Whilst other philanthropic housing companies such as
the Peabody Trust and the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company focused on
multi-storey, inner-city blocks of flats, the Artizans, Labourers & GeneralDwellings Company aimed at building low-rise housing in open countryside
alongside existing railway lines. The company was dedicated to providing decent
accommodation for the working classes at a time when overcrowding and squalid
living conditions were rife amongst the poor. A location near a railway station
would allow workers to live in the countryside and commute into the city.
The Noel Park Estate was designed to provide
affordable housing for working-class families wishing to leave the inner city.
As a break from the norm every property had a front and rear garden. It was
planned from the outset as a self-contained community close enough to the rail
network to allow its residents to commute to work. In line with the principles
of the Artizans Company's founder, William Austin, no public houses were built
within the estate, and there are still none today. Noel Park is known as one of
the earliest garden suburbs in the world, although it predates the Ebenezer
Howard Book Garden Cities of tomorrow. As
such it is a predecessor of the Garden City Movement and one of the founts of
inspirations for it.
In 1882 the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings
Company acquires Ducketts Farm near Wood Green. This 40 hectare estate belonged
to Dovecote Manor (later styled Duckett Manor) and stretched from the Moselle
River southwards to Ducketts Common and Turnpike Lane. This project, the third
for this dwellings company, was named after its president Ernest Noel, also
liberal MP for Dumfries in Scotland. Building work started in 1883 and lasted
until 1902. The layout is again a grid of long parallel streets running most of
the length of the site. All the streets are named for board members of the Artizans,
Labourers & General Dwellings Company. The same is true of the small park
southeast of the estate known as Russell Park. This park is sometimes
mistakenly referred to as Noel Park.
This late-19th-century planned community consists of
some 2.200 model dwellings, all designed by Rowland Plumbe in the Gothic
Revival Style. Plumbe designed the estate with five classes of houses. Although the houses were built to the same five basic
designs, each street was given a distinct style of design and ornamentation.
Varying mixes of red and yellow bricks, and variations in window design and
ornamental motifs were used to give each street a distinct identity. Corner
houses were given distinctive designs and turrets. The housing
provided included semidetached houses, terraced family houses and small "one
up-one down" apartments.
The original concept was to combine new housing for a
mix of social classes with social facilities such as meeting rooms, school
rooms, a wash house and baths, and to provide integral open space. To avoid the
social problems caused by cheap alcohol a pub wasn't included. Near Wood Green
two churches, a Community Hall and a primary school were built. The dwellings
in the highest class are located here. On the High Road the company built
several shops.
This model dwellings estate shows a typical Victorian
grid layout. The northern edge is formed by the partially culverted Moselle
River (M). On the opposite side Russell
Park (RP) is located. The focal point is located on one side of the estate near
the former village of Wood Green and the High Street with two churches (C), a Community
Hall (H) and a primary school (S). Between the highest class housing around the
churches and the former railway sidings (RS) a number of railway cottages (R)
were developed as part of the estate. The non-original building substance is
shown crosshatched, most constitute WW2 bombsites (B).
After 1888 when the train company refused to carry
cheaper fares for workers, the development of the estate halted. There were at
the time already 7.000 people living here though. After 1900 the southern
section of the estate was completed. By 1935 the whole estate was surrounded by
other developments, mainly suburban housing estates. This was the result of the
extension of the underground railway to Wood Green in 1932. In 1965 the area
within the Municipal Borough of Wood Green in Middlesex was incorporated into
the newly created Greater London Borough of Haringey.
In 1982 most of the estate was given Conservation Area
Status as an example of philanthropic model housing of the Victorian Era.
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