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 

Strange Claremont Road deaths (1) - children

Our interrogation of the sophisticated search engine of the British Newspaper Library, referred to here and here has uncovered details of a number of strange deaths and the inquests following them of residents of Claremont Road in the first five decades of the street’s existence.

We will be featuring them over three posts, relating to suicides, accidents and this, the first article on unusual deaths of young people. There is a small amount of overlap between the categories, but duplication will be kept to a minimum.

1881 Constance Susan Hand: “Poisoned, while of unsound mind”, aged 16

Constance Susan Hand was born in Field Road, Forest Gate, in 1861, the daughter of John, a bricklayer, and Lucy.

In the early months of 1881, she took on a job as a nursemaid to the Berry family of 56 Claremont Road. The household comprised Charles Berry, a general shipping agent, his wife, sister-in-law, and one son. In addition to Constance, the family had another live-in domestic servant.

56 Claremont Road, today

Constance was dead, aged 16, by the end of March. Her story is a tragedy.

The inquest at the British Lion pub in West Ham Lane was extensively reported. On the day of her death, she went with a child she was caring for to see her mother, and asked to borrow 6d (2.5p).

By about 3 p.m., she went to Charles Dyer’s chemist shop on Odessa Road, bought a packet of Batter’s Vermin Powder with the money, and signed the Poisons’ Register. When asked, she told Dyer that it was to treat an infestation of rats at her employers’ home.

Chelmsford Chronicle 1 April 1881

 

According to Mrs Berry, when she arrived, “She went into the nursery. She then went up into her bedroom” and took the arsenic that killed her.

A little later: “Mrs Berry went into the nursery and observed that her eyes were very bright and swollen. A little later she found that (Constance) had been vomiting … she said that she had internal gathering and had been spitting blood … in a very short time the poor girl became convulsed and reportedly called for God to help her and asked to see the Rev R Ross, the clergyman of the Parish (Emanuel).”

Constance’s mother was called for, and “after being in great agony for an hour, the girl died at six o’clock”. A post-mortem was conducted by Dr Evans and samples of bodily fluids were collected and sent to the London Hospital in Whitechapel for examination.

Dr Charles Arnott Tidy, professor of chemistry at the hospital, analysed the samples and concluded: “I have no doubt that death was due to arsenic poisoning. There was enough arsenic in (the samples) to kill eight or ten people.”

The inquest attempted to understand the circumstances surrounding the death before pronouncing the cause of death.

Constance’s mother and Mrs Berry both testified that she seemed to be a cheerful girl. A friend and fellow domestic servant said that a boyfriend had called off an engagement about two weeks previously.

The friend said she didn’t think this was a factor, as Constance seemed quite cheered at the event: “She said that she was glad and it seemed to have no influence on her spirits”.

Mr Berry, her employer, made a very telling – in more ways than one – statement. He said he “... had never spoken an unkind word to the dead; in fact, he had never spoken scarcely half a dozen words to her. She had been in their employ only about two months, but believed she was suffering from religious mania.”

Mrs Berry returned to the witness box and perhaps inadvertently gave an explanation for the suicide: “Mrs Berry said the deceased knew she had missed some things and that she had said she might have to send the deceased away”.

Could this be that Contance knew the sack was looming, and couldn’t face the prospect?

Although it was clear that she had killed herself, at the conclusion of the inquest the coroner posed the jury with a dilemma: “If it was done by the hand of the deceased herself, it would have been their duty to return a verdict of felo de se, which would deprive the relatives of a Christian burial”. The Latin phrase was used to imply sanity at the time of suicide.

In the event, the jury “found that the deceased had poisoned herself while of unsound mind.” This verdict, that she was non compos mentis at the time of the suicide, would have enabled her to have a burial in a Christian graveyard.

Sources: Eastern Post 2 and 9 April, Chelmsford Chronicle 1 and 8 April 1881, Essex Newsman 2 and 9 April 1881. Find My Past

1885 Herbert Wilson Folkard: “Accidental death”, aged 11

Just four years later, another youngster from four doors down the road was killed in a railway accident.

In early May, Herbert Wilson Folkard, aged 11 from 48 Claremont Road was on his way home with his friend and near-neighbour Edward Frank Larter, after playing cricket in Victoria Park, when the accident happened. Herbert’s brother, Ernest William, a draper, was a witness at the inquest.

48 Claremont Road, today

The Folkard boys were brothers of Ellen Elizabeth Folkard, of the same address, who for some years was principal of the Claremont Ladies Academy (see here).

Herbert’s friend, Edward, lived at number 49, son of Rous Larter, a schoolmaster, with his four siblings and two domestic servants.

At noon they were on the platform of Stratford station waiting for a train to Forest Gate. A train from Fenchurch Street rolled in and was about to depart when Folkard started to close some still-open carriage doors. As he did this, the train moved on, he slipped and fell between the train and the platform.

Essex Times, 9 May 1885

Although the train braked sharply, it was too late: one wheel had passed over his body and a second was resting upon it. “It was found the boy was quite dead”.

The jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

The Leytonstone Express and Independent also covered the story and accompanied it with a less than sympathetic editorial:

“There are few more common sights on the railway platform than the schoolboy who constitutes himself an amateur porter, and delegates the slamming of the door with even greater vigour than does his prototype, the bona fide one, to the annoyance of the public and at their own eminent peril.”

There was little sympathy for Folkard in their conclusion, but an urge for attention by the railway companies:

“This sad occurrence should surely teach the boys the folly of indulging in their dangerous practice, and should make the officials more energetic in putting a stop to it.”

Sources: Essex Times, 8 May and Leytonstone Express and Independent, 9 May.Find My Past

1889 Vincent Martin Young: “Death from accidental suffocation”, aged 8

In late August 1889, an inquest was held at the Rising Sun pub (still standing) into the death of eight-year-old Vincent Martin Young of 103 Claremont Road. He was the son of a mercantile clerk.

103 Claremont Road, today

Vincent had been playing with three friends on a Saturday earlier in the month in a “ballast hole” (a pit filled with water) on Romford Road. They were jumping into the hole.

It started raining and ten minutes later the friends heard the sand in the part of the hole Vincent was in begin to slide. They looked for him, couldn’t see him, but didn’t tell anyone of the event and left the scene.

Alfred Birnscomb, a clerk from Hampton Road, went to the Young household about eight o’clock that night and heard that Vincent had not been home since noon. He made enquiries, and finding that there had been a slip of earth at the ballast hole, went to the police station (round the corner) and—with some friends—borrowed spades.

Barking, East Ham and Ilford Advertiser 31 August 1889

 

A search was made, and after about an hour and a half, Vincent’s body was found. “He was quite dead”. There were about 18 inches of sand upon him. The jury returned a verdict of “Death by accidental suffocation”.

At the conclusion of the inquest, the Rev Cowan, father of one of Vincent’s friends, said that “Mr Corbet was the owner of the property: four deaths had occurred at that place, and he thought it was too bad that with Mr Corbet’s immense wealth, the property was not fenced in. Boys would naturally go to such a place, when nobody was there, to play.”

Archibald Cameron Corbett - developer of Woodgrange estate

A rider was added to the verdict requesting “the coroner to write to the property owner and ask him to fence around a certain portion of the property on the north side. “

It seems shocking that the hole had been unattended, despite it having caused three previous deaths. Such negligence would today result in a charge of manslaughter.

Despite the slight misspelling of his name, it seems highly probable that the person who owned “the ballast hole” was, in fact, Archibald Cameron Corbett, the developer of the Woodgrange estate. He could certainly have fitted the description of being of “immense wealth”. The hole probably existed due to construction work on the Romford Road part of the estate.

Sources: Essex News 31 Aug, Barking, East Ham Independent 31 Aug

 

1900 Frederick Ambrose Ball: “Accidental death”, aged 9

Nine-year-old Frederick Ambrose Ball, lived with his auctioneer father George, mother Louise and seven siblings at 44 Claremont Road in 1900. He was described as: “always of a cheerful disposition, but was perpetually in mischief”.

44 Claremont Road, today

On a Saturday morning, at the end of July he was “told to go up in the bathroom and wash his face”.

According to the West Ham and South Essex Mail (4 August):

"Nothing being heard from him for some time, his sister forced the door of the bathroom which had the catch up and was horrified to find her brother hanging from the side of the bath with a towel wound several times round his neck. Medical aid was at once summoned, but life was found to be extinct."

Dr Cannon, of 94 Woodgrange Road told the inquest that:

"He was called to see the deceased at about a quarter to one. And found him quite dead. … He was under the impression that the boy was playing with the towel and slipped. He must have become insensible and unable to help himself."

The jury reached a verdict of “accidental death”.

A few things emerging from the incident seem strange to the modern reader. Firstly, the police do not seem to have been called to a highly unusual, and seemingly implausible incident (the police station was just around the corner). Second, the only non-family member to be a witness was a doctor.

Eastern Counties Times, 4 Aug 1900

Third, perhaps the relationship between the boy and the family member who found him.

The boy Frederick was born in 1891, after the census in April, when the family lived in Ramsay Road, Wanstead. His “mother”, Louise Lee Ball would have been 38 at the time. His “sister” Louise Jane would have been 14/15.

By the 1901 census, Frederick had died, and the family had moved to Claremont Road. Seven siblings lived in the house; six of them were assigned occupations in the census, but Louise Jane, Frederick’s designated sister and the oldest, was not.

Could Louise Jane Ball have given birth to Frederick at age 14/15 and led the child and society to believe that his “mother” was, in fact, his grandmother, the 38-year-old Louise Lee Ball?

Louise Jane married Charles Arthur Thomson, a dock clerk, in 1908 and was living in Ilford by the 1911 census. Her parents and three siblings were still living at 44 Claremont Road.

Sources: Essex Newsman 4 August 1900, Eastern Counties’ Times 4 August 1900 and West Ham and South Essex Mail 4 August 1900. Find My Past

Edwardian postcards of the Woodgrange estate

The Edwardian era (1901 - 1910) witnessed a boom in the use of picture postcards as 'social media', in the days before the introduction of domestic telephones.

There would have been four or five postal deliveries a day, and people could conduct a correspondence about travel and meeting up arrangements, when visiting each other, for example, with the greatest of ease, over a few hours.

Among the most popular of the postcards were photos of prominent local streets, churches and parks. So, West Ham Park and Wanstead Flats are well represented, as are almost all local churches of the time. There are literally dozens of different surviving views of Woodgrange Road and small numbers of some local streets - usually the more prosperous (Earlham Grove, Capel Road, Chestnut Road being good examples).

People used the postcards, employing the relatively recently developed use of mass reproduced photography, as a combination of a calling card and an illustration of their locality, or residence.

The streets of the Woodgrange estate are all well represented, and this article features a number of the postcards, which collectively inform our understanding of the development of the estate, as well as present a nostalgic glance back to a car-less era of wide, uncluttered roads.

Many of the postcards of the era survive, and there is a busy, and increasingly expensive, market for them on E.Bay. There are at least two local collectors of Forest Gate life, Tony Morrison, a friend of this site, and another equally valued contact, who wishes to remain anonymous.  We are grateful to both for sharing relevant sections of their collection with us, so that we can display them in this article.

One rather splendid set survives of all four of the main roads on the estate. The photos are all hand-tinted and indented on high quality photographic paper/card, to give the appearance of a framed photograph. We reproduce the four- as a set - in minature, including their frames, here. We produce larger versions, without frames, so that the details can be examined more closely, in the separate road sections, below.

Top: Windsor and Osborne, Bottom: Hampton and Claremont

We are covering the main roads on the estate from south to north. In very broad terms, that was sequence of grander to less grand houses in the estate, according to the surviving 1878 sales leaflet for the houses - see below. 

As the leaflet shows, the earliest houses on Windsor had the widest frontages (47 feet) and were most expensive (£590). Then came those on Claremont (44 feet, £530), followed by Osborne and Hampton (both 39 feet and £490).

It is those largest and most expensive houses on Windsor and Claremont that were bombed during WW2 and replaced by the 1950's estate.

Below is a rare postcard of one of the largest of the original houses on the estate. It is of 4 Windsor - with its 47 feet frontage. It is unusual in a number of regards. Firstly, as the sign on the far left indicates, it doubled up as a house and a Music and Dance Academy. Kelly's Directory of 1902 shows that it was occupied by "Madame Marian Finer, Professor of Music" and Thomas Owen Finer.

The 1911 census shows the same couple, with a 25-year old daughter, Edith. It also suggests that Marion married Owen when she was just 16, and he 40, for in 1911 they were 45 and 70 respectively.

The house has a conservatory at the front. We have seen no evidence, photographically, or in writing of any other house on the estate having such a feature.  Many houses on the estate had verandahs - some of which survive - but none other, as far as we are aware, a fully enclosed glass frontage of the kind shown below.

The photo suggests that the house was quadruple fronted, with an arch under the left hand extension leading either to the garden or perhaps to a coach house, at the rear. 

4 Windsor Road, in 1908. 
Destroyed by WW2 bomb.

The sales leaflet, above, mentions the estate office.  The manager was Mr Donald. This was located at 2 Hampton Road, and can be seen protruding from the fabric of the house in the postcard below.

The estate office was important, for many years after the houses on the estate were constructed and sold.  Most were sold on a leasehold basis - for 99 years, in the 1880's. Others, as the leaflet suggests, were rented;. Those sold had a significant ground rent to pay each year. 

Corbett, the estate's developer, was fastidious about maintaining high standards on the Woodgrange estate. The original sales contract for the houses, for example, insisted that the purchaser kept the house in good repair, "and particularly will paint the external wood and ironwork in every Fourth year of the said term and the inside wood and ironwork in every Seventh year of the said term." 

Corbett reserved the right to inspect all houses that he had "sold" twice a year, to ensure that this was adhered to, and required any concerns to be addressed within three months.

Anticipating the Conservation Area requirements, imposed a century after the construction of the estate, the house deeds stated: 

The Lessee ... will not make any alterations in the plan or elevation or in the architectural decorations of the said dwelling-house or any additions thereto or erect of build any new or additional building on any part of the said premises without the previous licensee in writing of the Lessor.

The upshot of the conditions imposed on the initial purchasers of houses on the estate was that conformity of high standards was enforced - through the estate office.  So, in many of the photos below, it will be clearly seen that the trees in gardens were  pollarded and pruned together - to ensure a consistency and uniformity of appearance.

Corbett began to sell the freehold of houses in the estate twenty five years after they were first erected - possibly to finance some of his ambitious housing schemes in south east London (see here, for details). It was only at that point that the owners were able to "individualise" their houses and make significant changes to their interiors, or exteriors.

The postcards reproduced below, therefore, probably display the houses on the estate at their most uniform and mature - reflecting the kind of vision Corbett and his heirs had for the estate - neat, tidy, well-ordered and maintained to a consistently high standard.

The estate office, protruding from 2 Hampton
 Road, above, in the postcard.
Below, the same building, boarded up, today

Almost all of the postcards reproduced below are of the Edwardian era - as testified by the stamps and frank marks on the correspondence side of the card. Some are later, though difficult to date, if they have not been posted.

It is noticeable that all gardens hosted three or four trees, which were maintained by the freeholder. There were no trees on the pavements at this time - which taken together with the lack of traffic on the raods give the impression of wide, distinctive boulevards.

The approach in this article is to display general views of each street, as chronologically as possible, followed by rather more specific (sometimes single house) postcards.  With these later cards we have, wherever possible, tried to produce a "now" version of the view today. In some cases the destruction of some of the original features of the houses makes for uncomfortable viewing.

Windsor Road

Tinted postcard of Windsor c 1908, from the series, 
mentioned above. Note consistent pollarding 
of the trees, suggesting considerable 
on-going involvement of the leaseholder
 (Corbett) in the appearance of the estate. 

Undated postcard of the entrance to
Windsor Road, from Woodgrange Road

Second house on right hand side is number 4
(see above) - a slight impression of the
conservatory at the front, which does not
seem to be present  on any other house

Above and below: noticeable that one front
wall stands out from all the others in being of 
a paler brick. Given the attention to symetery
 and detail elsewhere in the houses, perhaps this
was the first to exercise the "right to buy" the
freehold, and so express individuality - like 
"right to buy"  council properties in the 1980's?

Above: undated postcard of roundabout on
 Windsor  and Richmond Roads. Below: the 
location today. The railings around the 
roundabout were doubtless taken down 
and used to help the war effort in WW2.

West end of Windsor Road, post WW2 bombing,
 prior to construction of modern estate of flats

Above: unusual postcard of the east end of
Windsor Road, at its junction with
Hampton. Judging by the height of trees, 
likely to be Edwardian.
Below: the view, today.

Above: Edwardian postcard of 54 Windsor Road.
Below: a treeless and hedgeless 54 Windsor Road,
 today, complete with a first floor extension to the annexe

Claremont Road

The Claremont card from the 1908 had-tinted set.
 To the left is the Woodgrange Methodist church,
 bombed during WW2. The white stone capped
 pillars on the right were an entrance to the church.
 The buildings on the far right were the side and
 back of Woodgrange Road shops, also bombed
 during WW2, and replaced by the surviving
 1950's estate.

On the corner of Woodgrange, with the 
pre-bombed  Methodist church on the left.
 The composition  is very similar to the second
 postcard of Windsor Road, above -
-suggesting they were possibly part of a set

Above, uniformly post pollarded trees, in the
 winter. Below trees in full leaf, in the summer.
As with all these postcards it is noticeable
not at just how little traffic there is on the road,
but how few pedestrians there are, too.
Almost all of them seem to be children
 or young people.

 

Judging by the maturity of the trees, a slightly
later postcard.  The white capped posts on
the bottom left mark the entrance to the Methodist
church - see above, for further evidence.

Above: Edwardian 30 Claremont Road. Below:
 the house today. "Modernised" before the estate 
became a Conservation Area. The trees and 
hedges have gone. "Modernisation" has resulted 
in newer, out of character, windows, a porch 
and pebbledashing.

 

Osborne Road

Fewer postcards seem to have survived of Osborne Road. The first two, below, have been taken from very similar positions. The red-tinted building on the far left is the side of what is now the Woodgrange Medical Practice, on Woodgrange Road. Immediately behind it is the end of a row of what were coach houses, or mews and are now an unsightly alley of garages.

The white-capped pillars and taller iron fences on the left hand side are where Kay Rowe Nursery is today, and mirror those of the Methodist church entrance in Claremont Road, above. 

One more in the 1908 hand-tinted series of
local postcards - see Windsor and Claremont,
above, for others in the set.

Slightly later postcard,
shot from a similar location

An even later postcard, with taller,
but still uniformly well-pollarded trees

 Hampton Road

The Hampton postcard from the 1908 hand-tinted
 set. Lower roofed buildings on near left and
right would have been coach houses. First house
on right was the estate office - see text above.

A later shot, from a similar angle, but this
time with more mature trees and - for the
first time, telegraph poles.

The mews, coach houses, at the side
of number 2, today, in a run down state

A later shot, with more mature trees,
and the suggestion of a verandah on the
first house on the left.

 

A more unusual shot - looking west, towards
 Woodgrange Road. The shop at the far end is
 the studio of William E Wright, the photographer
 featured on this website.

Above: 85 Hampton - then, and below, now.
  The house is today obscured by over-grown trees
 - hence the partial view.

Above - 88 Hampton, then. Below - now: garden
 fence, trees and hedge removed, with a first
floor annexe built and part of garden turned into
hard standing for a car. In a sign of changing
times, chimney stacks replaced by satellite dish.