Beginnings and Foundations
The Beginnings of Harold Hill
Harold Hill was not, unlike Harlow and Basildon, a New Town under the supervision of a Development Corporation, it was built as an ‘out-county’ estate under the control of the London County Council.
It was, though, part of the same housing programme, and they remain interchangeable facets of the same expansion.
Disgust and Snobbishness Towards Harold Hill
A new ‘out-county’ housing estate on the doorsteps of Romford, later to be given its official name of Harold Hill, was announced on September 19, 1945. Here are several articles taken from the Romford Times from 1945 to 1947. Listed in chronological order they present a means of gauging how the process of announcing the new estate and the early building was covered in the local area.
* [ 'L.C.C
Reports on Mammoth Romford Estate’ – Romford Times, October
10, 1945]
* [‘New Housing Estate “Not
Second Dagenham”’ – Romford Times, October 17, 1945]
* [‘The New Despotism Marches
On’ – Romford Times editorial, January 15, 1947]
* [‘Dagnam Park Being Planned
As New Style Suburb – LCC Pass Big Romford Scheme.’ “Mixed
Social Community” – Romford Times, May 7, 1947]
* [‘First’ of L.C.C. Estate
Settlers – Meet the Newmans of Magnolia Close' – Romford Times,
July 16, 1947]
Although the regional newspapers reports were detailed in this era, they certainly didn’t reflect the horror that was felt in the local area.
There was a rumour that preferential places were going to be given to recently released criminals, while the de-facto leader of the Conservative Party, Hilbery Chaplin, stood up in the Council chamber and accused the L.C.C. of ‘importing Reds into Romford.’
Much though was based upon ignorance. It was widely viewed in middle-class lore at the time that if the working-classes were given their own bathroom they would only use it for storing coal; while in the 1930s economic depression the great mass of East End unemployed was disparagingly referred to as ‘the great unwashed’.
This ignorance was the result of a sharp separation of classes, a migration of the wealthier elements from the pollution and sheer unpleasantness of urban life had commenced in the nineteenth century and reached its zenith in the 1930s suburban expansion.
By the end of the Second World War class was still as rigid as before the conflict. For all the talk of a ‘people's war’ and a dissolution of class barriers, it mattered little when hostilities were over. It was, after all, those living in London, and in particular the East End and south London dock area (Luftwaffter Target Area A) that had suffered the worst casualties and damage, with only occasional accidental bombing forays into the suburbs.
In the eyes of local people the cost of war did not count in the post-war re-planning of London.
In effect the original inhabitants of Harold Hill –described as both ‘settlers’ and ‘pioneers’ – were refugees from a war zone. They were a sickly population with a high incidence of TB, who had fought on the frontline both abroad and in London, who undoubtedly suffered great hardship in the 1930s, and who were escaping the wretched housing situation in the capital. They were not wanted in Romford - although those in the surrounding areas that found themselves working in Harold Hill, through, for example, the churches or politics, would be pleasantly surprised at the character of those they found living on the estate.
This mixture of disgust and snobbishness is still a feature of contemporary society.
Migration, for all who came to Harold Hill, was a profound experience as is evident in the testimony of residents. Most had left hardship alien to todays residents. It is worth reading the memories of, firstly, my own mother, [Doreen Walpole], as well as [Massie Lambert].
The Prefabs
The first stage of building was the prefabricated houses (prefabs) that were churned out in their thousands as war production was channelled into more social uses. These houses were put together as whole sections, transferred from the factory on the backs of transport lorries, and then bolted together when they reached their destination.
Universally liked by their new occupants, they were only intended as a stopgap for better housing in the future, which in Harold Hill meant their replacement in the Sixties onwards with more conventional housing on the Briar Road estate. The features of the prefabs which appealed being a kitchen area, bathroom and most impressively, their own refrigerator. But, importantly, they were detached, a characteristic which many only came to appreciate when they moved into the terraced housing that replaced them. Altogether there were 605 prefabs erected.
By 1948 though the houses themselves – some three-bedroomed and some semi-detached – were being built. The building specifications such as the floor space and ceiling height were so generous that they remain unparalleled in the history of social housing in Britain. The newly elected Tory government of 1951 would, under the push for greater quantity, reduce this standard several times during their rule.
The first redbrick occupants moved into their new home at the end of 1948.
[‘The First Family’ – Romford Times, December 1, 1948]
Aneurin Bevan
A year later, at the end of 1949, the Labour Minister of Health paid a visit to Harold Hill.
Aneurin Bevan [see picture], just as much as Margaret Thatcher in later decades, was a central figure in the history of Harold Hill. It was the driving passion of this practical, peoples-first Marxist that really drove through the immediate post-war house-building programme.
Recreation, Education, Disillusionment and Joy]
