Downham Estate: Its Origins and Early History

by Alistair Black

Even by the standards of the house-building boom of the immediate post-Second World War decades, the construction by the London County Council (LCC) of the Downham estate in South-East London between the wars was a remarkable achievement. Although the fabric and appearance of the estate has changed considerably since then, the observer of today is struck by the same sense of scale and shared vernacular style that planners, builders and early residents must have felt when the estate sprang up, in a relatively short span of years, from a pristine 'green field' site in the 1920s.

The Downham estate, like others built at the time, was developed to help alleviate a severe housing shortage in London, especially in the capital's inner-city districts. This shortage was in evidence before 1914 and was made much worse by the virtual cessation of house-building during the First World War.

However, it would be wrong to assume that the estate was planned and constructed simply as a numerical solution to the problem of overcrowding. It was also conceived as a living space which would provide citizens with a quality of life beyond the wildest dreams of those who had experienced the slums and sub-standard housing of Victorian and Edwardian London.

Why the estate was needed

The Downham estate, like similar estates at the time, was conceived and developed as a direct result of the housing crisis and the emerging threat of social unrest that accompanied the First World War.

By the end of the war, about which time plans for the estate began to be formulated, the housing situation in London had reached crisis point. Even before 1914, demand had begun to outstrip supply. Between 1901 and 1911 the population of London grew by an astonishing 10%; the number of families increasing at an even faster rate, by nearly 13%. The pre-war house-building industry failed to meet adequately the increasing demand that resulted from London's population explosion.

The state too was slow to respond, for between 1891 and 1914, throughout Britain as a whole, an average of only 900 local authority dwellings were built annually.

The First World War turned what was a serious housing shortage into a crisis. As resources were diverted towards the war effort, an almost complete cessation of house-building ensued. The resulting overcrowding was particularly severe in London's inner ring of boroughs. In fact it was two of these boroughs, Deptford and Bermondsey, which first proposed the idea of an estate in the Grove Park area. However, Deptford and Bermondsey were not permitted under law to develop land in another district. It was therefore left to the LCC to consider their proposal and make reality of it. In overseeing the scheme, the LCC set aside around one-tenth of dwellings to families from Deptford and Bermondsey.

The genesis of the estate is also to be considered in the context of the social disaffection and volatile political situation that developed in the last two years of the war and in its immediate aftermath. Industrial unrest, deepening social problems (such as poor housing) and criticism of the conduct of the war, combined with the 'red scare' generated by the Russian revolution of 1917, produced a fear of social and political upheaval among the governing classes.

In response to this, and to improve the morale of soldiers and citizens alike, the wartime coalition government embarked on a policy of reconstruction, whereby promises for social and political renewal were laid before the people. One such policy was the 'Homes fit for heroes' housing initiative, which envisaged the construction of millions of affordable, high-standard council dwellings after the war.

A Housing Act, incorporating generous subsidies for local authorities, was passed in 1919. However, once the threat of revolution in Britain had subsided, which by 1921 it had done, such a generous housing policy was no longer needed, and subsidies were duly withdrawn. But Britain's dire housing shortage could not be ignored and so in 1923 subsidies were reintroduced - although at a much lower level. It was under these scaled-down subsidies that Downham was built.

Hence, the estate did not encompass the revolutionary high standards of design and the wide range of modem amenities which characterised the dwellings seen on similar estates built between 1919 and 1921. Many of the internal facilities did not match up to the high standards adopted in earlier schemes. For instance, sculleries were not plastered; some bathrooms were inconveniently situated on the ground floor; lighting was by gas only; and water had to be heated in a copper in the scullery and then transferred for the purpose of bathing by means of a small semi-rotary pump or syphonic apparatus.

This said, the dwellings provided at Downham were, for many residents, a world away from the dreadful, and in some cases insanitary, Victorian dwellings they had left behind.

The Role of the London County Council

Before 1914 most dwellings built by the LCC were in London's inner city. Between the wars, however, a policy of 'suburban colonisation' was adopted. Between 1919 and 1929 the LCC constructed eight new, cottage-style estates, most of them of considerable size; and in the late 1930's seven more estates were started.

By far the largest of the estates was that built at Becontree, to the east of London. In 1939 it contained 26,000 dwellings, housing some 120,000 people. The second largest was the St. Helier estate near Croydon, which contained 9,000 dwellings housing 40,000 people. Downhain was the third largest, with 7,000 dwellings housing a population of 29,000.

By 1938 the total stock of LCC dwellings had reached over 86,000, housing over 382,000 people - a population equal at the time to that of Bristol. This was an impressive achievement, particularly when one considers that less than 10,000 LCC dwellings were in existence by the end of the First World War.

The Rural Vision

The LCC inter-war housing achievement was not just a question of numbers. It was also about the building of much improved dwellings. The desire to improve quality was a key characteristic of the Garden City movement, which in the decades before the First World War proclaimed a new concept in housing: a rejection of the city and a search for an alternative based on the countryside and the village.

The way had already been shown by the work of philanthropic employers in providing good quality housing for their labour force, as in the case of the soap manufacturer W.H. Lever at Port Sunlight (1888), and the cocoa king Joseph Rowntree at New Earswick (1901).

The aim of the Garden City movement was to avoid the high densities and squalid living conditions which so characterized the nineteenth-century city by creating towns of a limited size (around 30,000 in population) separated ftom other urban areas by an agricultural green belt.

The estate at Downham, though satisfying this plan by virtue of size of population, did not quite fit with the Garden City concept in terms of satellite status. It was created, unmistakably, as a suburb of London, linked to the metropolis economically, socially and politically. However, at the level of the estate, Downham typified the environment which the Garden City promoted. Homes were designed in the vernacular cottage style. Small areas of turfed land created the village green effect.

It was argued that lower housing density could be provided for the same numbers but at lower cost, because road construction costs, which made up such a high proportion of total construction expenditure, could be cut by efficient design in layout in the village tradition: for example, by the clever use of the cul-de-sac.

Dwellings at Downham met Garden City standards - standards which were endorsed by the Ministry of Health between the wars as the official guidelines for local authority housebuilding. They included many luxuries which nineteenth century planners could barely have envisaged: a living room which was sun-lit; gas or electricity; hot and cold running water; large gardens; baths; a cooker or range; and the all-important indoor lavatory.

The Area Before the Estate Was Built

The LCC's acquisition of the Grove Park site (the name given to the area in the planning stages) was an official purchase, made in 1920, under the Housing Act (1890). Part of the site laid outside of the LCC's administrative jurisdiction in the borough of Bromley, but under the Housing Act (1900) it was empowered to purchase land outside its boundaries.

The original site was under the ownership of just two parties: the Earl of Northbrook and the Rt. Hon Henry William (Lord) Forster. Some 441 acres were purchased from the Earl of Northbrook and 131 acres from Lord Forster, the former package of land containing two farms, Shroffold's Farm and Holloway Farm. Later, much smaller tracts of land, for the purpose of rounding-off the site and giving access to existing highways, were purchased from the same landlords over the course of the next five years.

Until the 1920s visits to the area on which the estate was constructed, known locally as the 'Seven Fields', often provided a weekend outing for the people of Lewisham. Homesteads and farmland under the cultivation were still to be seen until 1924, and the official guide to the metropolitan borough of Lewisham in that same year refers to Southend Village, at the western edge of the site, as a community which still boasted 'the survival of past rural glories'.

At this time London extended only as far as Catford and Lee Green to the north of the site, although the area surrounding Grove Park Station to the east was relatively populated. To the west the tentacles of suburbia had reached as far as Sydenham, Beckenham and the new cottage estate at Bellingham, approximately a mile to the north-west of the Grove Park site (construction began at Bellingham in 1921). But to the south, Bromley remained a separate town, and on either side of the road linking Bromley with Catfbrd the prospect was still, in the early 1920's, a comparatively open one.

However, once construction got under way the rural division between Catford and Bromley began to disappear leaving only the administrative divide between the boroughs of Lewisham and Bromley, as well as between the LCC and Kent.

Construction

The development of the Downham estate began in March 1924, and was complete by the summer of 1930. The estate covered an area of 522 acres, of which 461 acres were in the metropolitan borough of Lewisham, and 61 acres in the borough of Bromley; and extended from Old Bromley Road and Bromley Hill in the west to the Southern Railway and Baring Road in the east, a distance of about 1.25 miles.

Exactly 6,071 dwellings were provided, built at a total cost, inclusive of land and road costs, of £3,575,000. The majority of the dwellings were two-storey houses of brick construction, comprising 729 of five rooms (with parlour), 1,559 of four rooms (with parlour), 1,311 of four rooms (without parlour) and 2,060 of three rooms (without parlour). In buildings of two or three storeys, there were 64 flats of four rooms, 128 of three rooms, and 216 of two rooms.

By July 1930 the weekly rents for typical houses and flats, inclusive of rates and water charges, ranged from 12s Id (twelve shillings and a penny) for a two room flat, to 21s 5d (twenty-one shillings and fivepence) for a five room house. Each house and flat had a kitchenette and a bathroom in addition to the number of rooms stated.

The contract for construction was won by the London-based firm of Holland and Hannan and Cubitts, out of a total number of 33 tenders submitted. There were two main considerations in respect of the choice of this particular construction company. Firstly, they tendered the most economical price for the job. Secondly, because time was of the essence due to the fact that the state subsidy under the 1923 Housing Act was only payable on houses built by 1st October 1925 (though Downham was eventually built under the 1924 Act), it was thought that a single concern, promising the muscle and economies of scale large enough to carry out the task quickly and efficiently, should be appointed.

Holland and Hannan and Cubitts possessed the resources, diversity and experience to comply with the LCC's objectives for the estate. It was one of the country's largest building firms. The firm of Cubitts dated from the early nineteenth century and, amongst other ventures, had been responsible for the construction of the Thames Ernbankment. Following the merger between Cubitts and Holland and Hannan in the late nineteenth century, the new concern won large contracts in Liverpool and by 1913 had established an overseas subsidiary in South Africa.

By the inter-war period it was one of the relatively few numbers of large firms operating in the building industry, the complexion of the industry being dominated by small firms and subcontracting.

The only worrying construction problem which arose, other than the constant shortage of skilled labour, was that of access to such a vast site. The only points of access before the building of the main highway through the estate (Downhwn Way) were from the Bromley Road and Grove Park Station areas. Thus, it was decided to distribute the materials on the site principally by means of a standard gauge railway connected with the Southern Railway Company's system at Grove Park.

Holland and Hannan and Cubitts was responsible for the construction of the entire estate with the exception of some experimental houses of various types which were erected on the Bromley Road frontage of the estate. Amongst these were four steel houses at the foot of Bromley Hill which, said the promotional literature, could be made ready for occupation within three weeks of commencement. It was reported that the price of these steel dwellings compared favourably with that of brick dwellings.

Also, some concrete cottages were erected - four 'Prefacto' houses, built using a system of 'factocrete' units - by the London and Eastern Prefacto Company.

At Downham, as on all LCC estates, it was the policy of the Council's Housing Committee to use bricks as far as possible for building, but in view of the urgency of the housing problem, not to mention the scarcity of skilled labour, the opportunity was often taken to construct experimental houses of various types in the interests of possible future economics.

Unfortunately, we know little about the labour assigned to the construction of the estate over the six year period. However, we do know that by the end of 1925 some 1,500 men were at work on the site, and that dormitory accommodation for company workmen had been provided in a row of completed cottages at a weekly charge of six shillings each. It had been one of the recommendations of the Deptford and Bermondsey councils that 50% of the labour employed in the estate's construction be drawn from their districts, but it is not known if this early objective was met.

Early Residents and the Ambience of the Estate

Who were the people who came to live at Downham in its early years? As agreed before the estate was built, a significant number of residents came from the boroughs of Deptford and Bermondsey. It is also likely that many residents originated in other inner London areas and came to Downham in an attempt to escape the severe housing deprivation existing in those areas.

Most residents did not belong to the lowest income groups. That is to say, a high percentage could be classed as skilled or semi-skilled: clerks, drivers, compositors, printers, postal workers, civil servants, railway workers, engineers, firemen, bricklayers and tram workers; although there was also a solid number of labourers among the early residents. The respectability of early residents meant that most took the cue to maintain their properties in the condition they first found them. In order to encourage this further, in 1930 the LCC launched an annual competition for the best-kept garden.

There appears to have been a correlation between the relatively high rates charged at Downham and the ability of residents to pay. This was similar to the general experience of inter-war state housing. The market for local authority houses was confined to a limited range of income groups. Certainly at Downham it proved difficult for the LCC not to favour reliable, 'respectable' tenants who were likely to be good rent-payers. However, it is certainly the case that a small number of residents, many no doubt afflicted by the plague of unemployment, drifted back to the inner city areas because of the high rents: the 'moonlight flit' was not an uncommon occurrence.

A more common reason for some residents deciding to return to inner-London districts than an inability to pay their rent was lack of familiarity with, and alienation from, the new environment they found at Downham. An observer writing in 1949 gave this indictment of the estate at Downham:

'The estate, as a measure of the level of thought put into a model housing scheme, is disappointing. Twenty years after its construction this much heralded scheme looks as outmoded as the dodo. Strung together in rows, little street leading into little street, dun- coloured, mouselike, humble, the estate is the most colourless collection of box dwellings that one could find. Each house is in itself a very long way from the slums of Bermondsey, but in view of the opportunity offered by such a scheme, the place is a crushing disappointment.'

By importing into the design the urban characteristics of uniformity and a rigid building line, planners denied the possibility of accident and natural growth that is inherent in the idea of the village. Attempts were made to scale down monotony by building roads curved or straight, long and short, wide and narrow, and by adding squares, crescents and circuses. However, on balance, a critic may have suggested that it was the similarities, not the differences which impressed. Further, in order to economise and save time, it was found to be all too easy to clear away shrubs and trees, instead of building around them. The result, in general, was a lack of greenery on the estate, although some trees were in evidence and privets provided much welcomed relief from bricks and mortar.

Some residents undoubtedly drifted back to the close-knit communities and to the crowded tenements and terraced housing they had left behind. Here would be found the accessiblestreet corner shop or pub and, perhaps more important, a cohesive community of relatives and friends.

After a time, of course, Downham did begin to assume some of the characteristics of the inner district neighbourhoods, developing a tentative but identifiable sense of community and kinship, solidified by the emergence of a first generation born and bred on the estate.

Infrastructure, Transport, Leisure and Services

The housing problem in London, even in the 1920's, was greater than elsewhere because most of the vacant land for building was in outlying districts, and often too far ftom people's place of work to be at all convenient. London was at a disadvantage compared with smaller cities where land for new housing estates was available not more than 15 minutes train ride from where people might have to work in the inner areas.

For the early residents of Downham good travel facilities were essential. This was especially true in view of the fact that the expansion of light industry around London's periphery, and the prospects for local employment which it brought with it, did not really get underway until well into the 1930's. Residents on the estate were served in the east by Grove Park Station (opened in 1871) with its direct link to central London. As a result of the estate's construction the number of tickets issued increased ftom 71,133 in 1924 to 929,626 in 1934. This latter figure includes 12,041 season tickets.

Western and southern areas of the estate were served by omnibus and tram. Because most of the estate was situated within the LCC's administrative boundary, the Council could itself provide the tramway service. This was extended from Rushey Green (Catford) to Southend Village in April 1914; and from Southend Village to a terminus along Downham Way in September 1926. The final link with Grove Park Station was made in November 1928. A bus service for the estate was to come only much later.

A number of open spaces were provided an the estate. The land on either side of Spring Brook (32 acres at the southern edge of the estate), because of waterlogging, was unsuitable for house-building, but improved drainage rendered it suitable for playing fields. Some 21 acres were also reserved for playing fields off Whitefoot Lane to the north; and in the centre of the estate steep slopes, again unsuitable for building purposes, provided a further 31 acres of open space.

Moreover, just outside the northern boundary could he found the 24-acre Forster Park, opened in 1922. In 1930 the spacious Downham Tavern was opened. This was the only public house included in the plan of the estate. It is true that just a single public house was hardly adequate to serve a population of 29,000, but one must view this in the context of the temperance orientation of the LCC at the time. It was hoped that facilities like the Downham Tavern could evolve into family establishments rather than the drinking dens of the past.

Downhwn boasted a large cinema, The Splendid, opened in July 1930 with 2244 seats. In the late 1930s other important facilities emerged, including a local branch library and a swimming pool.

As education authority for the greater part of the estate, the LCC built seven elementary schools for 5,816 children, a central school for 800 children, an open-air school for 130 children, and by 1930 had reserved a site for a secondary school. In addition the borough of Bromley provided on its section of the estate a school for 1,040 children.

Five sites on the estate were sold off for the construction of churches and chapels.

Sources and Further Reading

Archival records relating to the estate can be consulted in the following locations: The Local Studies Department, Lewisham Public Libraries; the Local Studies Department, Bromley Public Libraries; and the London Metropolitan Record Office.

For further reading, see: Mark Swenarton, Homes fit for heroes, 1981; Greater London Council, Home sweet home: housing designed by the LCC and GLC architects 1888 - 1975, 1976; and Alistair Black, The Downham Estate, 1924 - 1939, 1985, manuscript essay deposited in the Local Studies Department, Lewisham Public Libraries and in the Local Studies Department, Bromley Public Libraries.