Style Fashion and Snobbery

Ethelburga is a fairly late (about 1968) Housing Scheme by the old London County Council which – unlike many Borough Councils – usually built Housing of quite good quality. It may be suspected that much of the design owed at least something to Golden Lane Housing in the City (although nothing like as ambitious) but the flats (to ‘Parker Morris’ standards) are quite large and spacious with spaces between the blocks (because of the quite low density of most ‘Council’ Estates) wide and generous. Later administrative changes to letting policies between long and short-term renting has helped considerably in social mixing for what is quite a large estate.

This scheme adjacent to the older Ethelburga Estate was built on the site of the old Ethelburga Primary School at a time when many State Schools gave-way to Private. This estate is composed of flats at a much higher density that are probably, not being constrained by regulation and as was the fashion of the time, of a much smaller and tighter individual floor-space. As can be seen gardens are quite tight to the road whilst the flats on the corner look to be tight and poky whilst having very little – if any – outdoor space. For all that, being ‘private’ the flats and houses, despite being clearly of a much lower standard, are probably much more sought after and more much more highly priced.