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.
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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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. |
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.
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| Edwardian Windsor Road |
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| Edwardian Claremont Road |
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| 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.
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| 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!
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
