Houses. 1900 by Sir Edwin Lutyens for the second Earl of Lytton. A block of four houses forming an open court. Whitewashed brick. Machine tile roof with 6 red brick chimney stacks. 2 storeys. 3- and 4-light glazing bar casements, those on gable ends set in corners. Arched through passage in centre of block. Diamond date panel above. Plank doors with simple flat hoods
Grade II lisitng details: Semi-detached pair of houses. 1903 by Sir Edwin Lutyens for the Earl of Lytton. M-fronted house. 2 storeys. 2 weatherboarded gable ends, the rest of the house in red brick. Plain tile steeply pitched roofs with a central red brick chimney stack. 3- light glazing bar casements. Tiled eaves.
Old Knebworth, Hertfordshire: houses on Park Lane designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for his in-law the second Earl of Lytton. Left, Mulberry Cottages (1900) and, right, 188-190 Park Lane (1903).
