AFTERMATH of the WAR
After surviving the horrors of WW1, many returning soldiers, sailors and airmen were expecting the world to be a better place, where their life could return to some normality in a secure and safe environment and jobs for all.
This expectation was raised by a speech by Lloyd George the day after the armistice where, amongst other promises, he said there would be 'homes fit for heroes'.
'Homes', and not just houses; 'fit', implying built to a standard; and 'heroes', giving a sense of gratitude and deserving.
Dreams almost never meet reality, and what Lloyd George actually said was 'Habitations fit for the heroes who have won the war', which is a lot less punchy and emotive than the phrase everyone remembers, and the word 'habitations' suggests something very basic.
The press could not fit that sentence in a header in a newspaper column and so naturally shortened it to the phrase we now know.
So, what was the result of this promise ?
Were those houses built all over the country immediately after the war ?
It will come as no surprise to historians that the reality fell a long way short of the promise, but for many reasons that even Lloyd George could not control.
The legislation that followed his speech was well meaning, and quite well thought through, but was hampered by two serious problems: the lack of funds; and the extreme shortage in the building industry of skilled manpower and materials.
RECONSTRUCTION
Modern socialists would like to think that Lloyd George, a popular Liberal PM, and his coalition cabinet really did want slums to be demolished and all those 'heroes' living in good housing. but the government had more a pressing problems to solve.
However, the government created a Ministry of Reconstruction in 1917, headed by the very capable Christopher Addison.
The term 'reconstruction' was not in the context of rebuilding fallen property, but the reconstruction of how government was organised.
Its recommendations covered many subjects that included, amongst other targets: a more efficient government administration; women’s roles post WW1; housing; industrial relations; and employment.
The aim of the Ministry was 'charged with overseeing the task of rebuilding the national life on a better and more durable foundation'.
In prticular, the Ministry of Reconstruction introduced a scheme in 1918 to subsidise some of the expected excesses in the costs to build housing.
Apart from each scheme needing government approval first, there were no other restrictions. But this subsidy was too early for most local authorities as they did not have the funds for such schemes or were unable to borrow the necessary money.
The London County Council (LCC) was one of the few authorities who could afford to build houses and allocated £500,000/yr towards it, although they did not build any new houses using this money because further legislation overtook the planning.
The mainly rural counties were never going to be able to afford such grand schemes.
This was recognised by the Ministry and the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1919 was passed that changed the way 'social housing' (Council Housing) could be funded.
There was, however, another means by which homes could be provided for the post-war 'heroes - and this was the 'private sector' - and it is here that, in the south of England, that the Metropolitan Railway stepped in.
It should be remembered, at this juncture, that in the south the 1920s was an affluent decade, and even in the years of the 'Depression', the south, with the development of light industries was able to maintain that affluence to a great extent.
And so there was a ready market for the houses built in what we now term 'suburban London'
'METROLAND'
Planners, architects and builders are not the only ones who create cities.
The suburban landscape of north-west London owes its existence, largely, to the imagination of the Metropolitan Railway’s marketing department.
One hundred years ago, in the summer of 1915, the railway’s publicity people devised the term 'Metroland' to describe the catchment area of villages stretching from Neasden into the Chiltern Hills.
The railway had bought up huge tracts of farmland along this corridor in the decades before the first world war, and it was ripe for development.
All they needed was a sales pitch.
In 1915, the Metropolitan Railway coined the term 'Metroland' to describe a band of countryside just north-west of London, marketed as a land of idyllic cottages and wild flowers.
The first Metroland booklets were filled with illustrations of idyllic cottages and descriptions of a rural idyll.
A semi-rural Arcadia was offered to Londoners dissatisfied with the crowded conditions in the city.
The campaign proved a great success, and after the Fist World War white-collar workers who sought space and green fields flocked to the west of the city.
Over the next 20 years, the railway’s development company and its building partners unrolled endless seemingly commuter estates.
And so fields were filled with endless avenues of mock-Tudor 'country' villas: semi-detached dwellings with steep roofs, bay windows and half-timbered gables.
The Metropolitan Railways’s PR department had, quite accidentally, invented English suburbia.
Intellectuals, including the pre-war architectural critic Osbert Lancaster, found London’s new suburban districts dreary and sterile.
Back in 1938, Lancaster predicted they would “inevitably become the slums of the future”.
Could his once unlikely prediction actually come true ?
However, it is worth trying to discover why Metroland – in the absence of a master-plan – has survived a century, long after many of inner London’s utopian experiments in place-making – schemes such as the 'Heygate Estate' and 'Robin Hood Gardens' – have been earmarked for demolition.
One explanation is that while housebuilding happened at low density, there was coherence to the layout.
The perception of sprawl isn’t entirely fair, because builders worked well with road networks, with pre-existing village centres of shops and pubs, with a lot of commons and woodlands retained. There’s a reason the suburbs were popular.
There is also the persistent, ongoing popularity of traditional housebuilding in English vernacular styles.
In his classic work 'The Castles on the Ground', architectural historian JM Richards tried to figure out the attraction of the conservative, 'cottage-aping' suburban style, and the appeal it holds for 90 out of 100. It seems these dwellings tap into a strong desire for space and privacy.
And space and privacy retain their allure today.
In addition, suburbia’s ongoing appeal – space, greenery and privacy – remains a telling reminder of what people actually want, rather than what planners think they should want.
It has become fashionable in recent years to wish away London’s housing shortage by talking about the availability of brownfield sites, to imagine an urban renaissance of “sustainable” and “compact” living. But blocks of tiny flats on brownfield sites cannot satisfy everyone, and won’t get anywhere near meeting pent-up demand across the capital.
Perhaps, then, it is time for London’s boundaries to grow again – to embrace development on the stifling green belt, and let a new generation enjoy the dream of living near, yet far, from the city.
THE LEGACY OF SUBURBIA
Intellectuals, including the pre-war architectural critic Osbert Lancaster, found London’s new suburban districts dreary and sterile.
Back in 1938, Lancaster predicted they would “inevitably become the slums of the future”.
Could his once unlikely prediction actually come true ?
However, it is worth trying to discover why Metroland – in the absence of a master-plan – has survived a century, long after many of inner London’s utopian experiments in place-making – schemes such as the 'Heygate Estate' and 'Robin Hood Gardens' – have been earmarked for demolition.
One explanation is that while housebuilding happened at low density, there was coherence to the layout.
The perception of sprawl isn’t entirely fair, because builders worked well with road networks, with pre-existing village centres of shops and pubs, with a lot of commons and woodlands retained. There’s a reason the suburbs were popular.
There is also the persistent, ongoing popularity of traditional housebuilding in English vernacular styles.
In his classic work 'The Castles on the Ground', architectural historian JM Richards tried to figure out the attraction of the conservative, 'cottage-aping' suburban style, and the appeal it holds for 90 out of 100. It seems these dwellings tap into a strong desire for space and privacy.
And space and privacy retain their allure today.
In addition, suburbia’s ongoing appeal – space, greenery and privacy – remains a telling reminder of what people actually want, rather than what planners think they should want.
It has become fashionable in recent years to wish away London’s housing shortage by talking about the availability of brownfield sites, to imagine an urban renaissance of “sustainable” and “compact” living. But blocks of tiny flats on brownfield sites cannot satisfy everyone, and won’t get anywhere near meeting pent-up demand across the capital.
Perhaps, then, it is time for London’s boundaries to grow again – to embrace development on the stifling green belt, and let a new generation enjoy the dream of living near, yet far, from the city.
