How did the vision turn out in reality?
Housing in the 1950s and 60s
•Students will use primary evidence to help in their understanding of how and why housing changed after World War Two.
•Students will be able to demonstrate skills in assessing and using primary evidence, selecting and deploying historical knowledge appropriately, organising information clearly and coherently, using specialist vocabulary when appropriate.
Relates to:
•OCR History A Unit F961 British History Period Studies - Option
B: Modern 1783–1994 - Post-war Britain 1951–94
•EDEXCEL Unit 3 Britain in the Age of the Welfare State, 1945-64
•AQA - Unit 2: A Sixties Social Revolution? British Society, 1959–
1975, Unit 3: The State and People: Britain 1918–1964

How did the vision turn out in reality?
Housing in the 1950s and 60s

How did the vision turn out in reality?
Housing in the 1950s and 60s
Buildings are an excellent source of evidence of how people live at different periods of time - the history of housing in the post war period can be studied by using the evidence of the homes that were built then.
Look at the following buildings and start to identify;
What were the issues facing local authority housing departments after
WW2?
What was the vision that council planners and architects had for building large council estates including high rise tower blocks.
What other motives may have led councils to build this type of housing ?
What has happened to the estates that were built?
Use the recording sheet to summarise your findings.

How did the vision turn out in reality?
Housing in the 1950s and 60s
Your initial evidence can be found in the following 10 slides showing a selection of housing developments from the late
1940s to the 1960s.
You will need to;
Look carefully at each image - what does it tell you about the development in terms of the impression it makes, its design etc.?
Read each of the captions and extract information relating to
4 headings; issues, vision, motives and outcome.
Summarise information on the recording sheet under the 4 headings.

Council Housing, Churchill Gardens, Pimlico, Greater London
Churchill Gardens was the most ambitious council housing scheme of the 1940s (1947-
51). It was also the first built following an international competition. The architects were Powell and Moya, architects for Westminster City Council, aged 24 and 25. The generous sized flats and carefully laid-out grounds and services set new standards of council housing. It was a model for the post-war era of how to provide housing at the maximum allowed density of 200 persons per acre. The estate was a mixed development of 32 blocks of flats, maisonettes and terraced houses with a community centre, day and nursery schools and shops. This building is Coleridge House one of the first group of four tower blocks built in 1951. It had 72 flats.
Read Official list description for more details

The Lawn, Harlow, Essex
Many new homes were needed in the 1950s to replace those lost during World War Two. One solution to providing a large number of homes was to build highrise developments. The Lawn was built in 1951 and was the first residential tower block in Britain.
There were two one-bed flats and two bedsitters on each of the 10 floors. The projecting ends of each wing were used to give each flat a south-facing balcony. In 1952 it received a Ministry of Health
Housing medal. It was part of
Harlow New Town. Most of the homes in the New Towns were rented from the Development
Corporation.
Read official list description for more information

Council Housing, Passfields, Lewisham, Greater London
This block of flats in Bromley Road is one of a development of 4 blocks set in landscaped gardens. The block included 24 maisonettes, five bedsits and 36 onebedroom flats. It was designed as low cost public housing in 1949-50 by Fry, Drew and
Partners, the architect was J B Shaw. It was built for Lewisham Metropolitan
Borough by Ove Arup and Partners, engineers. It is an early example of the use of box frame construction evolved by Ove Arup during the Second World War. The curved shape was also an innovation and the development won a Festival of Britain
Award. Balconies were seen as important features and these were designed as areas for drying clothes. This block is of special significance in being one of the earliest to include maisonettes.
Read official list description for more information

Longmoor Point, Alton East, Wandsworth, Greater London
Longmoor Point is one of 10 blocks of flats known as 'the Points'. They are part of the
Alton East housing development built in 1951- 52 and designed by the London County Council
Architect's Department Housing Division. They were based on a reinforced concrete frame put up on site and clad in grey brickwork to reflect local house styles. They were the first public housing in Britain to have mechanically ventilated lavatories and bathrooms and the first high housing to be centrally heated. The blocks each had different patterned tilework at the entrance so they could be told apart. The rest of the development is a mixture of terraces of houses and maisonettes. They were set informally on a hillside among plants from the gardens of the Victorian houses previously on the site. Shops and a school were included in the development which was planned as a neighbourhood for 9,500 people.
Read official list description for more information

Great Arthur House, Golden Lane Estate, City of London, Greater London
Read official list description for more information
At the end of World War Two the area between St Paul's and the City lay devastated. The County of London Plan decided on mixed commercial use with some housing for the small number of people who worked in the City. The brief was for 940 one, two, three or four room flats at the maximum possible density of 200 persons to the acre. To achieve this many of the smaller flats had to be in a high tower. Great Arthur House was built in 1953-7 from reinforced concrete. The 17 floor building was the first to break the London County Council's 100 ft height restriction and was briefly the tallest inhabited building in England.
The flats were designed for single people and couples such as nurses and policemen who had to live near their work.
The architects for the estate were Chamberlin, Powell and
Bon. They saw it as a purely urban scheme, formal in layout but creating a sense of place by using colour. Their philosophy was to use every inch of space and provide a wide range of facilities on the site, also to separate pedestrians from traffic. They based this vision on the work of Le Corbusier. The Golden Lane estate eventually contained 1400 flats and maisonettes, a swimming pool, badminton court, bowling green, nursery, playground, community centre, shops and a pub. The estate was popular with professionals such as doctors and is still a selfsufficient ‘urban village’. It is seen as the most successful of England's housing developments from the early 1950s.

Council Housing, Park Hill, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
The Park Hill housing development was designed and built in 1957-60 by Sheffield
City Corporation. It was formally opened in 1961. The whole development consisted of 995 flats and maisonettes on 17 acres of land with a density of 192 people per acre. The unit (per flat) cost was £2,800 each. The scheme included 31 shops, 4 pubs, a laundry boiler house, a rubbish disposal system and garages.
Access to the flats was via decks wide enough for a milk float. They were planned as 'streets in the sky' a way of recreating the community spirit of traditional streets of terraced housing. Sheffield was one of the few local authority departments designing imaginative and successful public housing in the 1950s.
This development was its flagship but was not liked by everyone. The development still dominates the Sheffield skyline and its future has been hotly debated. The flats are currently (2010) being renovated.
Read official list description for more information

Brooke House, Town Square, Basildon, Essex
Read official list description for more information
This 14 storey tower block of flats was built in 1960-62. The architect was Anthony B
Davies, chief architect and planner to
Basildon Development Corporation. Sir Basil
Spence was consultant adviser on the town centre and Ove Arup and Partners were the structural engineers. Brooke House was designed to introduce high density housing into Basildon town centre. It was designed visually to provide an impressive, tall, landmark to counterbalance the surrounding low rise shopping centre. It was built from concrete, with dark brown handmade brick cladding and aluminium glazed screens and windows. The plan is a rectangle with 6 flats on each floor. The block is raised 8m above ground on 8 'V'-shaped reinforced concrete pilotis. Brooke House was named after the then Minister of Housing and Local
Government, Henry Brooke MP.

Repton House, Lillington Gardens, Westminster, Greater London
This block of sixteen three-bedroom flats, two one-bedroom flats and two bedsits is part of the Lillington Gardens Estate. The estate was designed in 1961 by John
Darbourne. The design is based on the nearby Church of St James the Less, with its striking Victorian red brick. Phase 1 was built in 1964-8, by Darbourne and Geoffrey
Darke, for Westminster City Council. Lillington was the first low rise, high density public housing scheme to be built. It proved that low rise flats with an interesting design could accommodate the same number of people per acre (density) as tower blocks. It influenced the style of council housing from the mid 1960s until the early
1980s. The scheme won many awards including a Ministry of Housing and Local
Government award for good design in 1970. The scheme provided homes for around
2,000 people with a high proportion provided for older people. There were also pubs, shops, doctors, a community hall and a library. Before the estate was built this part of
Pimlico was mainly older terraced housing.
Read official list description for more information

Council Housing, Trellick Tower, Kensington, Greater London
Read official list description for more information
Trellick Tower is a 30 floor tower block consisting of 217 flats, six shops, an office, youth and women's centres. It was built as part of the Cheltenham
Estate; a mixture of high and low rise blocks, between Goldbourne Road, the
Westway and the canal. It was designed between 1968-72 by Erno Goldfinger for the London County Council. The tower has a dramatic silhouette with the separate lift and stair tower linked by bridges to the flats. Goldfinger was an important architect who paid a lot of attention to planning and decorating the interior of both public areas and the flats themselves. This block included the best ideas of the time on high rise council housing but was one of the last to be built. By the 1970s the whole idea of housing families in tall tower blocks was being questioned.

Council Housing, Everton Heights, Liverpool, Merseyside
These three blocks of high rise flats, Haigh Heights, Canterbury Heights and Crosbie
Heights, were built in 1965 by Liverpool City Council. They were also known as The
Piggeries. They are typical of many blocks of flats that were built from large, pre-cast concrete panels that were bolted together on site with little attention to design, amenities or landscaping. Over 60 tower blocks were built in the city between 1956 and
1974, providing more than 5,500 homes. In the 1990s 54 tower blocks were demolished including these.
Find more information on the inacityliving website

How did the vision turn out in reality?
Housing in the 1950s and 60s
Use the following resources to find more information to add to your recording chart
Databases
Find more examples on the Heritage Explorer website by searching on 'Council Housing' or 'flat' - you can refine your search by period or by place
Find more examples by searching the Images of England database of listed buildings – log in to use the advanced search – start with a search by typing 'flats' into the building type box and selecting the period 'modern' from the drop down list
General articles
An article from the Independent newspaper online
Two well researched articles from Wickipedia; Council House and Tower Block
An article about the architect Erno Goldfinger from the Design Museum website
Individual estates/buildings
Try a search on Google to find out what has happened to the estates today - a search on Churchill
Gardens led to several useful and reliable websites including a short film on the BBC website

How did the vision turn out in reality?
Housing in the 1950s and 60s
Use the information that you have added to your recording sheet to write an essay with the title 'How did the vision turn out in reality? - Housing in the 1950s and 60s'
Use the 4 sections of the recording sheet to structure the essay
•Explain the housing issues facing government and local authorities after World War Two
•Outline the architects and planners vision for council housing
•Explore the other motives that lay behind the housing developments built in the period
•Outline what happened to the estates built and why
•Conclude with your opinion on the question, summarising your reasons

How did the vision turn out in reality?
Housing in the 1950s and 60s
Extension work
Find examples of high rise developments in your own locality
- do some research to find out when and why they were built and what has happened to them since.
- find information by searching on the web (Heritage Explorer or Images of England), visiting your local archives or local history library
- useful sources would be; old newspapers, old housing committee minutes
- speak to local residents and ask for their views
Hold a 'housing committee meeting' attended by the council architect, planning officer, finance officer, housing officer, local residents - each person must outline their vision for future housing and explain their views.
The other students vote for which scheme should go ahead.