Book Review – ‘Homes and Places: A History of Nottingham’s Council Houses’

The publication of a new and revised edition of Chris Matthews’ fine book is a good reason to re-post this earlier blog. As noted (in a later addition to the original post), it was probably Chris’s judgement in the book (which I endorse) that council housing provided the ‘biggest collective leap in living standards in British history’ that was favourably quoted by then prime minister Theresa May in a speech to the National Housing Federation last year. 

For publication and purchase details, go to this Nottingham City Homes webpage.

Chris Matthews, Homes and Places: A History of Nottingham’s Council Houses (Nottingham City Homes, 2015; revised edition 2019)

It’s a pleasure to see this fine account of Nottingham’s council housing history.  It’s a story well worth telling and one – in Nottingham and elsewhere – that this blog has sought to share.  Above all, it is a people’s history, a history of homes and communities but it encompasses high (and low) politics too, architecture and planning and much, much else: a history of concern to anyone interested in the fabric – in the broadest sense – of our society.

If all that reads like a shameless plug for this blog, it is also a very definite recommendation for Chris Matthews’ new book.  It’s a warts and all history, recording the highs and lows of Nottingham’s council housing and Nottingham City Homes is to be congratulated for commissioning a serious and well-researched account.  There’s a place – a very proper place at a time when social housing’s past is traduced and its future near written off – for a more straightforwardly celebratory history but this is a book which anyone interested in a nuanced understanding of our housing history should read.

Chris Matthews provides a thorough chronological account which I won’t attempt to replicate in this brief review – the illustrations alone (over 120 carefully selected and well reproduced black and white and colour images) tell a compelling story.  But I will pull out a few of the themes which struck me in my reading of it.

Victoria Dwellings, now the Victoria Park View Flats under private ownership

We’ll begin with the need for – the absolute necessity of – council housing.  In this, Nottingham was a comparatively slow starter despite a problem of slum housing which was – as a result of the Corporation’s failure to expand into the open land enclosing the city’s historic core – amongst the worst in the country.  Early efforts, notably the Victoria Buildings on Bath Street completed in 1876 (and second only to Liverpool), were not followed through and it was the large peripheral cottage suburbs built in the 1930s which constituted the city’s first serious attempt to rehouse its slum dwellers.

Narrow Marsh, 1919

Council plans for the redevelopment of the Red Lion Street area of Narrow March, 1920s (with thanks to Dan Lucas)

What is more easily forgotten is the persistence of unfit housing.  As late as 1951, 43 per cent of Nottingham homes lacked a bathroom.  Into the 1960s, in the long neglected St Ann’s area most houses lacked an inside toilet and bath; 53 per cent had no proper hot water supply.  All this provides a context for the mass housing programmes of this later period which we are quick to condemn – for their undoubted deficiencies – but so little understand.

St Ann’s, an image taken from the City Council’s 1970 redevelopment brochure ‘St Ann’s: Renewal in Progress’ (with thanks to Dan Lucas)

New housing in St Ann’s © John Sutton and made available through a Creative Commons licence

It follows, therefore, that these new homes were embraced by their residents: ‘the sheer luxury of four bedroomed houses with an inside flush toilet…a really big bath’ as a tenant of the interwar Broxtowe estate recalls.  But even high-rise dwellings, later condemned (literally so and demolished in many cases), were welcomed.   One new tenant of the maligned Hyson Green flats describes ‘an indoor bathroom, beautiful kitchen. It was paradise, absolutely paradise’.  Marcia Watson, a young black woman (now a city councillor) remembers:

High rise was popular then. People weren’t fussy back then. The view was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.  I loved it…for me, moving in and living there, it was the first home of my own.

Council homes were important for providing a disadvantaged minority community with their first decent homes and a step up, as they did for so many others.  Matthews argues, rightly, that council housing provided the ‘biggest collective leap in living standards in British history’.

It was good to see this quoted – and hopefully sincerely endorsed – by prime minister Theresa May no less in her keynote speech on social housing made to the National Housing Federation in September 2018. The speech was taken to herald a sea change in contemporary Conservative attitudes towards both the past value and present necessity of social housing.  We’ll wait and see.

This looks like a 1950s development but the privet hedges and greenery are in keeping with Howitt’s ideals © SK53 and made available through a Creative Commons licence

We might take those sanitary essentials celebrated by Marcia Watson for granted now (though too many can’t) but the quality of much council housing is striking too, how much could be done ‘by the steady and consistent exercise of careful thought and skilled imagination’.  That was Raymond Unwin, no less, praising Nottingham’s interwar council housing, recognised – thanks to the visionary leadership of City Architect TC Howitt – as some of the best in the country.

In fact, most Nottingham council homes – even in the 1960s – were solid, well-built terraced and semi-detached two-storey houses which, though sometimes lacking the aesthetic of Howitt’s work, continued to provide decent family homes for many who could not afford or did not wish to buy.  It’s an irony that some of the very best council housing up and down the country was built in the 1970s when, with lessons learnt from recent mistakes, low- and medium-rise, predominantly brick-built estates were erected.  Nottingham built more council housing in the 1970s than in any previous decade.

Osier Road, the Meadows

The Meadows scheme was built with such intent, its Radburn-style cul-de-sacs and greens incorporating the planning ideals of the day by their separation of cars and people.  Those ideals are now held to have ‘failed’ and there are proposals to restore a more traditional streetscape to the estate.  You can take this as an emblem of planning hubris or, more properly in my view, as a reminder of how transitory the ‘common sense’ of one age can seem to another.  Posterity should perhaps be a little more humble and not quite so condescending.

This brings us, inescapably, to the politics of council housing.  There has in the past been – these seem now like halcyon days – a broad consensus on the topic.  William Crane, a Conservative and building trades businessman, was chair of the Housing Committee from 1919 to 1957, surviving several changes of administration and building over 17,000 council homes in the interwar period when Nottingham was among the most prolific builders of council housing in the country.

Edenhall Gardens, Clifton Estate © Alan Murray-Rust and made available through a Creative Commons licence

Then there is the politics of the post-war period when Labour and Conservative governments vied to build the most houses with council housing as a central element of the mix. The Clifton Estate, a scheme of over 6000 homes housing 30,000 built to the south of the city between 1951 and 1958, encapsulates some of these ideals, not least in its focus on neighbourhood.  Planning ideals are not always fulfilled, particularly in local authority building where they nearly always conflict with budgetary constraints, but still the Estate’s early isolation, expense and lack of facilities probably didn’t merit its description (in a 1958 ITV documentary) as ‘Hell on Earth’ and certainly didn’t do so in the longer term.

The house-building ‘arms race’ came to a head in the 1960s when high-rise and system building were seen as the modern means to build on a mass scale and rid the country, once and for all, of the scourge of its slums.

The refurbished Woodlands group of high-rise blocks in Radford © John Sutton and made available through a Creative Commons licence

Here Nottingham provides some salutary lessons.  The city embraced these methods, these ambitions and, yes, these ideals.  High-rise and deck access developments were adopted; major contractors, notably Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow, employed to build their off-the-peg schemes across the city.  Matthews is candid in acknowledging the defects of these estates whilst rightly noting the legislative and economic changes which were also afflicting disproportionately the communities which lived in council homes. Equally honestly, he addresses the dissatisfaction with the council as landlord in this period, particularly in relation to repairs. The combination was stigmatising – ‘no longer was renting a council house aspirational’.

A part of the Hyson Green scheme prior to demolition

Beginning with the deck-access Balloon Woods Estate (a Yorkshire Development Scheme completed in 1969) in 1984, with point blocks at Basford and deck-access at Hyson Green following shortly after, many of the troubled developments of the later 60s and early 70s have been demolished.  Low-rise traditional housing has mostly taken its place.  Others have been thoroughly refurbished through Estate Action programmes and suchlike.  One hundred per cent of current stock now meets Decent Homes standards.

Tony Crosland as Sec of State opening Nottingham’s 50,000th council house in The Meadows with Chair of Housing, Cllr Bert Littlewood, 1976 (with thanks to Dan Lucas)

By 1981, almost half of Nottingham’s people lived in council homes; some 50,000 had been built in preceding years.  But the bomb had dropped. In fact, a Conservative-led administration in Nottingham had sold off 1635 homes to existing tenants by 1977 (for more detail on this, do read the comment by Dan Lucas below) but the Right to Buy enacted by Mrs Thatcher’s government in 1981 would see 20,761 homes lost to the Council in the next quarter-century. The Labour chair of the Housing Committee in the 1990s describes its role as simply ‘trying to hold the fort’.  There was as the title to chapter 6 declares a ‘Right to Buy but no Right to Build’.

Nevertheless, a lot – in terms of the demolitions and rebuilding noted above – was achieved.  The Decent Homes programme was a positive ‘Blairite’ achievement though marked by an unwonted antipathy towards local government.  The latter led – a necessity if central funding for improvements was to be secured – to the creation of a new arm’s-length management organisation in 2005.

An impression of some of the new council housing to be built, in Radford

Nottingham City Homes would be one of the largest ALMOs in the country, managing 28,000 homes.  After a troubled start, it seems justifiably proud of its recent achievements, not least a building programme of 400 new homes to be completed by 2017.  Indeed, as Matthews argues, the commissioning of this history itself marks a ‘renewed confidence in Nottingham’s council housing’.

It’s desperately sad that this – in broader terms – is not a confidence shared by the current government, driven by an ideological hatred of social housing and a fantasy of owner occupation for all – though even that, perhaps, is to give it too much credit. The reality is that this government is willing to consign our less affluent citizens to an increasingly marginalised and diminished social housing sector and the tender mercies of private landlordism.

That makes this honest, intelligent and informative account of Nottingham’s council housing all the more important.  As Chris Matthews concludes:

The history shows that, alongside other tenures, council housing can and does transform lives, providing a solution to a wide range of housing problems.

Buy the book, spread that message.

Notes

This webpage provides full details on how and where to purchase the book.

My thanks to Dan Lucas, Strategy and Research Manager for Nottingham City Homes and a key contributor to the book, for providing some of the images used in this post.

Alex Ball, a Labour Councillor for Nottingham City Council with responsibilities for Housing and Regeneration in the city, contributed an earlier guest post to the blog: Nottingham’s Early Council Housing: ‘Nothing like this had been seen before in the city’

Since writing this post, I visited Nottingham. This later, fully illustrated, post describes my visit: Nottingham’s Council Housing by Bus and Tram.

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Addison Streets – a celebration of the 1919 Housing Act

On June 4 1919, Christopher Addison cut the first sod on Bristol City Council’s new Sea Mills Estate.  The city’s lady mayoress planted an oak tree which today bears his name. At the time, Addison was still President of the Local Government Board. His flagship Housing and Planning Act received the Royal Assent on July 31^st and he then became the first Minister of Health and Housing. One hundred years later to the day, I was proud to be part of a community event celebrating Addison and the estate he inaugurated.

Speaking to an appreciative audience under the Addison Oak at Sea Mills. Christopher Addison, in the person of Cllr Paul Smith (Cabinet Member for Housing, Bristol), looking on to the right.

The Addison Oak is, so far as I know, the only tree named after him but, across England, Scotland and Wales, there are streets of council housing which mark Addison’s formative role in arguably the most important housing legislation of the last century.

Christopher Addison (1869-1951) was a doctor and surgeon and a Liberal MP for Shoreditch in London, one of the most overcrowded districts of the capital.  He brought that expertise and experience to his vision and drive for housing as the first Minister of Health and Housing.

Christopher Addison, MP

When he spoke in Bristol that evening of June 4^th, he told his audience:

They did not want houses built in dismal streets. Until they had houses with air about them, so long would they have to spend enormous sums annually on sickness…They wanted big production and they were prepared to pay big prices.

In the event, those ‘big prices’ were a problem and his housing programme fell victim to the austerity of the day when public spending was cut in July 1921 with only 176,000 of the promised 500,000 ‘homes for heroes’ completed that prime minister Lloyd George had promised.  Addison resigned and went on to a distinguished career in Labour ranks, serving as Leader of the House of Lords where he helped secure the legislation of another reforming Minister of Health and Housing, Nye Bevan, in Attlee’s post-war Labour government.

But his own 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act had set a vital precedent. Firstly, by providing generous grant regime (not in any meaningful sense a subsidy – as Addison knew council housing pays for itself); secondly, by its requirement that councils not only survey local housing needs but prepare schemes to actively meet them – the first time local authorities were compelled to build council homes; and, thirdly, by its commitment to quality. The wartime Tudor Walters Report which provided the template for interwar design had recommended ‘cottage homes’, no more than 12 to the acre, with front and back gardens, many with parlours.

Addison Road, Allenton, Derby – an interwar development

It is, then, entirely fitting that we not only celebrate Addison and the centenary of his 1919 Housing Act this year but the roads and streets across the country that continue to provide the concrete legacy of his housing revolution.

The map below identifies all those streets named to commemorate Addison’s role.  They are formed, without exception, of council homes.  I have made the assumption that these streets are named after Christopher Addison and that other streets named Addison are very likely so named for other reasons.  Please let me know of any mistakes or omissions you find.

 

At the moment, just a few of the entries have photographs attached – just Derby, Swindon, Enfield and Cardiff (marked in red on the map).  It would be wonderful to crowd-source photographs of each and every one to provide a lasting record of the rich and diverse legacy of council housing that Addison did so much to create.

Note

I could not have created this map without the data and cartographic skills of Jerry Clough.  You can follow Jerry on Twitter @SK53onOSM and his blog, Maps Matter, at https://sk53-osm.blogspot.com/.

The People’s Park, Banbury, Part II: ‘The Brightest Spot Throughout the Whole History of the Borough’

As we saw in last week’s post, Sidney Hilton, Banbury’s multi-disciplined and talented Borough Surveyor from 1925 had turned the People’s Park in Banbury into a well-used and popular green place for fresh air, recreation and light exercise.  While the council totted up their expenditure on and income from the tennis courts, the putting green and the bowling club annually – and acknowledged their overall losses – they knew that the park offered invaluable green space.

A contemporary map of the park, courtesy of Sacha Barnes Limited

Neithrop House, part of the Council’s purchase from the syndicate in 1918-19, became vacant in 1929.  The Education Committee took on a lease of the first floor at £100 per year as an Infant Welfare Clinic and a school clinic.  In the 1940s this included the treatment of cases of scabies and pediculosis.  Countless schoolchildren went to Neithrop House for eye tests, vaccinations and to the dentist – and to the playground and paddling pool afterwards.  Parents collected orange juice, dried milk, cod liver oil and gas masks.

The cottages in Paradise Square, also part of the original Neithrop House estate, were more problematic.  Paradise was a misnomer.  There were many cases of drunkenness and breaches of the Elementary Education Act, one tap served about 20 households. (1) The Council had other rental streams by then and Hilton had no time for it.  Soon after the Medical Officer had issued closing orders he saw to it that the cottages were demolished and the tenants rehoused in brand new council houses.  Paradise was lost when a new shrubbery and a car park was created on the site of the square.

Hilton’s stone pillars at the entrance to the park from Horse Fair.  Originally there were wrought iron gates.  Photograph May 2019

The design and execution of Hilton’s plans for new walls and paths perhaps best demonstrate his understanding of what the People’s Park is for and how it is used.  The outer boundaries of the park are encircled by paths.  Those in a hurry can walk the length of the park without being distracted by flowers and trees.  Hilton put in dwarf stone walls along the edge of these paths in place of the old high walls and fencing that had surrounded the Neithrop House estate.  Barely noticeable now, it is easy to think that they serve no purpose.  I don’t see it as an exaggeration, however, to say that Hilton’s provision of these walls was the physical confirmation that the park was open for everyone to enjoy.  Originally there were railings set into the top of the walls and some now have privet or hawthorn hedging alongside them.  Even when the park gates were locked, the people of Banbury could see into their park.

An example of Hilton’s dwarf walls allowing a clear view into the People’s Park on the right.  Public footpath towards The Shades on the left.  Photograph May 2019

Hilton demonstrated great foresight too in his provision of paths within the park.  There are no muddy ‘desire lines’; people in 2019 use the same routes provided by Hilton.  He respected the old footpaths in place before the Enclosures – The Leys, for instance – and his paths take people where they want to go: to each exit, to the aviary, to the playground.

And, since 1912, people have treasured the park as a convenient route to the town centre; a pleasant short walk accompanied by birdsong.  What makes the People’s Park so useful to local people then and now is its dual function: a place for leisure and recreation and a quick cut through to work or into town.

As Hilton’s new houses and streets added substantially to the residential population to the north-west of the park, the greater the value of its location.  The Banbury Advertiser in July 1939 carried a headline ‘The Quickest Way to work from King’s Road District’. (2)  

Plans for a new path across the park were described as a plea for something that would save 60 yards and cost £60.  Councillor Jones had carried out his own informal census one sunny afternoon and found that 348 people had walked across the grass.  He felt his research proved that: (2)

the majority of people living in that district were of the working class, who had only a limited time to get home to meals and back to their place of business …..unless a footpath is made there will always be the present eyesore of a mudpath across the field.

The new path went ahead quickly.

The aviary was first put up in 1927 and rebuilt in 1992.  Photograph May 2019

People had enjoyed listening to bands playing in the park since the early days of the syndicate’s tenure.  The council acknowledged public pressure for a bandstand and there were, of course, numerous others up and down the country.  The People’s Park bandstand was opened in June 1932.  A rather grand affair, the money for it was donated by a charitable trust.  Hilton’s design was tailored to the site – on falling ground that forms a natural amphitheatre near the centre of the park.

The bandstand is in the centre of this aerial photograph taken in 1947.  Photograph courtesy of Richard Savory.

Hilton supervised the entire construction by the council’s direct labour force. The rectangular bandstand with a bow-shaped front could house 40 musicians.

The opening of the Bandstand, June 1932 (2)

Fete after fete, rally after rally, parade after parade, a war time nursery and a British Restaurant kept spirits up in World War II.  With little physical damage in Banbury, a shortage of deckchairs in the People’s Park kept the council busy.

With its new facilities in place, the People’s Park was, by the late 1930s, well established as a place of leisure and relaxation.  The reduction in average working hours during the 1930s through to the 1960s only increased its popularity; Hilton’s facilities in the People’s Park are good examples of well-designed facilities provided by local councils to meet a need for local, safe and ordered recreation.

Sidney Hilton photographed in 1954 and close to his retirement.  Plans for his housing schemes are in the background. (2)

The People’s Park had become Banbury’s most popular outdoor venue.

Banbury Grammar School’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was performed in the bandstand in June 1951.  The council gave a grant of £50 towards this production. (2)

Summer music festival 1973, photograph courtesy of Michael Amor

The post-war borough council’s thoughts turned to horticulture.  In the gloomy and cold late 1940s there was a new appetite for municipal horticulture and landscaping.  Mindful of the extent of Hilton’s new housing estates under construction, the council asked the Institute of Landscape Architects for an outline scheme to improve all of their present and proposed parks and recreation grounds, the People’s Park included.  For a fee of 100 guineas the Institute sent a Miss Crowe of London to produce a report. (3)

In April 1947 the council considered her more detailed recommendations and decided that

having regard to the abnormality of the times and the fairly heavy capital expenditure likely to be involved … the further consideration of (Miss Crowe’s) report be adjourned and … that the matter must probably lay in abeyance for a period of at least two or three years.

Miss Crowe’s report is not included in her archives and we do not know her thoughts on the People’s Park.  She had a reputation for producing rushed scruffy sketches bursting with ideas; we can imagine her sketching plans for new trees and flowerbeds in the park, perhaps with Hilton in tow.

Part of Sylvia Crowe’s plans for the Garden of Rest at St Mary’s Church Banbury, adjacent to the People’s Park.  Her plans were implemented by the council in 1950.  Drawing courtesy of the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading.

Sylvia Crowe was born in Banbury.  From the 1930s and in private practice she took on many commissions including projects for nuclear power stations, hospital grounds, colleges and new housing estates.  In 1948 she was the landscape consultant for Harlow New Town bringing Sir Frederick Gibberd’s masterplan for urban green spaces to life.  With an international reputation she is considered one of the great landscape architects of the second half of the 20^th century.  She wrote several books; The Landscape of Power (1958) is her best known.

The 1950s was to see a shift in policy: the Council made a specific decision to designate the People’s Park as an ornamental flower garden while investment in new playing fields went on elsewhere.  The Council appointed a superintendent of horticulture in 1953: an expert gardener with planning and administrative capabilities to take charge of all of their parks.  Tommy Jackson from Winsford, FRHS, was their man.

The People’s Park became the nerve centre of Jackson’s responsibilities.  A new mess room, potting shed, and greenhouses were built.  New lighting and heating systems meant that work would not stop during the winter.  He asked for and was provided with a Land Rover and a garage for it was built next to the potting shed.

Jackson soon had a staff of 17 looking after Banbury Borough Council’s 69 acres of parks and recreation grounds, verges and 16 acres of land in the cemetery.  Three of the men were qualified horticulturists.  In 1958, 4500 geraniums and 32,000 annual bedding plants were grown from seed.  They created extraordinary flower displays in the town’s libraries, public buildings and for the tables at council meetings.  Still something of a blank canvas, thousands of bulbs were planted in the People’s Park.

Jackson created several new flowerbeds in the People’s Park.  Photograph 1958 courtesy of the Oxfordshire History Centre

The Cuttle Brook fed the paddling pool until the water was piped and Jackson turned the course of the stream into an herbaceous border.  The park shelter is in the background.  Photograph courtesy of Banbury Museum Trust.

Council gardeners in the People’s Park greenhouses, photograph from 1965 reproduced in the Banbury Cake 24 July 2003 (2)

An expert horticulturist and perfectionist, by 1965 Jackson needed more skilled gardeners to grow top quality flowers for public displays.  The council received numerous compliments for his spectacular floral displays in the People’s Park.  His influence on the Borough’s housing policy was such that new council housing was offered to three green-fingered applicants to join Jackson to ‘keep Banbury blooming’. (2)

The Council never did revisit Sylvia Crowe’s work.  Her naturalistic designs may have proved more durable and cheaper in the long run but is unlikely to have been as popular as Jackson’s colourful, high-maintenance style during the 1950s and 1960s.

Local Government reorganisation in 1974 put the People’s Park in the hands of Cherwell District Council.  The national government’s Standard Spending Assessment excluded spending on parks and the district council’s approach appears to have been one of damage limitation only; with a scaled down presence in the park there were no real improvements to speak of. (4)

By then there had been a sea-change in the nation’s leisure habits.  Like other medium-sized towns within reach of London, Banbury had become an expanded town; a high proportion of the 1960s suburbs’ first occupants were either from sub-standard or bomb-damaged housing in North London or beneficiaries of slum clearance schemes in Solihull and Coventry.  Households had sole occupancy, security of tenure and good sized gardens.  People enjoyed spending their spare time at home, took up gardening and enjoyed sport and music on television. A trip to the shopping mall on a Sunday afternoon became, in many cases, a new walk in the park. (4)

Hilton’s facilities had a lifespan of roughly fifty years. The paddling pool proved too expensive to clean, the timber shelter was torched, some incidents took place in and around the public toilets leading to their closure. Bands played to smaller audiences and the council demolished Hilton’s graffiti-strewn bandstand in 1988.

The new Banbury Town Council took on the People’s Park from 2000.  A Green Flag was awarded in 2001 but has since lapsed.  The Town Council appears to dislike anything too contemporary; there is no coherent policy on the planting style or the provision of facilities.  CCTV was installed in 2015.  Hilton’s walls and paths are intact; the quality of the infrastructure he laid out for the park in the 1930s is borne out by the hundreds of people who crisscross the park as part of their daily routine.

Neithrop House – Grade II listed – under renovation and conversion to flats and townhouses, photograph 2019

Renewal of paths in the People’s Park, May 2019

Banbury Town Council’s beautiful tulips in May 2019

Financially speaking, Banbury Town Council has no difficulty maintaining the People’s Park at present. (5)  Whether this is publicly acknowledged or not, the park is able to play its part in increasing biodiversity and mitigating the effects of air pollution and, in an era of growing concern about the nation’s physical and mental well-being, it has a positive impact on local people’s health in encouraging short walks with or without the dog, and as a meeting place that can foster social ties. (6)  Above all it is still a place for relaxation – as important to people now as it was to those who joined in the celebrations in 1919.

The People’s Park, Banbury   Photograph May 2019

On 14 July 2019 a Fine Lady on a White Horse will once again make her way through Banbury’s streets to the People’s Park.  A small and peaceful market town in the middle of England will celebrate the park’s 100^th birthday.  It has a name that someone could have come up with yesterday; a name that has never been a nickname but one that was set by its first benefactor, George Ball.  Let’s celebrate the achievements and generosity of its founders and designers.

Sources

(1) Banbury Museum Trust’s Reminiscence Group on memories of the People’s Park, October 2018

(2) Contemporary quotations from the press, unless otherwise credited, are taken from the Banbury Advertiser between 1897 and 1955 held by the British Newspaper Archive.

(3) Banbury Borough Council  Baths, Parks and Markets Committee minutes, 18 November 1946

(4) Travis Elborough, A Walk In The Park (2016)

(5) Heritage Lottery Fund report, The State of UK Public Parks (2014), warned that local authorities faced larger budget cuts for parks than in the late 1970s.

(6) CABE Space, The Value of Public Space (2004)

The People’s Park, Banbury, Part I: ‘The Brightest Spot Throughout the Whole History of the Borough’

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1920s, 1930s

I’m pleased to feature another guest post from Jane Kilsby who has previously contributed excellent articles on pre-First World War council housing in Banbury and interwar schemes in north Oxfordshire. Jane worked in housing management for councils and housing associations across the country for over twenty years before settling in Banbury over five years ago. Here she writes on the People’s Park in Banbury, a public park celebrating one hundred years of municipal ownership in 2019. 

From the Banbury Advertiser (1)

On 19 July 1919, a Fine Lady on a White Horse led a stunning procession through the streets of Banbury.  In a gown of brocaded plush with an ermine border and a veil of valenciennes lace and in pouring rain, the Fine Lady made her way to the People’s Park to celebrate peace and a new beginning for the park.  Her horse, a white arab charger, had served throughout the Great War and wore the Mons ribbon on his brow.  She was followed by wounded soldiers and sailors, Red Cross hospital nurses, the Fire Brigade, boy scouts and guides, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Co-operative Society and many, many more representing the town’s public services and commercial interests.

Unlike a majority of towns in England and Scotland, Banbury did not have a public park laid out in the Victorian period.  Banbury’s Aldermen felt that there was so much open countryside surrounding their town that there was no need for one.  But, as Banbury’s population and industrial activities grew, overcrowded and unsanitary conditions became more common and a place for fresh air began to be seen as an essential.

There are several People’s Parks in England: some of them have proper names too such as Victoria Park in East London and there are larger and much older People’s Parks in Halifax and Tiverton, for example.  Banbury’s People’s Park came about through a combination of late Victorian benevolence, imagination and a sense of public responsibility on the part of the town’s council in the early 20^th century.  Let’s return to the decorated wagons and the large crowd in the park in July 1919 to hear how the story began.

The Town Clerk read out the will of the late George Vincent Ball.  Ball had left a legacy of approximately £3,200 for the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of Banbury:

to be applied by them in the purchase of land in some suitable situation near the town as a Park for the recreation of all classes during every day of the week from sunrise to sunset all the year round, to be ornamentally laid out, and called the People’s Park.

Born in Banbury in 1814, George Ball owned a chemists shop from 1844. (1) A borough councillor from 1858 to 1864; the provision of accessible stiles into fields around Banbury was among his achievements.  He died in 1892.

In response to his legacy the borough received offers of land but rejected all of them either because they were too small or the locations were not quite right.  In any event Ball’s legacy was deferred until his sister’s death.  The burgesses were reluctant to raise money via the rates before the legacy was available.  It was to be eighteen years before the perfect opportunity presented itself.

Central Banbury 1882 indicating the location of the People’s Park and the Neithrop House estate. The ‘Old Flower show Ground’ was rejected as a potential site.  Map courtesy of Banbury Museum Trust

The Neithrop House estate came up for auction in October 1910.  The lot comprised the house, gardens and pleasure grounds – about three acres – and six and a half acres of rich turf, stabling, gardener’s and coachman’s cottages, and 19 cottages in Paradise Square.

Neithrop House, a hunting box built for the Croome family in 1839.  Photograph c1988 courtesy of the Oxfordshire History Centre

As a site for their people’s park this was irresistible.  The Council had no funds to bid and did not expect the Local Government Board to grant a loan; the rules on councils taking on mortgages to buy land at that time only applied to sewage disposal schemes.  But, the week before the auction, the Mayor, Joseph Chard, called for the formation of a syndicate.  The People’s Park Syndicate was the only one in Banbury which announced, from the outset, its intention to give no interest or profits to its subscribers. (1)

Within days, the syndicate received a donation of £500 and went ahead in the knowledge that there was no better location and price for a people’s park.  The estate did not meet its reserve; the syndicate bought the whole lot privately shortly afterwards for £5,250.  Ball’s sister, Mrs Luckett, was 83; the syndicate assumed the council would be able to use Ball’s legacy to buy the estate from them before long.

By December 1910, total subscriptions from the great and good of Banbury, including several councillors, were £990 and the final purchase account including conveyancing was £5,305 17s 6d.  A bank loan made up the difference.

People’s Park Syndicate certificate, 1910.  Copy courtesy of Oxfordshire History Centre.

Syndicate members set about managing their estate with competence and efficiency.  They put up sanitary conveniences and did some repairs to the cottages.  Members were able to visit the parkland; some were a little resentful of the 2s 6d they had to pay for a key.  The park was not open to the public; new fencing protected their investment.

The syndicate held some enchanting garden parties.  Photograph 1912 courtesy of The Banbury Museum Trust

Councillor Brooks, elected Mayor in November 1910 and then Chairman of the People’s Park Syndicate, nevertheless saw the syndicate solely as the park’s temporary caretaker.  By February 1912 the syndicate offered the council:

a rent of £80 per annum to include all liabilities… the syndicate will apply any balance of income arising year to year to reduce the ultimate purchase price of the estate.

Councillor Herbert Payne , local housing campaigner, pounced on the syndicate’s proposal.  In the council’s debate on it, Payne pronounced: (1)

three things were wanted in Banbury: a public lavatory, a people’s park and a public library…The place could be made a very pleasant outdoor pleasure resort….  It was easy of access and the splendid trees and undulating turf made it a delightful spot and they (the Council) should encourage the present tendency of taking pleasure in the open air.  There would be no first class, second class or third class; the youngest and oldest, the richest and poorest could meet here.

His fellow councillors agreed that this was a very good deal; some expressed their embarrassment that Banbury did not already have a public park. With a joint committee of council and syndicate representatives set up the council took on the rent of the parkland.

A ceremony was held on 25 June 1912 to mark this landmark in the park’s history.  The Mayoress, Mrs J.Bloomfield, planted an oak tree and, as a symbol of the park’s opening to the public, she was presented with a key.

Only a week later, the Banbury Guardian reported: (1)

The People’s Park is evidently going to verify its name.  Ample evidence of this was given on Sunday afternoon when there was a very large number of the inhabitants taking advantage of this charming ‘rus in urbe.’  Strangers from a distance – as well as residents – were loud in their praise of the foresight of the public-spirited gentlemen who had secured such a sylvan spot for the recreation of the people.

The council continued to rent the park from the syndicate until 1918.

Understandably, no action was taken on the option to buy the estate during the First World War.  In February 1918 the legacy became available on the death of Ball’s sister and, with a bank loan making up the difference, the council bought the park, Neithrop House and the cottages in Paradise Square for £5,186 18s 2d.  The land’s value had doubled during the syndicate’s ownership but no profit was paid to the subscribers.  The council anticipated that the rents from the cottages would, over time, clear the overdraft from the bank; the People’s Park came into local authority ownership without any funds from ratepayers.  The 1919 procession and garden party to celebrate the council’s ownership of the People’s Park was a huge success.

The Banbury Advertiser in 1932 described the whole process of the acquisition of the People’s Park by the council – with its combination of private generosity and public opportunism – as ‘the brightest spot throughout the whole history of the Borough.’ (1)

Municipal ownership brought in some talented and diligent municipal managers.  Recreational facilities, thoughtful planning and ordered cultivation turned approximately eight acres of green fields and trees into a recognisable and well-used public park.

But first there was the need for commemoration.

The cenotaph in the People’s Park designed by T Gardner, FRIBA in 1922. (2) Photograph May 2019

In municipal ownership from 1919 and open to all, the people of Banbury were not the only occupants of their new park.

In August 1917 four sheep were found dead beneath an elm tree after a violent thunderstorm.  Photograph from the early 1920s courtesy of Banbury Museum.

The syndicate had tendered for sheep grazers throughout their tenure of the park.  Equally loathe to waste money on a lawn mower, the council followed like sheep.

Cicely Bailey describes how much she enjoyed the park during her childhood: (3)

there were sheep in the park then and … we children loved them.  They used to wander back and forth, eating the long grass which was sometimes as high as the smaller children.

It was not until spring 1926 that the council enjoyed showing off a new Ransome’s triple mower.

The council wanted to make its presence felt and instil some discipline.  Its byelaws for the People’s Park were approved by the Minister of Health in 1920.  Drying washing, beating rugs, singing, injuring birds, wading or bathing in the stream and playing any sports or games that needed a dedicated space were all banned with a £5 penalty payable for every offence. (4)

Tom Rawlings was appointed as Park Keeper in November 1926.  His wages were £3 a week with free accommodation in part of Neithrop House. Councillors found him an excellent worker and always ‘busily engaged’ (1); children thought him stern and feared his stick. (3)

Banbury Borough Council’s first plan for the park’s facilities, drawn up mid 1920s (1)

The 1920s were a period of great interest and increased participation in sport, there was public support for new facilities.  The building of ‘homes for heroes’ was putting a strain on council staff’s time and expertise; the borough council needed someone to carry out their plans for the park.

Sidney Hilton was appointed as the new Borough Engineer, Surveyor and Architect in April 1925.  Born in 1891, the son of a King’s Lynn builder, the Banbury Guardian welcomed him:

Everyone will be most anxious for his success for upon him largely depends the welfare, development and expansion of the town.  His duties are onerous and it will be necessary to exercise some patience before Mr Hilton can possibly obtain a full knowledge of the many problems under his administration.

Hilton photographed by the Banbury Advertiser, 1925 (1)

They needn’t have worried.  Hilton was one of the Borough’s most respected and talented employees.  Described as one of the old school of ‘dual-qualification’ men, Hilton was a member of the Institute of Municipal Engineers, a Registered Architect, Member of the Royal Sanitary Institute and a Fellow of the Institute of Housing.

Council housing was Hilton’s greatest interest and he designed 24 different types of houses, including houses built in 1933, when the Ministry of Housing demanded the utmost economy, for £260 each, a design used as a model of economical building by authorities across the country.  He was responsible for the completion of Banbury’s larger peripheral estates – about 1,200 houses – including the large post 1945 development in Ruscote.  Importantly, it was Hilton who designed the layout of these new estates, all with public parks, as well as individual house designs.  Hilton Road was named in recognition of his work.

Hilton Road, Banbury, photograph May 2019

During Hilton’s career Banbury’s population increased from about 13,000 to 20,000.  In 1933 he designed an extension to Banbury’s sewage works that doubled the works’ capacity.  The Borough’s outdoor swimming pool, opened in 1939, is all Hilton’s work, as was an extension to the public library, town centre public conveniences and a new street lighting scheme.  He retired in 1955 after 46 years of local government service as the first Honorary Freeman of the Borough and the last man to wear a silk hat to civic functions.

But what did he do in the People’s Park?  A lot, as you might expect.  It was Hilton who designed and, as the director of the council’s direct labour force, built almost all of the park’s facilities in the interwar period.  He turned what was really a field full of sheep into a classic English well-ordered public park with soft grasses and trees, and plenty more besides.

Council elections in November 1925 threw up calls for action.  Councillor Allsopp expressed the public’s demands. (1)

there is a crying need for the provision of further opportunities for recreation for all classes of the community.  A bandstand and tennis courts would provide remuneration and an increasing attraction to Banbury without unduly burdening the rates.

If we note that Leeds, for instance, had 150 public tennis courts in its parks by 1924, Banbury’s initial plans – for three lawn tennis courts – seem unambitious.  But by the late 1920s Hilton’s comprehensive approach included a bowling green, a putting green, a park shelter, a pay office, new paths, a children’s corner with a swing, see-saw and giant’s stride, new entrances, seating, toilets and cloakrooms.  With estimates of £2,000 for these facilities the council received some donations and took on a Public Works Board loan: £1,170 repayable in 10 years and £520 in 20 years.  Well received by the public, these facilities were put in place during the next five years.

The tennis courts came first, in 1926.  Next, the park shelter, with a buffet at one end and then a new toilet block near Neithrop House.  Sanctioned by the Ministry of Health, the new block replaced the syndicate’s conveniences and was built by W & A Collisson of Banbury.  Hilton knew the high quality of W & A Collisson’s work – between the wars they built 216 council houses and a further 100 houses after 1945.  (5)  Hilton’s neat and clever design for the new block, in Banbury brick, incorporates the park’s boundary walls and provided access even when the park gates were closed at night.

The old toilets in the People’s Park are currently vacant.  Photograph May 2019

The Oxfordshire Surveyors’ Association met in Banbury in July 1927. (1)  In reporting on his achievements Hilton added ‘we have no miracles to show you.’  He hadn’t, but the Councillors noted that their new facilities had attracted three times the number of visitors than previously.  They wanted more.

Banbury’s unemployment figures in 1930 were not as high as elsewhere but the council, urged on by central government advice, wanted to ease living conditions for unemployed men in their town.  With no large unemployment scheme to refer to the Minister of Labour, they set a budget of £1960 for the pool, playground, putting green and bowling green and, very unusually in Banbury, agreed to pay all of it from revenue with the levy of a separate rate.  Councillor Monks described the building of the bowling green as: (1)

it was much better to give the men work they could see something for rather than they should be on the dole.  About half the money would go in wages; they would employ about 50 men for eight weeks in the park.

Hilton planned the green for the Banbury Borough Bowls Club – founded in 1929.  It was built using direct labour.  Insisting on best quality turf – Lancashire sea-washed turf – he wanted people to use it.  90 percent of club members’ fees went to the borough council.

Banbury Borough Bowls Club.  Photograph May 2019

The new children’s corner and a pool for toy yachts and paddling, the putting green and a drinking fountain completed this phase of new facilities.

The paddling pool was enjoyed by generations.  A breach of the byelaws c. early 1970s.  Children over 14 were not allowed to use it.  Photograph courtesy of Sheila Evans.

Next week’s post will look at further improvements to the People’s Park and the council’s changing approach to horticulture during the post war period.

Sources

(1) Contemporary quotations from the press, unless otherwise credited, are taken from the Banbury Advertiser between 1897 and 1955 held by the British Newspaper Archive.

(2) K Northover, Banbury During the Great War (2003)

(3) C Bailey, Childhood Memories of Banbury 1922-1939 (1998)

(4) Byelaws made by the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Banbury with respect to the People’s Park, 31 August 1920 held at the Oxfordshire History Centre

(5) W & A Collisson, builders, Banbury 1874-1967, archive records held at the Oxfordshire History Centre