The idealised homes of Gidea Park: some images from the 1911 Exhibition
In 1911, the Gidea Park Exhibition promoted the new Garden Suburb near Romford. Four-bedroom houses were priced at £500, three-bedroom "cottages" at £375. Around one hundred architects, both individuals and partnerships, entered a competition that offered prizes for the best homes, and these were promoted in the Exhibition catalogue. This file of selected images supplements a longer essay, "Romford's Garden Suburb: the origins of Gidea Park": https://www.gedmartin.net/martinalia-mainmenu-3/420-origins-of-gidea-park.
The rivals.
During the eighteen-nineties, two developers transformed nearby Ilford with mass-produced building methods. A. Cameron Corbett covered Seven Kings and Goodmayes with bricks and mortar, W.P. Griggs created the Cranbrook Park estate. Each project embodied long straight streets, lined with houses all designed in the same style. The only variations were in size: as this 1901 advertisement shows, on the Cranbrook Park estate, Griggs sold single-fronted houses (presumably with two or three bedrooms) for between £260 and £295; double-fronted four-bedroom properties were available for £375-£395, five-bedroom homes for £450. (I have no information about resale house prices in Edwardian times, but there was certainly nothing like the roller-coaster inflation of recent decades.) Both Corbett and Griggs operated on a leasehold basis, aiming to secure a continuing revenue from ground rents: the Gidea Park scheme, which contained a marked philanthropic element, was based on freeholds. However, aesthetics apart, Cranbook Park had its attractions. It was about half a mile from Ilford station. With four tracks to Liverpool Street, Ilford had frequent and rapid suburban train services to Liverpool Street: onward to Romford and beyond, there were only two tracks. The journey to London from the new station at Squirrels Heath (opened in 1910, and soon to be called Gidea Park) was much less convenient. The Griggs estate had easy access to a major public amenity, Central (later Valentines) Park, acquired by the go-ahead local Council in 1897: this helps to explain why Herbert Raphael, the promoter of Gidea Park, was keen to endow Romford with a similar recreation area. In 1903, Ilford opened its tramway network, something that Romford argued about but failed to achieve. Ilford residents had the option of using electricity in their homes; Gidea Park pioneers had to rely on gas lighting. Enthusiasts for Gidea Park evidently had Ilford in mind when they denounced "the monotonous outlines of villadom" that had sprung up on London's mushroom fringes. Much would depend on whether Gidea Park's architect-designed homes were sufficiently attractive to outweigh the relative disadvantages of the Garden Suburb's location.
In the 1911 Exhibition catalogue, the promoters decided to tackle the problem head-on. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner once blamed the poor public image of Essex on the "squalor of Liverpool Street Station", its "suicidal waiting-room" and "cavernous left luggage counters". (Despite subsequent makeovers since he wrote in 1954, it is still possible to understand what he meant.) The Gidea Park project saw the problem in a slightly different light, but still blamed the railway: for the first few miles out of London, the suburban line crossed dreary industrialised marshland and looked down upon a muddle of grim houses. But, somehow, beyond Romford, everything changed.
This piece of evocative prose was both exaggerated and misleading. Squirrels Heath and Gidea Park were hardly mountainous. Since there were no natural obstacles to shelter the area from winter gales, the obvious formula was to hint at healthy breezes. It was just possible to reach Liverpool Street within thirty minutes, but the new station would hardly generate enough passenger traffic to justify fast trains, and most services were slower. Even if direct connections had been provided, the Great Eastern terminus was about the least convenient in London: a sprinter would be hard-pressed to reach the Mansion House within the half-hour implied here. It is interesting to note that, a century ago, the presence of local fox-hunts was trumpeted as an amenity. Unfortunately, the "open character of the country" around Gidea Park would soon be blanketed by the advance of less select suburban development.
The images in this file are taken from the Exhibition catalogue: https://archive.org/details/bookofexhibition00romf/page/86/mode/2up. Their more-or-less random choice had been dictated largely by convenience of scanning, editing and clarity of reproduction: the selection is intended to give a flavour of the ideas of the various architects, and not to provide a full analysis of styles and techniques that were mobilised to promote the new Garden Suburb. To the best of my knowledge, the houses illustrated are still in existence as family homes. Out of respect for their privacy, no attempt has been made to indicate their locations. Guides to walking tours are available from the website of the Gidea Park and District Civic Society (https://gpadcs.org/?page_id=353).
Class I house by architects Fair & Myer. This was one of the larger houses in the Garden Suburb. The unusual feature of the catalogue entry for this property was that the architects included an imaginary picture of part of the interior (below). Unfortunately, the sketch seems to come from what may have been an earlier draft of their scheme, since the windows and the corner cupboards do not conform to the ground-floor plan shown alongside. The cameo was intended to demonstrate the 'rustic' nature of the home, for instance featuring timber beams in the ceiling. The 24-feet-long living / dining room was the "special feature" of the house. Fair & Myer went into some detail, even indicating where beds were to be located: evidently, they envisaged a family of two adults and four children.
Fair & Myer tackled a number of issues that were common features in contemporary houses. Gidea Park houses burned a great deal of coal: there were six fireplaces, in individually-designed hearths – although it may well be that fires were not always lit in the bedrooms. Hence there was a need for coal storage and it is of interest that the houses in the Garden Suburb were not provided with outdoor coal bins. The 'offices', as the working sections of the property were called, were designed so that "the tradesmen do not have to go into the back garden to get to the back door". Meals and other domestic services were provided by a kitchen, a scullery and a larder. The kitchen was equipped with a coal-burning range for cooking, although in some Garden Suburb houses, it was expected that gas would be used to produce meals and to provide hot water for sinks and basins. The lineal descendant of the scullery is the modern-day utility room, typically housing a washing machine, tumbler-dryer and dishwasher, all run on clean electricity that also powers extractor fans. The Edwardian scullery was a less salubrious place. Like the kitchen, it had a coal-fired range, necessary to heat water for washing clothes (although Romford, being a modern town, boasted a steam laundry which the household might also have patronised), and they would have been damp and steamy for much of the day. The Exhibition catalogue optimistically boasted that Gidea Park kitchens and sculleries had "tiled surfaces [to] make the accumulation of dirt impossible ... wet dishes or dirty saucepans will leave no mark". "[S]inks, plate racks, draining boards, cupboards, cooking appliances, and gas heaters for water" were all conveniently arranged "as neatly and compactly as if the limited space were planned for the tiny kitchen of a rich man's yacht". In an era before the home refrigerator, the larder was intended as a cool place that was necessary to store food, and it would normally be situated away from direct sunlight and with (at most) small windows. Its location here, adjoining the scullery, may not have been ideal. The effect on the health of anyone working under such conditions would have been negative.
The unpleasant nature of much of the cooking and washing required to run a Gidea Park home prompts the question: who did the work? Working-class women were becoming less willing to accept employment as skivvies, and Gidea Park houses were mostly designed on the assumption that there would be no live-in domestic servants. However, it is likely that the architects assumed that the family who lived in this prestige residence would employ a daily 'help'. It is very likely that the downstairs toilet was intended to be used by the maid: notably, access (come rain or sunshine) was from outside.
Neither the ground plan nor the sketch seems to indicate that there was a serving hatch between the kitchen and the dining room. Access from oven to table was hardly straightforward, and one wonders whether the occupants enjoyed hot meals. Very little seems to be known about the Fair & Myer partnership. The Gidea Park project does not seem to have brought them fame and fortune.
Class I house by architects S.A. Warwick & H.A. Hall In 1910, Warwick & Hall were also designing houses in a similar spirit at Tunbridge Wells.
The entry in the Exhibition catalogue emphasised the external appearance: "the House is treated on simple cottage lines", its proportions harmonising with a "quiet colour scheme of red hand-made tiles, red chimney stacks, white lime-washed walls, and green shutters .... A large Porch, formed by sweeping down the main Roof, helps to emphasise the entrance, the door of which is in oak studded with nails. ... The aspect of the house is excellently situated, as the sun travels round the three exposed sides." Inside there were "simple red brick and tile fireplaces" while a feature of the dining room was "a deeply recessed ingle, which adds greatly to the comfort of the room. The ground floor ceilings have the joists exposed, thus giving greater height to the rooms, and harmonising with the scheme of decoration. The Kitchen quarters are roomy and well equipped with modern conveniences." However, access to coal storage was through the scullery, which could hardly have assisted delivery. Warwick & Hall paid some attention to the need for storage: the sloping roofs of the porch protrusion provided space for box-rooms upstairs. A downstairs second toilet, with external access, suggested that the occupants would probably employ a non-resident maid.
Class 1 house by architects D. Bamford & Aitken
The architects aimed at "a comfortable house, simply planned and well lighted", with "the elimination of all waste space", although – once again – coal storage was internal, with access though a short passage. The kitchen and scullery were "secluded from the Living Apartments, but conveniently placed for service to them". No doubt as a safety feature, particular attention had been paid to lighting the staircase, which had its own bay window, and the landing, which was overlooked by an array of "transomed windows lending themselves to sympathetic treatment in the matter of curtains". The sloping roof of the porch made possible a linen cupboard off the bathroom upstairs. A second toilet behind the scullery suggests that the occupants were expected to employ a non-resident servant, either as a maid or as cook-housekeeper. At least the poor woman would not have to brave the weather to use the facility. Externally, the architects sought to create "in a modern house that sense of repose which distinguishes the buildings of a century ago". That probably explains why their thumbnail sketch includes a pleasant glimpse of a Regency dandy admiring their handiwork. I have traced no further information about Bamford & Aitken.
Class I house by architect H.T.B. Spencer
The Exhibition catalogue had little to say here, except that the architect intended "to provide an easily workable but commodious house for a family of six or seven persons, with one servant". It had some odd features. Coal storage was entirely within the house, which seems not only a poor use of space but also a guarantee of dust and dirt. The dogleg access from the porch to the hall looks awkward, but perhaps it was designed to block draughts. The large chimney on the front-facing wall adds to the suspicion that this was a first version of a scheme that needed rethinking. Nothing more seems to be known of the architect.
Class I house by architects Burgess & Myers
This was one of the few houses to emphasise access to the garden, through a verandah leading off the drawing room. The architects firmly divided the space so that the kitchen and scullery occupied one side of the building. "The Kitchen premises are well shut off from the rest of the house, while the Kitchen is so placed as to be quite handy for serving." Given that the dining room was at the opposite corner, this was perhaps open to argument. Ample cupboard space was available upstairs. "Maids' hot and cold taps are provided on First Floor." This was a thoughtful gesture: in most houses, domestic staff evidently used a great deal of energy lugging buckets of water up and down stairs. Like most Gidea Park architects, Burgess & Myers wrapped a basic two-down, four-up design in a decorative exterior. The brickwork was "finished with cement rough-cast, the Roof being covered with red sand-faced tiles, the external woodwork painted cream to match rough-cast". Nothing more seems to be known of the duo.
Gidea Park Class II house by architect Percy B. Houfton
Percy Houfton was a notable architect, who had recently built a model village near Doncaster to provide homes for coal-miners. His design illustrates the challenge of fitting Gidea Park amenities into the smaller (and cheaper) 3-bedroom 'cottage'-style home. The space allocated to kitchen, scullery and coal storage could hardly be reduced, putting pressure on the living space. Notably, the bathroom was on the first floor, but the toilet was tucked under the stairs below. As a result, there was no separate dining room: the family presumably took their meals in the kitchen. Houfton called it "open-planning", and made the point that the living room and the two main bedrooms were all well-lit: "with the exception of the larder the house will be sunny and bright". A feature in the scullery was "a gascooker for summer use". It seems unlikely that this household would have employed a servant.
Reflections There were many variations in the 140 designs that are not illustrated here. In some of the smaller properties, architects experimented with a combined kitchen-scullery, or placed a moveable screen between them. Others dealt with the problem of a single living room in the 'cottage' format by creating a recess where meals could be taken. Since Gidea Park was relatively remote from shops and other amenities, it is curious that in only two houses was indoor space provided for the storage of bicycles. Notably absent from this promotion of a Garden Suburb was any extended mention of gardens, which might have been extolled as safe play spaces for children. Indeed, children and families seem hardly to feature in the Exhibition catalogue at all. Indeed, a curious slogan, "Golf without Selfishness", suggested that there was a nobler pastime than gardening. The archetypal Gidea Park resident was conceived to be a man who travelled to London every day and needed a particular form of exercise at weekends: with "means of recreation ... at his very door, his wife suffers from none of the inconveniences familiar to households which are ordinarily set up to be within easy reach of a golf course". In short, Romford's Garden Suburb represented the realisation of an essentially male fantasy. Its promoters and its architects were all men. Public figures were recruited as honorary Vice-Presidents of the Exhibition. Only one, the Countess of Warwick, was female. A former mistress of Edward VII, she was unlikely to have had much experience of sculleries. The leader of the nonviolent and mainstream campaign to win the vote for women, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, was asked to give advice on how to improve modern houses. She contributed a series of valuable suggestions (for instance, that it should be made easy to cut off the water supply during cold weather "to prevent damage by burst pipes"), but she was not otherwise involved. It is clear that Gidea Park homes were designed for women – especially wives who were increasingly burdened with housework and bereft of servants – but perhaps the project would have been more successful if some of the idiosyncratic properties had been crafted by women.
All this raises one basic (if heretical) question: did Gidea Park actually benefit from the swarm of architects who turned their dreams and their nostrums into bricks and mortar? Was the Garden Suburb a more attractive place in which to live than the mass-produced anonymous streets of Ilford and Seven Kings? It was a condition of the architectural competition that the entrants had to work in partnership with builders to turn their plans into reality. Perhaps there were showdowns during the construction phase when idealistic aesthetes were flatly told by practical constructors that some of their ideas would not work. Essentially, in whatever way the pieces were assembled, every middle-class Edwardian house contained the same basic elements – three or four bedrooms, one or two living rooms, plus the 'offices'. Packaged in rough-cast, endowed with mock-Tudor chimneys and marketed as peasant dwellings endowed with plumbing, the homes of Gidea Park were a worthy experiment but perhaps not a formula that was likely to be widely copied.
For a list of Essex material on this website, see "Essex history on www.gedmartin.net":
https://www.gedmartin.net/martinalia-mainmenu-3/411-essex-history-on-www-gedmartin-net