houses

Portsmouth To Brighton

Posted on June 18, 2021 by modernmoocher

Having cycled along the Solent to Pompey – we set out Brighton bound one sunny Sunday morning in the merry month of May.

Heading for the Hayling Island Ferry.

Determined to make good time as we had an appointment a Pallant House, we pedalled purposefully along the Hayling Billy Line.

Ever onward, passing several examples of well kept, post war houses and former tin tabs.

We eventually rolled into Chichester, finding our way to the gallery which I had previously only ever dreamt of visiting.

What wonders await at Pallant House?

Inside we found the best of Twentieth Century British Art, displayed in period surroundings.

Suitably satiated we sat headed further east – to Bognor and beyond!

Reynolds Furniture Depository and a crowded Bank Holiday weekend seafront.

Since 1867 Reynolds has grown from a small shop to the largest furniture store in Sussex, with over 30,000 sq ft on four floors.

The Funeral Service now has three offices in Bognor Regis, Chichester and Littlehampton and the purpose built storage facility in Canada Grove continues to thrive.

We soon found ourselves in Felpham, amongst yet more interesting housing.

We traversed the River Arun at Littlehampton.

Then meshed with the milieu on the prom.

The day grew much hotter and we grew ever so slightly *loster.*

Finding our way back to the coast through the Kingston Gorse Estate – where almost everything is comprehensively prohibited.

Kingston Gorse is a beautiful seaside location close to Goring-by-Sea in West Sussex. In Kingston Gorse, there is a gorgeous housing development with a number of three, four and five bedroom homes.

In 1918 JA Candy, who owned East Kingston Farm, sold the land on which Kingston Gorse now stands to the local builder G Pesket.

In the 1920s he constructed the infrastructure and developed approx. 30 plots including Imray, which he occupied.

Kingston Gorse

The estate was once home to Bud Flanagan who then sold his house to Teddy Knox.

The Crazy Gang Bud Flanagan Jimmy Nervo Teddy Knox Charlie Naughton Jimmy Gold

by Cecil Beaton

At Southwick we crossed the River Adur via the docks’ locks.

Proceeding towards our overnight digs more than somewhat weary – it’s been a long day.

There are more snaps here taken on my previous trip.

Byker Estate – Newcastle upon Tyne

Posted on May 13, 2020 by modernmoocher

The Wall, along with the low rise dwellings built to its south, replaced Victorian slum terraced housing. There were nearly 1200 houses on the site at Byker. They had been condemned as unfit for human habitation in 1953, and demolition began in 1966.

The new housing block was designed by Ralph Erskine assisted by Vernon Gracie. Design began in 1968 and construction took place between 1969 and 1982. The architects opened an office on site to develop communication and trust between the existing residents. Existing buildings were to be demolished as the new accommodation was built.

The new high-rise block was designed to shield the site from an intended motorway, which eventually was never built. Construction materials for Byker Wall were relatively cheap, concrete, brick and timber. Surfaces were treated with bright colours, while brick bandings were used on the ‘Wall’ to indicate floor levels.

Its Functionalist Romantic styling with textured, complex facades, colourful brick, wood and plastic panels, attention to context, and relatively low-rise construction represented a major break with the Brutalist high-rise architectural orthodoxy of the time.

Wikipedia

There area has been well documented over time, notably by photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen.

It’s reputation has had its ups and downs but most recently:

It’s been named the UK and Ireland’s best neighbourhood – it’s got top schools, friendly neighbours and community art classes – alongside high levels of poverty.

Chronicle

It has been lauded by Municipal Dreams

When Historic England awarded Byker its Grade II* listing in 2007, they praised both its ‘groundbreaking design, influential across Europe and pioneering model of public participation’. The estate’s main element, the Byker Wall, is – like it or loathe it – an outstanding piece of modern architecture. The conception and design of the estate as a whole was shaped by unprecedented community consultation.

I went for a walk around one morning in May 2017, the photographs are in sequence as I explored the estate. It’s hard to do justice to the richness and variety of architecture in such a short time, but I only had a short time.

Return To Penrhyn Bay

Posted on March 7, 2019 by modernmoocher

Then the very next morning it came right back to me.

She wrote upon it:

Return to Penrhyn Bay – so I dutifully did

This is the land of the well-behaved bungalow, neatly tended, conscientiously swept, accessorised by B&Q.

The stoic sea and wind washed link-detached semi.

Nothing is out of place, except perhaps the architectural style – a West Coast blow in on the North Wales Coast.

To wander is to wonder:

Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

High Street Estate – Pendleton

Posted on March 1, 2019March 1, 2019 by modernmoocher

High Street Pendleton 1930s – the cast of Love on the Dole walk down High Street Pendleton, passing Hill’s Pawnbroker, author Walter Greenwood is ninth from the right.

This was a dense area of back to back terraces adjacent to pubs, schools, churches, mills, docks and cattle markets. Communities formed from shared patterns of employment, education, leisure and worship.

These communities survived into the 1960s and the coming of slum clearance, followed by an intense period of rebuilding in the modern manner.

Archival photographs Digital Salford

Patterns of employment, economic boom and bust, the exponential expansion in higher education, all contribute to the change in character of the area, along with slow and sudden demise in social housing.

2014 and the area begins to be reshaped yet again – this time by former resident Mr Peter Hook, who grew up in the area, the low slung former New Order bass meister described it in a book as – rotten and horrible, like a concrete wasteland

The Orchards tower block, the first of three, is removed piece by piece, each of the 14-storey blocks took around six weeks to be demolished.

The citizens of High Street Estate await the ‘dozers with apprehension and a sense of grim inevitability.

Clearance begins with the promise of new homes, tenants and homeowners are relocated, houses are tinned up or demolished wholesale. – a few remain in situ dissatisfied and afraid.

Altogether, 885 houses in Pendleton are being bulldozed and, to date, 584 have already been demolished, including houses on Athole Street and Amersham Street. Over the Pendleton Together project’s £650million thirty year life, only around one third of new houses being built will be affordable.

Meanwhile, after years of anguish and uncertainty, Fitzwarren Court and Rosehill Close, previously down for demolition, are being saved. Salix Homes will now bring flats in Fitzwarren Court and houses in its ownership on Rosehill Close up to the Decent Homes Standard.

Salford Star

So welcome to Limboland – as financial arrangements shift, shimmy and evaporate – government policy, local authority pragmatists, private partnerships and funding perform a merry dance of expediency, around an ever diminishing circle of demolition, development, stasis and deceit.

Covent Garden Stockport – Remake Remodel

Posted on September 25, 2018 by modernmoocher

I’ve been here before to record the beginning the middle and the end of Covent Garden flats – now there is a new beginning, beginning.

If you’re ready to start the next exciting chapter of your life, come and experience Nuvu Living at Covent Garden, Stockport. You will find our stunning new development that sits perfectly in this modern and vibrant community. Ideal for first time buyers and growing families, Covent Garden offers a fantastic collection of 74 spacious and contemporary 2 and 3 bedroom homes and 1 and 2 bedroom apartments.

Nuvu Living for the nuvu people in the cheerful anonymity of none-architecture.

Replacing the old with bigger, better shiny homes at a cost yet to be disclosed.

Another history overwritten.

Goodnight sweet flats.

With the bustling heart of Stockport just a few minutes’ walk away, this contemporary development sits perfectly in this modern and vibrant community. An ideal location for singles, couples and families, all the amenities you will ever need, including supermarkets, schools, bars, restaurants and more are all close to home. Plus, the centre of Manchester is just 7.5 miles away and easy to get to by road or rail. So, if you are ready to start the next exciting chapter in your life, come and experience Nuvu Living at Covent Garden, Stockport.

Back to Bideford Drive – Baguley

Posted on June 16, 2017June 17, 2017 by modernmoocher

Here we are again – having previously travelled back to the inception of the estate in the 1970s.

Structurally little has changed, politically and economically things have shifted.

Tectonically:

The Conservative Party had committed itself to introducing a Right to Buy before Margaret Thatcher became Party leader. After the election of May 1979 a new Conservative government drafted legislation to provide a Right to Buy but, because this would not become law until October 1980, also revised the general consent to enable sales with higher discounts matching those proposed in the new legislation. The numbers of sales completed under this general consent exceeded previous levels. Between 1952 and 1980 over 370,000 public sector dwellings were sold in England and Wales. Almost a third of these were in 1979 and 1980 and it is evident that higher discounts generated and would have continued to generate higher sales without the Right to Buy being in place. 200,000 council houses were sold to their tenants in 1982, and by 1987, more than 1,000,000 council houses in Britain had been sold to their tenants.

The Right to Buy: History and Prospect

The post war policy of building and renting local authority housing was swamped by the phrase property owning democracy, on which the popular conservatism of the 20th century rested, and with it a vision of the good society, was coined by the Scottish Unionist Noel Skelton in a quartet of articles for the Spectator entitled Constructive Conservatism, written in the spring of 1923. The appeal of Popular Capitalism proved compelling, however the periods of de-industrialisation, and the subsequent lull in the building of new affordable homes, has created a myriad of obstacles for those simply seeking somewhere to live and work.

The estate illustrates this historic shift, replete with homeowners decorative amendments and addenda, managing agents and trusts and an end to the architectural integrity of the development.

One could become all Ian Nairn about this, swathed in Outrage.

I myself feel that despite the cosmetic surgery, this remains a homely enclave, residents going about their business in a relatively orderly and happy manner.

Take a look: