"in the 1960s local council officials in Bath took it upon them themselves to draw up plans to demolish large swathes of artisan housing while retaining the set pieces such as the Royal Crescent. As a result, hundreds of small Georgian houses, of the kind that it is nowadays everyone’s dream to live in, were brutally bulldozed."
Similar was said during the Labour government. John Prescott set up a scheme where there were grants to knock down houses and rebuild. I remember one programme showing how the existing houses could be refurbished for a fraction of the cost of new ones but Prescott does not tend to listen to other people's views.
Similar was said during the Labour government. John Prescott set up a scheme where there were grants to knock down houses and rebuild. I remember one programme showing how the existing houses could be refurbished for a fraction of the cost of new ones but Prescott does not tend to listen to other people's views.
Call me a cynic, but spending a few grand doing up a house will always be less popular with 'the powers that be' than spending mega dosh on a vanity project instead. Far be it for me to suggest that developers may also have been bunging the Labour party some cash too - after all a multi million pound development means multi millions of pounds going in peoples pockets...
Call me a cynic, but spending a few grand doing up a house will always be less popular with 'the powers that be' than spending mega dosh on a vanity project instead. Far be it for me to suggest that developers may also have been bunging the Labour party some cash too - after all a multi million pound development means multi millions of pounds going in peoples pockets...
I'd say you were being realistic. Why else would they conveniently "lose" reports by their own staff that said that the properties were perfectly fit for human habitation.
They should be dragged before the courts and left to rot away in prison. :mad:
Brave New World. That's what the the governments wanted after the last war, and in it's name the architects, the planners, and the councils destroyed whole communities, and were never taken to task.
They didn't want to spend a few thousand on renovating the housing stock, the architects etc and others, who live in their ivory towers, wanted to experiment. It was easier to send out CPOs and forget about people; forget about communities that have been around for 100 and more years; forget that people may want a bit of garden; forget the people full stop, so long as the vision they had was fulfilled.
Their vision didn't work, and it was never going to work. So places like Deptford were left with high rise flats, that nobody wanted to live in, and eventually many were demolished.
And I have a feeling the ex-member of Lewisham Council, who was trying to defend the planners' action lives in leafy Blackheath which is literally just up the hill from the Greenwich end of Deptford High Street, but a world apart.
Someone said the planners did more damage to this area of London than the bombs - they're right.
I actually enjoyed that, due to the characters mostly.
Spent a fair bit of time in Deptford market as a child on Saturdays.
Councillor fella was getting right on my nips, mostly due to his accent, then what was coming out of his mouth. Enjoyed the Pastor and his spiritual mapping being used as a metaphor.
I didn't get it as first and told him to F'off my TV screen
But why did they have to sub-title him? We all have accents and his was as clear as anyone else.
Brave New World. That's what the the governments wanted after the last war, and in it's name the architects, the planners, and the councils destroyed whole communities, and were never taken to task.
They didn't want to spend a few thousand on renovating the housing stock, the architects etc and others, who live in their ivory towers, wanted to experiment. It was easier to send out CPOs and forget about people; forget about communities that have been around for 100 and more years; forget that people may want a bit of garden; forget the people full stop, so long as the vision they had was fulfilled.
Their vision didn't work, and it was never going to work. So places like Deptford were left with high rise flats, that nobody wanted to live in, and eventually many were demolished.
And I have a feeling the ex-member of Lewisham Council, who was trying to defend the planners' action lives in leafy Blackheath which is literally just up the hill from the Greenwich end of Deptford High Street, but a world apart.
Someone said the planners did more damage to this area of London than the bombs - they're right.
Most probably didn't have a garden, just a yard at the back. The children would have played on the street out front with all the neighbour's front doors open, listening out for each others children, so none of them would have come to any harm.
But why did they have to sub-title him? We all have accents and his was as clear as anyone else.
They subtitled the old west indian guys too.
Thought the accents wouldn't be understood obviously.
My brain was double processing, once for what they said and then the subtitles, the disjoin didn't help much either.
If the grammar, is poor, leave it alone, don't fix it in the subtitles IMO.
Most probably didn't have a garden, just a yard at the back. The children would have played on the street out front with all the neighbour's front doors open, listening out for each others children, so none of them would have come to any harm.
A real community.
I knew houses in Deptford that did have back gardens, and well tended they were too. An uncle of mine lived in his house, which was just across the road at the Greenwich end of Deptford High Street, for years until the planners came along.
But even if it was a back yard and the kids played in the street, you put your finger on it when you say "listening out for each others children". You couldn't do that in high-rise flats. You wouldn't even get anywhere safe for the kids to play in.
Forgotten about him and Poulson ruining Newcastle. But it wasn't just them that were corrupt. There were many more - they just didn't get found out. Just makes my blood boil when I see all that we've lost, and for what?
Forgotten about him and Poulson ruining Newcastle. But it wasn't just them that were corrupt. There were many more - they just didn't get found out. Just makes my blood boil when I see all that we've lost, and for what?
Victorian houses on the whole, were built to last, unlike the concrete Tower Blocks that replaced them, which are now in the process of being demolished.
Let's just hope they have learnt from their mistakes, but somehow I doubt it.
aside from the loss of the community, why on earth would anyone demolish those beautiful victorian/period buildings for the ugliest council flats ever conceived? Did those people have a few screws loose?
I would imagine to fit more people and families into the same premises and to score more income from them for it.
Lets not get too carried away that nobody wanted to be moved out of Deptford's terraces and loved it there.
In recent docs, A picture of London, and in Rise and Fall of the council estate, you've had people who were happy to move to new Estates.
In a picture of London there was a woman who still liked living on the Thamesmead estate, even though the cine footage showed it wasn't as lively and didn't have the same community as it did in the 70's.
She looked lovingly at a High rise block on the estate and said she wanted to live in it, it was her dream property.
Danny Baker came from Deptford and moved to a Maisonette in Debenhams road, his mum loved it, after living in a cramped Terrace.
He said his Dad wouldn't be sad about moving out of Deptford either 'glad to get out'
Danny can still remember the names of his neighbours, their kids and his little community of friends he played out with.
That said Danny was still fuming about the social engineering and dodgy reports aspect of it all.
That was the biggest shock for me in this fascinating programme, the 'found' 'Slum' reports of the time....but for the producers to heap some of the Blame on Councillor Taylor, was a bit much.
Brave New World. That's what the the governments wanted after the last war, and in it's name the architects, the planners, and the councils destroyed whole communities, and were never taken to task.
Which their experiment is now being knocked down.:(
And the Slums they didn't knock down...going for 750K...:rolleyes:
That was the biggest shock for me in this fascinating programme, the 'found' 'Slum' reports of the time....but for the producers to heap some of the Blame on Councillor Taylor, was a bit much.
Which their experiment is now being knocked down.:(
And the Slums they didn't knock down...going for 750K...:rolleyes:
I got the feeling he was caught between two camps, at the time.
He thought some of it needed to go and his colleagues thought a lot more needed to go.
That's before you get into the shady practices with bulldozers, water pipes and the like.
I wonder how many other councillors or planners were filmed at the time and were willing to appear now, wouldn't be surprised if he was the only one.
That house for 750K was a bit misleading, that's a double fronter, twice if not 3 times the size of a lot of the terraces they'd have pulled down.
That's probably after an extensive refurb too.
IIRC the modern(ish) stuff that's been knocked down is down the other end of High street, Maisonette blocks on the Evelyn Estate and Edward Street estate.
I think most of that was precast nonsense that was badly built, unfit for purpose designwise.
Might have been a different story if it was designed for the climate and built properly in the first place.
1/3 of Evelyn Estate is gone, 2/3 is/has been refurbed IIRC.
I really like these programmes and hearing the stories of people who had lived in the houses shown, it is so interesting. It's great that they have photos too, not alot of people nowadays keep actual photos. There is just something, about looking at a photo album that takes you back to places of past.
Not as interesting overall as there was no great conflict, the adventures of "The Farm" might have been an absorbing social history itself rather than just another bit of the street.
I really like these programmes and hearing the stories of people who had lived in the houses shown, it is so interesting. It's great that they have photos too, not alot of people nowadays keep actual photos. There is just something, about looking at a photo album that takes you back to places of past.
Keep an eye out for BBC4 repeating "A Life Without Work". I think there were three programmes based on a project at the end of the 19th Century where the Rowntree Trust(?) had unemployed people in York keeping a diary every day. One programme compared two or three people with equivalents today but the best programme followed one family and the father's search for work. He was leaving the house at 5 am hunting for work, the names were anonymised but they managed to identify the family then trace present day descendants and take them back to the site of the house where he lived which just happened to be being excavated.
Terrific programme, The murder of historic London by ego fueled, socialist ideologue architects and their partners in crime in the councils should never, ever be forgotten. And not just in London - in every major city in the land mini-Ceaucescus intent on systematization destroyed communities everywhere.
I loved the way the longterm residents of the street were of the slightly eccentric types who tend to be the vanguard of conservation and who take risks in seemingly "dodgy" neighbourhoods. The guy who actually embraced "The Farm" right next door to his new (old) house! I have to say, I would have been a good deal less tolerant.
I hope they do an episode in the East End. Tredegar Square in Bow, and the surrounding Georgian streets would make a great subject. Unlike Camberwell Grove, Tredegar Square did not make the middle class grade when it was built, as the speculating developer went broke in the process, they were sold off cheap, and went downhill almost immediately (echoes of many developments today). It's taken 200 years for them to achieve what they were intended for. I used to live on the corner, but moved on about 15 years ago when the gentrification was well under way. it's now complete, and the rough old boozer 5 doors up from me is now a gastro pub!
Terrific programme, The murder of historic London by ego fueled, socialist ideologue architects and their partners in crime in the councils should never, ever be forgotten. And not just in London - in every major city in the land mini-Ceaucescus intent on systematization destroyed communities everywhere.
I loved the way the longterm residents of the street were of the slightly eccentric types who tend to be the vanguard of conservation and who take risks in seemingly "dodgy" neighbourhoods. The guy who actually embraced "The Farm" right next door to his new (old) house! I have to say, I would have been a good deal less tolerant.
I hope they do an episode in the East End. Tredegar Square in Bow, and the surrounding Georgian streets would make a great subject. Unlike Camberwell Grove, Tredegar Square did not make the middle class grade when it was built, as the speculating developer went broke in the process, they were sold off cheap, and went downhill almost immediately (echoes of many developments today). It's taken 200 years for them to achieve what they were intended for. I used to live on the corner, but moved on about 15 years ago when the gentrification was well under way. it's now complete, and the rough old boozer 5 doors up from me is now a gastro pub!
Me too :eek:
I found that guy's embrace of the squatters.....slightly phoney.
Are we to believe that the following conversation took place:
Posh Husband: "You know the cottage we have just bought in Camberwell....well it's full of squatters and they're currently kicking all the windows out and burning them in their garden"
I found that guy's embrace of the squatters.....slightly phoney.
Are we to believe that the following conversation took place:
Posh Husband: "You know the cottage we have just bought in Camberwell....well it's full of squatters and they're currently kicking all the windows out and burning them in their garden"
Posh Wife: "Cool"
Maybe you missed it, but it wasn't his house that had squatters, it was the house's next to John.
Go next door, dip into the wild, anarchic life there and go home to normality when they'd had enough.
In my experience a fair number would have been Middle class art school dropout types, new age traveller types, bit soapy.
I'm too working class to fit into that world.
I didn't know the School had 'gone', assumed it would be there forever or something...
The Middle class city professionals are pushing out the the Middle class arty/social worker types now.
Apparently there was a chap who was running a private Shebeen/Jazz club since the 70's around Camberwell, who's been closed by the newer neighbours getting the authority's involved.
I didn't know the School had 'gone', assumed it would be there forever or something...
Had it gone? I had a wander up the road in Streetview this morning and it looked like it had turned into a pub...?
It's not a part of London I know well, but on the first nice Saturday I think I'll take a ride up to Denmark Hill, have a wander, find a nice pub and pass a couple of hours with a book and a pint or three!
Personally I find the "new" Georgian houses utterly hideous. Why build facsimilies 200 years later? Crisp, elegant, contemporary designs with sympathetic propotions and facades would be a million times better.
Had it gone? I had a wander up the road in Streetview this morning and it looked like it had turned into a pub...?
It's not a part of London I know well, but on the first nice Saturday I think I'll take a ride up to Denmark Hill, have a wander, find a nice pub and pass a couple of hours with a book and a pint or three!
Personally I find the "new" Georgian houses utterly hideous. Why build facsimilies 200 years later? Crisp, elegant, contemporary designs with sympathetic propotions and facades would be a million times better.
That's where the new houses are sitting, where the Victorian primary used to be.
The pub has always been there IIRC, keeps getting more and more food orientated, I think.
I think there used to be a small 'hole in the wall' pub opposite the School too, could be wrong though.
Can't say I 'go' for the new Georgian stuff either.
That's where the new houses are sitting, where the Victorian primary used to be.
The pub has always been there IIRC, keeps getting more and more food orientated, I think.
I think there used to be a small 'hole in the wall' pub opposite the School too, could be wrong though.
Can't say I 'go' for the new Georgian stuff either.
Didn't they say the new houses had to blend in with the rest of the street.
All those middle class types moved into the just in time to save it from the Evil London council who appeared to wish to knock the entire city down and start again and build hideous estates which were total death and crime traps.
Comments
Similar was said during the Labour government. John Prescott set up a scheme where there were grants to knock down houses and rebuild. I remember one programme showing how the existing houses could be refurbished for a fraction of the cost of new ones but Prescott does not tend to listen to other people's views.
Call me a cynic, but spending a few grand doing up a house will always be less popular with 'the powers that be' than spending mega dosh on a vanity project instead. Far be it for me to suggest that developers may also have been bunging the Labour party some cash too - after all a multi million pound development means multi millions of pounds going in peoples pockets...
They should be dragged before the courts and left to rot away in prison. :mad:
They didn't want to spend a few thousand on renovating the housing stock, the architects etc and others, who live in their ivory towers, wanted to experiment. It was easier to send out CPOs and forget about people; forget about communities that have been around for 100 and more years; forget that people may want a bit of garden; forget the people full stop, so long as the vision they had was fulfilled.
Their vision didn't work, and it was never going to work. So places like Deptford were left with high rise flats, that nobody wanted to live in, and eventually many were demolished.
And I have a feeling the ex-member of Lewisham Council, who was trying to defend the planners' action lives in leafy Blackheath which is literally just up the hill from the Greenwich end of Deptford High Street, but a world apart.
Someone said the planners did more damage to this area of London than the bombs - they're right.
But why did they have to sub-title him? We all have accents and his was as clear as anyone else.
Most probably didn't have a garden, just a yard at the back. The children would have played on the street out front with all the neighbour's front doors open, listening out for each others children, so none of them would have come to any harm.
A real community.
They subtitled the old west indian guys too.
Thought the accents wouldn't be understood obviously.
My brain was double processing, once for what they said and then the subtitles, the disjoin didn't help much either.
If the grammar, is poor, leave it alone, don't fix it in the subtitles IMO.
I knew houses in Deptford that did have back gardens, and well tended they were too. An uncle of mine lived in his house, which was just across the road at the Greenwich end of Deptford High Street, for years until the planners came along.
But even if it was a back yard and the kids played in the street, you put your finger on it when you say "listening out for each others children". You couldn't do that in high-rise flats. You wouldn't even get anywhere safe for the kids to play in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Dan_Smith
Forgotten about him and Poulson ruining Newcastle. But it wasn't just them that were corrupt. There were many more - they just didn't get found out. Just makes my blood boil when I see all that we've lost, and for what?
Victorian houses on the whole, were built to last, unlike the concrete Tower Blocks that replaced them, which are now in the process of being demolished.
Let's just hope they have learnt from their mistakes, but somehow I doubt it.
I would imagine to fit more people and families into the same premises and to score more income from them for it.
In recent docs, A picture of London, and in Rise and Fall of the council estate, you've had people who were happy to move to new Estates.
In a picture of London there was a woman who still liked living on the Thamesmead estate, even though the cine footage showed it wasn't as lively and didn't have the same community as it did in the 70's.
She looked lovingly at a High rise block on the estate and said she wanted to live in it, it was her dream property.
Danny Baker came from Deptford and moved to a Maisonette in Debenhams road, his mum loved it, after living in a cramped Terrace.
He said his Dad wouldn't be sad about moving out of Deptford either 'glad to get out'
Danny can still remember the names of his neighbours, their kids and his little community of friends he played out with.
That said Danny was still fuming about the social engineering and dodgy reports aspect of it all.
And the Slums they didn't knock down...going for 750K...:rolleyes:
I got the feeling he was caught between two camps, at the time.
He thought some of it needed to go and his colleagues thought a lot more needed to go.
That's before you get into the shady practices with bulldozers, water pipes and the like.
I wonder how many other councillors or planners were filmed at the time and were willing to appear now, wouldn't be surprised if he was the only one.
That house for 750K was a bit misleading, that's a double fronter, twice if not 3 times the size of a lot of the terraces they'd have pulled down.
That's probably after an extensive refurb too.
IIRC the modern(ish) stuff that's been knocked down is down the other end of High street, Maisonette blocks on the Evelyn Estate and Edward Street estate.
I think most of that was precast nonsense that was badly built, unfit for purpose designwise.
Might have been a different story if it was designed for the climate and built properly in the first place.
1/3 of Evelyn Estate is gone, 2/3 is/has been refurbed IIRC.
Keep an eye out for BBC4 repeating "A Life Without Work". I think there were three programmes based on a project at the end of the 19th Century where the Rowntree Trust(?) had unemployed people in York keeping a diary every day. One programme compared two or three people with equivalents today but the best programme followed one family and the father's search for work. He was leaving the house at 5 am hunting for work, the names were anonymised but they managed to identify the family then trace present day descendants and take them back to the site of the house where he lived which just happened to be being excavated.
I loved the way the longterm residents of the street were of the slightly eccentric types who tend to be the vanguard of conservation and who take risks in seemingly "dodgy" neighbourhoods. The guy who actually embraced "The Farm" right next door to his new (old) house! I have to say, I would have been a good deal less tolerant.
I hope they do an episode in the East End. Tredegar Square in Bow, and the surrounding Georgian streets would make a great subject. Unlike Camberwell Grove, Tredegar Square did not make the middle class grade when it was built, as the speculating developer went broke in the process, they were sold off cheap, and went downhill almost immediately (echoes of many developments today). It's taken 200 years for them to achieve what they were intended for. I used to live on the corner, but moved on about 15 years ago when the gentrification was well under way. it's now complete, and the rough old boozer 5 doors up from me is now a gastro pub!
Me too :eek:
I found that guy's embrace of the squatters.....slightly phoney.
Are we to believe that the following conversation took place:
Posh Husband: "You know the cottage we have just bought in Camberwell....well it's full of squatters and they're currently kicking all the windows out and burning them in their garden"
Posh Wife: "Cool"
Maybe you missed it, but it wasn't his house that had squatters, it was the house's next to John.
Go next door, dip into the wild, anarchic life there and go home to normality when they'd had enough.
In my experience a fair number would have been Middle class art school dropout types, new age traveller types, bit soapy.
I'm too working class to fit into that world.
I didn't know the School had 'gone', assumed it would be there forever or something...
The Middle class city professionals are pushing out the the Middle class arty/social worker types now.
Apparently there was a chap who was running a private Shebeen/Jazz club since the 70's around Camberwell, who's been closed by the newer neighbours getting the authority's involved.
Had it gone? I had a wander up the road in Streetview this morning and it looked like it had turned into a pub...?
It's not a part of London I know well, but on the first nice Saturday I think I'll take a ride up to Denmark Hill, have a wander, find a nice pub and pass a couple of hours with a book and a pint or three!
Personally I find the "new" Georgian houses utterly hideous. Why build facsimilies 200 years later? Crisp, elegant, contemporary designs with sympathetic propotions and facades would be a million times better.
That's where the new houses are sitting, where the Victorian primary used to be.
The pub has always been there IIRC, keeps getting more and more food orientated, I think.
I think there used to be a small 'hole in the wall' pub opposite the School too, could be wrong though.
Can't say I 'go' for the new Georgian stuff either.
Didn't they say the new houses had to blend in with the rest of the street.
All those middle class types moved into the just in time to save it from the Evil London council who appeared to wish to knock the entire city down and start again and build hideous estates which were total death and crime traps.