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.

 

Archibald Cameron Corbett - the man and his houses -synopsis of film

We have written extensively before about Forest Gate's Woodgrange estate and the builder behind it, Archibald Cameron Corbett (see here, here and here). Corbett was one of the most prolific house builders in late Victorian/Edwardian Britain and the Woodgrange estate was simply the first of seven large estates he was responsible for.

The young Corbett

Residents in one of his other estates, in Catford, last year secured Heritage Lottery funding to make an hour long documentary about the man and his houses - and fascinating it is, too.  An early screening recently took place at the Gate library. An audience of around 80 enjoyed the viewing, which was rounded off with a Q&A with filmmaker, Ben Honeybone.

The film is now available for viewing on You Tube, and a link to it can be found in the footnotes, below. This article is a synopsis of it and is illustrated by screen grabs from it. The film was well researched and made by Ben, a professional BBC film producer, with Lucy Mangan, a Guardian journalist, as its narrator.

At the end of the 19th century, Corbett was the biggest house builder in suburban London and he made a fortune from his ground-breaking, healthy estates he developed.  Born in Scotland, he was, in turn, a property developer, MP and philanthropist, who finally bought large tracts of Scottish land and handed them over for public use and pleasure, long before the days of the National Trust, national parks and other such bodies.

He remains an elusive figure, however. Almost the only contemporary direct reference to him in, or near, any of the seven estates he built, is the water trough at the foot of Forest Gate's iconic clock (see below). He did not seek public recognition, or fame, and it is doubtful whether 1% of the estimated 40,000 residents currently living in his houses today will have heard of him.

His elusiveness just adds to the fascination.

The "empty" Forest Gate,
before Corbett started building

... and the drinking fountain and trough he
left Forest Gate - almost the only feature
with his name on it by any of his seven estates.

He was born in Glasgow on 23 May 1856 to the son of a prosperous trader, Thomas Corbett, and very strict Presbyterian mother, who had no time for frivolity and modern pleasures. He was named after his maternal grandfather, and was christened Archibald Cameron Corbett.

Corbett, getting older ...

He was largely educated at home. In the late 1860's the family moved from Glasgow to Clapham, in London. Aged 14, he went on a European tour that took in Rome and he was much affected by the classical architecture and sculptures that he saw. Some aspects of the Woodgrange estate may well have been influenced by this (see a future post on the estate's design).

In the late 1870's Thomas - Archibald's father - bought 110 acres of market garden in Forest Gate from the Gurney estate (see here), and began constructing a housing development named after the principal house on the land - Woodgrange.

Thomas died three years after the building started and Archibald and his older brother, Tom, took over the mantle.  Tom soon lost interest and sold his share to Archibald.

By 1884 sales on the 700+ house Woodgrange estate were going so well, that Archie bought land further to the east, for another development. The following year became an MP for a constituency in his native Glasgow. He remained in the House of Commons for the next six elections and 25 years, until he was ennobled. Although he switched parties, he pursued the same interests throughout his membership of Parliament.

A cartoon of Corbett campaigning for Parliament -
he was doing a Scottish dance and splashing
out cash to those in attendance - in the days
when political bribery was taken
less seriously than today

He was firmly opposed to Irish Home Rule, probably influenced by his mother's Presbyterianism, which would also have accounted for his championing on Temperance. (the houses on the Woodgrange estate, like most of his others, had restrictive covenants on them prohibiting the sale of alcohol).

Corbett participating in a
Temperance meeting in Forest
Gate, as he was building
the Woodgrange estate

In other respects, however, he could considered to be very socially progressive.  Against his own economic interests, he urged heavier taxation on property developers - for the sake of social equity; he was a fierce supporter of women's suffrage , when it was a minority pursuit, and a champion of shorter working hours for shop workers, proposing stiff regulation to enforce them.

Soon after entering Parliament he met, and later married, Alice Polson, daughter of the wealthy parents behind the famous Brown and Polson cornflower. The couple lived in Knightsbridge, close to Harrods, and had nine servants to look after them and their three subsequent children.

John and Alice Polson, Corbett's in-laws ...

... and the cornflour for which they were famous

and their daughter, Alice -
 the later Mrs Corbett

The Woodgrange estate was completed in 1892 and he switched his attentions to developing the farm and estates he had purchased in Ilford - which at the time was a small county town.

First, in 1893, came the St Clements estate, just south of Ilford railway station and a year later construction began on the Grange estate, just north of the station. In 1897 work commenced on the Downshall estate - a little to the east, and finally to the Mayfield estate - next to Downshall, in 1899.

Ilford's Grange estate, today

These latter two estates were a couple of miles from the nearest railway station.  So, Corbett - applying his formula of a successful estate: cheap land, good houses, appeal to aspiring middle class -  set about ensuring the last bit of his jigsaw puzzle: securing  handy overland trains station to the City.

This mix worked in Forest Gate: the Forest Gate station was his initial bait.  By the time the Woodgrange estate had been completed, the old Little Ilford and Manor Park station had been enlarged, and renamed Manor Park (see here), complete with cheap "workmen's" fares to London, and Woodgrange Park and Wanstead Park stations had been opened on another line (see here), all convenient for the Woodgrange.

... and older ...

He now incentivised the Great Eastern Railway company to open two more stations east of Ilford - Seven Kings and Goodmayes - to accommodate his new estates. The maps below show the locations of the Corbett estates in the Ilford area before and after railway extensions.

The original Ilford station, that was
part of the local appeal for Corbett

The spread of Corbett's Ilford estates,
 in relation to the sole local railway
station, when he started construction

... and Seven King's and Goodmayes
 stations, whose construction he sponsored

Seven King's station ...

Goodmayes Farm, on which
the Mayfield estate was built ...

Floor layouts of houses
on the Mayfield estate

... and an advert for houses built
on the farm - the Mayfield estate

Details of the easy instalments
payments Corbett pioneered

The four Ilford estates were slightly different in character: Clementswood, mostly 3-bed houses, Grange, more double and triple fronted, Downshall , hundreds with two storey bay windows and Venetian blinds (see photos, below) and Mayfield.

Looking at the housing developments in Ilford at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries - and with the Corbett estates marked in red in the map, below - Corbett could, were he not so modest, have a good claim to be the founding father of modern suburban Ilford.

Indeed, the vice-chair of Ilford Town council, in 1902 said: "The impetus to Ilford was given by Mr Corbett". Despite this, there is barely the trace of his name or influence displayed anywhere in the town.

Ilford in 1900, with the Corbett estates
highlighted in red. Clear to see why Corbett
could be considered the father of modern Ilford

Corbett switched his estate building attention south of the river in 1896 and bought the St German's agricultural estate and began constructing the largest of his seven developments - the St German's estate, with 3,200 houses, in the Catford/Hither Green area.

He built solid middle class houses and sold them, leasehold, at cost price, on 99 year leases.  The profit for Corbett in the deal was the 5% leasehold payment he got each year from them.  At a time when 90% of British families lived in rented accommodation, Corbett played a key role in laying the foundations for what was later to become known as a "property owning democracy". He had a strong faith in the power of owner-occupation in establishing healthy communities.

Corbett's legacy was substantial. His houses were well built, to high specifications - the fact that only bomb damage has destroyed any of the 9,000 that he built, over a century later - is testimony to this.

... and older ...

The houses on all his estates were spacious, in low density developments, usually with parklands incorporated into, or nearby, them.

The Catford estate took longer to build than the others - but the same formula was at work - including the construction of improvements to local railway stations - to make the developments more attractive to that newly born breed,  "commuters" - city workers who wanted to live in the leafier, healthier suburbs and travel to work.

Corbett's last great development began at the end of the 19th century. In 1899 he bought 330 acres of farmland in Eltham - quite near his Catford development - for £50,000 and began construction of the Eltham Park development, applying the same formula.  So, the construction of Shooters Hill and Eltham Park railway station followed soon after - in 1908.

Shooters Hill and Eltham Park railway
station, built at Corbett's behest

This estate is more Edwardian-looking in style, hardly surprising since it was built almost totally during the reign of Edward V11.

Promotional brochure, marketing
both the Ilford Mayfield estate
and the Eltham Park one

In his personal life, Corbett bought a 6,500 acre estate, Rowallan, in Scotland for his family in 1901, but his wife died soon after, aged only 34. Archibald Cameron Corbett began to withdraw a little from housing construction, but as is often the case, put some of his time and much of his money into philanthropic endeavours.

Rowallan - the Ayrshire estate that
Corbett bought for the family

So, he bought 143 acres of land in Glasgow and turned it into Rouken Glen Park - which survives and in 2016 was awarded the accolade of "The UK's best Park". He later bought 15,000 acres of the Scottish highlands, Lochgoilhead,  and endowed it as a "gift to the nation", before such gestures were common.

It is now called Ardgoil and has been incorporated into the Trossachs and Loch Lomond National Park.

Glaswegians enjoying Corbett's "gift"
to the nation, which was, naturally, alcohol-free

Film narrator, Lucy Mangan, commenting
from Ardgoil - Corbett's legacy to
the Scottish people

Corbett was awarded a peerage in 1911, as part of George V's coronation celebration, and became Lord Rowallan of Rowallan. He began to withdraw even more from public life.  In 1915 he gave up his London mansion, to be a hostel for Belgian refugee families and retired to a Brown's hotel, in Mayfair - where he was to spend the remainder of his life.

... and old

He died on 19 March 1933.

The Corbett memorial, built
on his family estate in Scotland

Corbett's housing legacy was not as a pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap house builder.  He saw good housing as a keystone to a better society. Although less dramatic, his estates are as socially innovative within the housing movement as the rather better promoted  "model villages" of entrepreneurs, such as Lever , Cadbury and Titus Salt, and the grander garden suburbs such as Hampstead - on that they were build with the residents in mind, and not just the bank balance.

And the Woodgrange estate - the only one with Conservation Area status - proved to be the foundation of his impressive building legacy.

Footnotes

 1: Archibald Cameron Corbett, the Man and his houses can be viewed, free of charge on You Tube, here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_GdkNvDjKs&t=3040s The film lasts one hour.

2. We will follow this article with three others on the Woodgrange estate.  The first will look at some of the important external architectural features in this conservation area. The second will examine some of the interior features that remain in some of the high spec buildings that survive on the estate.  The third will look at the Woodgrange through the medium of two rare collections of mainly Edwardian postcards of the area. Watch this space!