Involvement in the process of building suburbs has been a very
risky thing indeed. The process of building has relied on a
number of intricate relationships which have both spread the
risk and made it more complicated. The key players in the process
are the freeholder, the builder and the financier; for added
measure development companies are also involved.
The typical process was for a freeholder to decide that housing
would offer more profits over the longer term than agriculture;
then for land to be let to builders, or sold or let to a managing
agent or development company, which then let to builders.
Many factors could influence freeholders in this decision. A
depressed agricultural market, as in north Kent in the inter-war
years, stimulated development in much of Bexley and Bromley.
The enclosure of Common land as at Dulwich
in 1800, or on Bexleyheath
in 1812 and 1814, when land as distributed amongst the area's
freeholders, brought new land into the market and gave the new
freeholders the confidence to speculate.
In the case of Bexleyheath this was a safe speculation as the
common was already being squatted by settlers working in the
developing cloth industry in nearby Crayford.
The building of new infrastructure, sometimes by others, such
as the Surrey Canal in Peckham
and Camberwell, and sometimes
by the landowner himself, as in the case of the building of
the Bexleyheath Railway by Alfred
Bean of Danson in the 1890s were also important considerations.
Some freeholders stood resolutely against development. The Dulwich
Estate resisted the temptation to allow development that could
have brought spectacular profits
In the Victorian period a large number of small building firms
were involved, and this reflected in the slight variations in
style of different terraces of houses in the same area or street.
East Dulwich and Plumstead
provide good examples today.
There were larger firms too. Edward Yates was a dominant name
in Walworth and Nunhead
in the late 19th century and New Ideal Homesteads in the 1930s
in Bexley and Bromley. In the Victorian period building leases
were typically 99 years and when this time was up the freeholder
took outright ownership and direct management of the houses.
In the intervening years the builder or his agent or the development
company managed the houses and took as much in rent as the market
allowed.
Freeholders and Builders in the 19th Century
The final design of the new houses was influenced by what the
builder thought most a suitable for the market and by any restrictions
placed by the freeholder or development company. This last factor
could be crucial. Some freeholders took a detailed interest
specifying the size of plots, buildings, materials and design.
A good example of this type of involvement was the Dulwich Estate,
which tightly supervised all aspects of development. The estate
even employed its own surveyor, Charles Barry and his son, also
Charles Barry, to design many of the houses and other properties.
The Rolls Estate in Bermondsey employed Michael Searles as its
surveyor. (Searles was responsible for four of south London’s
grandest terraces: The
Paragon, Blackheath - still pre-eminent; Surrey Square off
the Old Kent Road – impressive but with neighbouring building
that do it no service at all; Gloucester Circus – highly desirable,
and the Paragon, Walworth – demolished to make room for a London
School Board school.) Freeholders who exercised control in this
way sought to determine and preserve the character of the estate.
Other freeholders had no such scruples and were unable or unwilling
to impose conditions on builders. Sometimes plots had been let
and sub-let so many times that freeholders lost any kind of
effective control. One such was the Bowyer-Smith estate in Camberwell,
which allowed the building of homes that rapidly turned into
slums.
Freeholders
and Builders in the 20th Century
Developments in the 20th century followed a similar pattern,
but differed in that the builder sold the newly-built houses
rather than leased them. As well as requiring a demand for homes,
this process also required financial structures and interest
rates that allowed individuals access to mortgages.
Often, developers also provided the mortgage as well. One of
the biggest and most successful players in this process was
New Ideal Homesteads, which operated in Bexley and Bromley in
the 1920s and 1930s. They pitched their product just the right
side of what would make them the return they expected, but which
was affordable to a new segment of the market that had never
owned their homes before: the skilled workers or clerks of inner
south London.
Finance
19th
Century
Housing development operated within a very volatile financial
environment, effected by both macro and micro levels. To be
successful the developer and the new resident needed financial
security, or at least access to cheap money.
In the 19th century the principal sources for these were Building
Societies and Freehold Land Societies. The former‘s role was
to provide finance for house building to its members, and the
latter was effectively to provide the finance to acquire freehold
building plots.
(Freehold Societies had their principal role in financing freehold
plots in order to boost the number of voters at a time when
the franchise was limited by holding freehold land of a particular
value.)
There were numerous Building Societies operating in south London
including the Lambeth from 1852, the Temperance Land, from 1854,
the Peckham Permanent from 1855, the Greenwich and the Woolwich
from 1923. Solicitors also financed builders.
This gave builders an easy source of money. They were further
encouraged by easy credit from suppliers, few building standards,
and numerous pattern books, which provided a short cut from
novice to master. Most building firms were small, and were engaged
in an enterprise of great risk.
In the 19th century virtually all occupiers of newly-built
homes were tenants and their ability to finance their new home
depended on the level and stability of their weekly income.
As the economy as a whole fluctuated so did the occupation rates
of newly-built homes, so booms in housing output such as 1878
- 1880 could be followed by a slump in the economy leaving builders
with completed, but unlet houses, or even half finished buildings.
Financing
20th Century Developments
In the 20th century the picture was rather different as developers
disposed of their new homes by sales. This was made possible
by changes in financial regulations, which allowed individuals
greater access to mortgages after the Small Dwellings Act of
1928.
The process was helped by the big developers, notably New Ideal
Homesteads also entering the becoming financiers.
Builders of the private estates of the 1930s were also helped
by government subsidies to private builders and by increasingly
prefabricated building processes.
The latter gave opportunities for cheaper bulk purchases, the
use of cheaper, less skilled, labour (readily available in the
depression years) and swift erection – houses could be built
in three weeks. It has also left a legacy of bland and monotonous
streetscapes.
The private developers of the 1930s were also very slick marketers.
Their brochures were brash and confident; the language was extravagant,
in the Albany Park Estate brochure they promised “it is intended
that the charming countryside shall permanently retain the rural
character of its vistas and shall not suffer disfigurement in
any way”; hardly a credible claim given the feverish activity.
They offered whole package including legal work and finance.
They stressed the advantages of the to women, even claiming
the houses were designed by the woman for the woman; New Ideal
Homesteads' properties came with electricity and a range of
labour saving devices. Ironically, far from offering women new
opportunities, the new suburbs only reinforced their role in
the home.
Many
of these developers built at or higher than the permitted density,
but cunningly disguised this fact by making four properties
look like a spacious pair of semis.
Private developers were keenly aware of need for services so
shops, for example the Oval built by as part of their Marlborough
Park Estate, and railway stations such as Albany Park, also
built by New Ideal Homesteads as part of their estate of that
name.
State Subsidies and Funding
In the early 20th century central and local government increasingly
became a source for money for house building. This money has
become available in different ways at different times, depending
on national circumstances and the political persuasion of the
government of the day.
Estates for workers in munitions factories were funded directly
in the case of the Progress Estate in Eltham, or indirectly
in the case of the Vickers estate in Crayford.
In the 1920s government encouraged local authorities to build
housing schemes and huge schemes such as Downham
(London County Council 1924 - 1930 and 6,000 homes), Bellingham
(Lewisham Borough Council 1920 - 1923, 2,000 homes) and Welling,
(Bexley Urban District Council, 426 homes) were built. In the
1930s money was channelled through the private sector in the
form of subsidies. In the post-war era government channelled
huge sums towards slum clearance and the erection of new inner-city
estates and in the building of new towns. Now the preferred
route is through housing associations.
Co-operation
and Self Build
South East London also has two types of development that fall
outside these economic and financial structures.
The first is an estate built by a co-operative society and the
second self-builders. The Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society
built the Abbey Wood (or Bostall
Estate) of 400 homes between 1900 and 1905. Homes were let
or sold on reasonable terms and the venture was assisted by
raw materials, notably chalk, from the own chalk mine nearby.
The Woolwich Arsenal’s role as the nation’s armaments factory
and the prosperity this brought the town gave the RACS the financial
security to undertake the venture, while the heavily unionised
workforce and support for the emerging Labour Party provided
the ethos.
Self-builders were active in the Blackfen area of Sidcup in
the 1920s and 1930s. They were energetic, pioneering, hardy
free thinkers.
Regulation
The regulative environment in which developers have operated
has become more restrictive over time. In the 17th century the
authorities banned all new building on the fringes of the metropolis.
Private estates had influence; some interfered, some didn’t.
