150th anniversary of Woodgrange estate

This July marks the 50th anniversary of Forest Gate's Woodgrange estate being granted Conservation Area status by the council, later ratified by the government. The designation was deliberately timed to coincide with the centenary of the start of construction on the estate.

We have already published several articles about this estate – see the appendix for details. This one marks the beginning of a series of new blogs on the estate's developments over the past century and a half. It explores the estate's origins, while situating its development within a wider historical and social context.We hope to mark the 150 years in other ways over the coming months, which we will showcase as they happen on this site.

 Origins

Glasgow developer Thomas Corbett purchased 110 acres of land on which the estate was built from the Gurney family for £44,000 in January 1877, (see Fn 1).

Archibald Cameron Corbett (1856 - 1933), son of Thomas and main developer of Woodgrange estate

Initially, 1,160 houses were constructed on the Woodgrange between 1877 and 1892, including all existing ones, as well as houses on Romford Road and shops on the eastern side of Woodgrange Road. The lengthy 15-year construction period is partially explained by a slump in the building trade in the mid-1880s, during which construction was halted. When it resumed towards the end of the decade the newer houses - on the eastern end of the estate - were built to more modest standards, reflected in cheaper prices - see below.

Although many suffered bomb damage during World War II (details of which will be covered in a future article in this series), we are not aware of any others having been demolished for reasons other than this subsequently.

Such was the success of the Woodgrange estate that Corbett’s heirs went on to develop six other large estates in east and south east London: Clements House, Ilford (93 acres, starting in 1893), Grange House, Ilford (74 acres, 1894), Downshall, Seven Kings (107 acres, 1898), Mayfield, Goodmayes (100 acres, 1899), St Germans, Hither Green (278 acres, 1896), and Eltham Park (334 acres, 1900).

Location, location, location

So, why did Corbett pick Forest Gate for his first significant estate development in London? The straightforward answer lies in two words: transport and opportunity.

The railway boom of the early and mid-19th century brought the Eastern Counties Railway to rural Forest Gate in 1839, when its population was only 5,000 (see Fn 2). At that time, the area was mainly occupied by market gardens, and there were only almshouses (see Fn 3) on the stretch of Woodgrange Road between the railway station and the then Princess Alice pub on Romford Road.

The railways brought Forest Gate within a 20-minute journey of the heart of the City of London, making it an ideal suburb for middle-class, clerical and managerial workers serving booming City institutions.

The opportunity for Corbett was the Gurney family's financial hardship (Fn 4), which owned much of the land in Forest Gate. This enabled him to buy the land, and Forest Gate suddenly became a thriving suburb. The area's population of 5,000 when development started grew to over 20,000 by the time the estate was completed.

Distinctive features of the estate

Unlike most housing developments in the Victorian era—well illustrated elsewhere in Forest Gate—Corbett insisted on the adoption of uniform design standards for every house on the estate. Therefore, although each house is unique, there are multiple variations in construction features—such as different bricks, some with verandahs and others without, some with single-storey extensions, others with two-storey extensions, and some with none, as well as the existence of bay windows and cellars or their absence.

1878 sales leaflet for Woodgrange estate properties

At a single stroke, the estate’s architectural design skilfully achieved both individuality for each house, within an overall coherent design setting.

When it came to selling the houses, Corbett severed the properties from the land on which they were built and disposed of them separately, thereby generating two sources of income from the estate. Middle-class individuals purchased the houses on 99-year leases, and the properties' freeholds were sold to institutional investors, who collected an annual ground rent from the leaseholders.

Larger houses at the western end of the estate would normally sell for around £530, with an annual ground rent of 8 guineas (£8.60). The smaller double-fronted houses at the eastern end of the roads would generally have sold for £330, on a 99-year lease, with a ground rent of £6.30.

Corbett was firm in his insistence that the estate's appearance be maintained to a high standard, thereby benefiting the freeholders by preserving the value of their investments. Leases required purchasers to decorate the interior and exterior of the houses at regular intervals and to keep the exteriors looking smart in specified ways. 

An estate office, located at the end of Hampton Road (now number 2), was established to ensure compliance with the standards.

Hampton Road, early 20th Century. Property on far right, Corbett's estate office.There to ensure conformity to appearance standards of houses on the estate maintained.

Trees were planted at regular intervals along the roads, and roundabouts were installed to enhance the estate's appearance, which was particularly important as it was then car-free. The teetotaller Corbetts included restrictive covenants in leases that forbade the sale of alcohol from any of the properties.

Affluent and aspiring

The fact that Corbett named all the houses on the estate (Windsor, Claremont, Osborne, Hampton, Richmond and Balmoral) after royal residences suggested he was appealing to aspiring would-be home owners.

A glance at the 1881 and 1891 censuses of Claremont Road (see Fn 5) – the first to enumerate the Woodgrange estate - gives an indication of how successful Corbett had been in identifying and satisfying his target market of residents. City workers and people in marine-related occupations (the estate is only three miles north of the then bustling London docks) predominated.

In 1881, 83% of houses on Claremont Road had at least one live-in domestic servant, usually a maid of all works, and 22% of houses employed two live-in servants, typically a nanny and a maid of all works. The servants were predominantly single women from East London or Essex, earning roughly £12-£16 per year, plus board and lodging (See Fn 6).

The construction of Essex’s then-largest synagogue on Earlham Grove, just a short walk away from the estate, in the early years of the twentieth century, made it an attractive location for the resettlement of successful Jewish immigrants and their children from the Whitechapel area and altered the demographics of the Woodgrange houses. (see Fn 7).

We are lucky to have a number of surviving Edwardian postcards of the estate (see Fn 8), which show what a fine state the area was in, maintained by careful leaseholders who adhered to the Corbett demands.

Edwardian Windsor Road

Edwardian Claremont Road

Edwardian Osborne Road

Changing demographic and occupant profiles

A combination of changes to the country’s workforce profile after World War I and the impact of the 99-year leases on the houses in the estate significantly altered the occupational makeup and appearance of it between the wars and subsequently.

The number of women in domestic service in Britain declined by almost one third between 1881 and 1921, largely accounted for by the death of over 700,000 men during the war, and the consequential “substitution” of women into formerly male employment. One result was a significant decline in the number of servants living in the estate’s houses.

By the late 1920s, the unexpired terms of the 99-year leases on the Woodgrange houses were dropping below 50 years, so the houses themselves were becoming less attractive as long-term homes and acquisitions. Houses on the estate were changing hands at ever-lower prices in the inter-war years due to their shortening leases.

As a result, the composition of households on the estate changed markedly. Over time, there were significantly fewer large families with live-in domestic servants. Many of the once-stylish owner-occupied middle-class houses began to be converted into Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).

We will examine this in more detail in future articles, as we analyse the 20th-century census and National Register results for Claremont Road.

The consequences were that the overall standards of upkeep of many houses declined, as absentee owners chose not to improve properties with shorter lifespans, or simply sit back and collected rents, with no regard for the condition of the properties they let.

The Woodgrange estate suffered significant bomb damage (Fn 9), particularly at the western end of Windsor and Claremont Roads, which we will reflect on in a future article.

Post-World War 2 immigration into the UK, and Newham in particular, also altered the nationality of origin of many of the estate's residents, as the larger houses met the needs of larger families.

Conservation Area status

Post-World War II, prospective homeowners on the estate began to consolidate their leases by purchasing the freeholds, to extend their ownership duration. During the early 1950s, the now short leases of the houses were trading for very small sums, and prospective owners were acquiring the freeholds from the institutions that owned them, often paying twice the price of the lease for the privilege.

The owners of the newly united properties began restoring the estate to its “v, des res” status, investing in improving and maintaining their houses as owner-occupied dwellings rather than letting them fall into disrepair.

In an inspired act of heritage conservation and recognition, Newham Council designated approximately 70 acres and about 600 houses of the original estate as a Conservation Area in July 1976 to safeguard its significant architectural heritage. This was officially ratified by the government the following year to acknowledge and celebrate the estate's centenary.

Standards to be adhered to in properties on the Woodgrange estate, following adoption of Conservation Area status

The area was expanded in 1979 to include the original Corbett shops on Woodgrange Road (40-66). The designation has preserved the properties' external, road-facing appearance since then.

That status has led to a renewed interest in maintaining the estate's features and condition, as well as in attracting the type of families Corbett originally envisioned. Modern status symbols on the estate are no longer domestic servants, but many of the highly expensive cars that adorn the drives of some of the houses.

More recently, almost turning full circle, the construction of the very successful Elizabeth Line, calling at Forest Gate, together with almost boon town status of Stratford has increased the desirability of living on the estate.

As a consequence, house prices skyrocketed over the last forty years, reaching nearly 3,000 times their original value - treble the rate of general inflation over the period, according to the Bank of England!

 Footnotes:

1.   Woodgrange Farm and the Growth of Modern Forest Gate – here; Woodgrange Estate - the early years -  here; and Archibald Cameron Corbett – the man and his houses - here 

2.   Forest Gate's early transport history - here 

3.   Pawnbrokers of Forest Gate - here 10 July 

4.   Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856) - Forest Gate's most influential resident - here 

5.   Upstairs, downstairs (Claremont Road in the 1881 census) - here ; Claremont Road 1891 census - here 

6.   Adverts for servants in Claremont Road - here 

7.   The rise and decline of Forest Gate's Jewish Community - here 

8.   Edwardian postcards of the Woodgrange estate - here 

9.   Claremont Road, temporary WW2 fire station - here 

Manor Park Cemetery celebrates 150 years

 

Sebert Road entrance to the cemetery

150 years ago, in the summer of 1874, advertisements began to appear in London papers offering £1-00 shares in the Manor Park Cemetery Company. The company's aim, said the prospectus, was to open a new cemetery to cater to the “ever-increasing population” of London’s eastern and northern suburbs. The company had bought 115 acres of land east of Forest Gate station, of which 45 acres would be for the cemetery, and the rest sold off in building plots to part-finance the operation.

The cemetery and crematorium stand on a section of what was previously Hamfrith Farm, which can be traced back to the 1700s. In 1851, the farm was bought by Samuel Gurney, who, as we have shown in a previous post (see here), was busily acquiring land in Forest Gate at the time. This later laid the foundations for the establishment of the area as a Victorian suburb.

He paid £17,710 for the fam. Following Samuel’s death, in 1872, his grandson, John, sold the farm to the British Land Company, who, in turn, sold the site of the cemetery to the newly established Manor Park Cemetery company in 1874.

The cemetery, it was claimed, would offer many advantages. It was close to London (rather improbably, the company claimed their cemetery was two miles closer to the city than the City of London cemetery) and had good rail links. It was built on “stiff, dry gravel” ideal for multiple burials in common graves, and the opening hours meant that undertakers could reckon on fitting in 4-5 funerals a day.

The company aimed to appeal to respectable working-class east Londoners by offering family plots at one guinea (£1 5p). These “Guinea Graves” could also be exchanged for shares, enabling “the working and industrious classes” to have an affordable family plot rather than the indignity of being buried in a common grave. In 2006, the cemetery company was to devise an ingenious variation on this scheme, offering 1,000 used plots as “traditional style graves” complete with the original headstones (names scoured off) at £4,000 for a 50-year lease.

Not all local residents were happy about such arrangements, which would they felt drew the wrong sort of people to the proposed cemetery. One wrote to a local paper to claim that “It would attract a class of funerals here, the mourners belonging to which are so apt to solace themselves at the public-house, and wind up with a friendly ‘set to’.”

Grave of William Nesbitt, the first burial in the cemetery

Originally the cemetery company wanted to use all the land from Forest Gate station to Manor Park station for graves but the Local Board (the equivalent of the council) said "no" and the cemetery eventually occupied about half of this area. The rest was sold off for housing development. The company also wanted to make use of the adjacent railway to transport coffins (rather like the famous Necropolis Railway of south west London) but nothing came of this.

Another interesting fact is that the same family the Jeffreys have been involved since 1874 and still are part of the company. This is a private profit making business, unlike council owned cemeteries such as the one in Cemetery Road Forest Gate, owned and run by Newham.

Construction of the cemetery started over the winter of 1874-5 on a site at the eastern end of what became Sebert Road. In the first couple of years, the cemetery was simply a burial ground, with no facilities for funeral services until the chapel and entrance gates followed in 1877. By then, the first burials had taken place. The cemetery opened in March 1875, the first interment being a 19-year-old local resident, William Nesbitt.

Advert for the new cemetery on the day it opened 25 March 1875

The table of charges published when the cemetery opened gives a revealing glimpse into the Victorian way of death. There were five categories of payments for children who died under the age of 10, which in the local area accounted for much of the mortality rate.

From the beginning, funerals could be large affairs. It wasn’t unusual for hundreds to attend burials, with brass bands (sometimes more than one) playing suitably solemn music. In 1882, 50 cyclists from local clubs joined the funeral procession of a young rider who had, so it was reported, died of “over-training”. 

 

Auction plan of the area between Capel Road and Sebert Road divided into plots for sale in 1876. Areas in pink were already sold, those in blue were up for auction.

The cemetery company also significantly impacted the growth of a large part of Forest Gate north of the railway. Its sale of the surplus land as building plots led to the creation of the streets between Sebert and Capel Road in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The action plan shows the large estate of West Ham Hall, the area now covered by Godwin School, Woodgrange School, and the viaduct of the Gospel Oak-Barking Riverside line.

Manor Park does not have many notable graves, but probably the best known is that of Jack Cornwell, who received a posthumous VC for his actions at the Battle of Jutland, the great naval engagement between the Royal Navy and the German fleet in the North Sea in 1916. Born in Leyton, before the family moved to Manor Park, Jack was just 16 when he was killed in action aboard HMS Chester. (see here for film of the funeral procession and here for further details about Jack). There is a community centre named after him, which has just been refurbed, in Manor Park.

Funeral procession of Jack Cornwell in August 1916

A more recently constructed memorial is for the victims of the disaster at Bethnal Green underground station in March 1943. The firing of anti-aircraft batteries in nearby Victoria Park may have caused the panic on a staircase into the station, which resulted in 173 deaths, mainly women and children, probably the largest single loss of civilian life in the UK during the Second World War. 

The memorial to the victims of the Bethnal Green tube disaster buried in Manor Park Cemetery

The memorial to those buried in Manor Park has brought together individual gravestones under the shade of a tree. This attractive memorial is a few metres from the eastern gate of the cemetery in Whitta Road.

A map produced by the cemetery company shows these graves and others. To celebrate its 150th year, the company has put up two interpretation boards, together with accompanying leaflets, which give potted histories of some of the notable burials and a map showing their location. You can find fuller details of this on the cemetery's recently upgraded website: here

 

The boards can be found inside the main gates. Leaflets are in holders or available from the cemetery office

Markers points on the self-guided tour of the cemetery

    

1. John Travers Cornwell, (see above).

2. John Clinton, d 16 July 1894, aged 10, drowned, saving the life of another child.

3. Mary Orchard, d 1906, aged 76. Nanny to children of Queen Victoria (see here for further details).

4. William Chandler, d 1946, aged 66, founder of eponymous bookmakers, now called BetVictor. Also the creator of the former Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium.

5. William Tom Ecclestone, d 1915, aged 53, weighed 46 stone and was known as “the king’s second heaviest subject.”

6. Joyce and Ronald McQueen, parents of fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

7. Chapel buildings, constructed in 1877.

8. Susan Hibberd Flower Court. Area for leaving floral tributes after ceremonies.

9. Pavilion, built in 1968 for memorial plaques.

10. War memorial, (see here for further details).

11. William Nesbitt, first internment in the cemetery (see above).

12. Military war graves, Maintained by Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

13. Alexander Lambert, d 1892 aged 55. A pioneering professional industrial diver.

14. Bethnal Green Tube Disaster, (see above).

15. Sarah Dearman, (nee Chapman). Matchgirls’ Strike leader (see here and here for further details).

16. Annie Chapman, d 8 September 1888. Jack the Ripper’s second victim (see here for further details).

17. Civilian War Memorial. Elongated tomb containing remains of 57 victims of WW2 bombings.

18. Columbarium,  location for cremation ashes.

19. Steve Marsh. d April 2010, aged 51. “BMW Steve”, a car fanatic.

20. Francis Albermar McDougal, d 1907 a UK veteran of the US Civil War, among six other similar survivors in the cemetery.

The history of Hamfrith Farm

Mark Gorman (@Flatshistorian) continues his series on the farms of pre-suburban Forest Gate and district with a look at the history of Hamfrith Farm, some of which is today occupied by Godwin and Woodgrange schools.

Hamfrith (literally “Ham Wood”) was originally part of the lands of Stratford Langthorne Abbey, the great Cistercian monastery on the banks of the river Lea. In 1538, after the abbey’s dissolution Hamfrith, together with the rest of West Ham manor, was acquired by the king. At the end of the C17th George Booth was given a 99-year lease for the manor of West Ham for services to the crown. Booth later made a grant which divided the manor into two parts. He assigned Hamfrith farm (which had been made out of Hamfrith wood) to Sir John Blount, a director of the South Sea Company, for 69 years, starting in 1733.

After the South Sea Bubble burst Blount was ruined, and his estates were sold. The Stratford and Hamfrith property was bought in 1734 by John Tylney, later Earl Tylney. It was then inherited in his family until the end of the 18th century.

Map of Essex by John Chapman and Peter Andre 1777. The map shows Hamfrith incorrectly marked as "Wood Grange" (sic), Woodgrange farm is the collection of buildings to the south of the Eagle and Child pub.

Both parts of the manor remained Crown freehold until the end of the 18th century, but the demesne land (land in the manor retained by the owner for his own use) and the manorial rights were then sold separately. In 1787 the whole manor contained 290 acres demesne lands, and 54 acres of commons, most of which formed part of Wanstead Flats. The demesne lands were mainly scattered in the southern marshes, the only substantial tenement (occupied buildings) being Hamfrith farm, 128 acres lying north of the London-Ilford road, on both sides of the boundary between East Ham and West Ham, occupied by John Greenhill.

Map c 1800 showing the Greenhill holdings. Their land streches from Forest Gate in the west to what is now Manor Park, and bordered the southern edge of Wanstead Flats, as well as fields south of the road to Romford. Hamfrith farm was east of the Eagle and Child on the map.

 

By 1799, when the occupiers were William, John and Richard Greenhill, Hamfrith comprised 148 acres. William Greenhill bought the freehold of Hamfrith Farm (without manorial rights, which were sold separately) from the Crown for £8,642. At this stage the Greenhills had substantial holdings both north and south of the Romford Road. William Greenhill's father, John, was said to have been the first large-scale potato grower for the London market, probably from the middle of the C18th, and his son had continued to develop the business. By the 1820s the Greenhills were employing upwards of 100 workers, mainly Irish.

By this time, however, William Greenhill seems to have run into financial difficulties, as between 1824-8 he mortgaged the farm for a total of £9,000. He died in 1832, leaving over £50,000 (approx £4.7m today) and directing that Hamfrith should be held in trust for life, and should later be sold. Financial problems continued for his heirs, however, for in 1835 William's son, John, was declared bankrupt and the contents of Hamfrith farm were auctioned off, while three months later part of the farm itself, described as "130 acres of superior land, in the highest state of cultivation" was offered to let. John's brother, William, occupied Plashet Hall at the time, which also had farm buildings and 145 acres of farmland, much of it south of Romford Road.

 

Hamfrith Farm and "Potatoe Hall" on the 1797 draft Ordnance Survey map.

Their house, Plashet Hall, on Romford Road, was known locally as "Potato Hall". The name "Potatoe Hall" also appeared on the draft Ordnance Survey map, made in 1797 (see above), showing that the Greenhill's business was nationally recognised.

The trustees finally sold the entire estate of 300 acres, as well as Plashet House, "a most Desirable and Gentlemanly residence" in 1850. The farm was described as "superior and productive Market Garden land", but significant emphasis was also put on the extensive building frontage "to very excellent roads".

The estate was eventually bought by Samuel Gurney (see here), owner of the neighbouring manor of Woodgrange and Ham House, for £17,710. Hamfrith then comprised 131 acres, bisected by the main line Eastern Counties Railway. John Greenhill, despite having to sell off his interest in his father's estate in 1836, appears to have enjoyed a comfortable life after moving to Leytonstone, where he died in 1869.

The 1863 6-inch OS map, showing that Hamfrith Farm has become West Ham Hall with an entrance where Chestnut Avenue meets Avenue Road. The red line running through the map is the projected route of the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway, opened in 1894.

 

West Ham Hall c1890

John Gurney, grandson of Samuel, sold most of Hamfrith in 1872 to the British land Company, who in turn, in 1874, sold it to the Manor Park Cemetery Company. The eastern part was used for the cemetery, while the remainder was gradually developed by the Cemetery Company for building. Sebert Road, built up by 1878, runs through the centre of the Hamfrith lands.

The site of West Ham Hall is now occupied by Godwin primary school

Hamfrith farm-house had existed at least since the early 18th century. In the 19th century it became a gentleman's residence, with ornamental gardens. From the 1860s it was known as West Ham Hall. It stood on the north side of Sebert Road between Avenue Road and Cranmer Road. A carriage drive stretched north to the modern-day junction of Avenue Road and Chestnut Avenue.

About 1890 it was acquired by the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway Company, which was then building its line, via Wanstead Park, to Woodgrange Park. West Ham Hall was still standing in 1893, when the company put it up for sale, with other surplus land. The house was bought by West Ham School Board, which demolished it. Today it is the site of Woodgrange and Godwin schools.

The main entrance to Hamfrith Farm was at the junction of Avenue Road and Chestnut Avenue. The farm gates were where the post box is today.