Brentham Garden Suburb, Ealing: early implementation of Unwinesque principles

This development in Ealing is one of the first suburban housing estates that combines cooperative financing with the typical Unwinesque design aesthetic that came to typify projects inspired by the Garden City Movement. Brentham Garden Suburb was featured in the seminal book Townplanning in Practice that introduced German planning methodology and artistic urban design in the Anglo-Saxon world.  

The first building phase comprised of some 5 streets with long rows of identical Victorian terraced houses in red brick with repeated details. This is how the garden suburb started life: as a standard development on cooperative principles.

Everything would change with the decision to contract the expansion of the suburb out to Parker and Unwin. With their Arts and Crafts inspired architecture this firm moved the development out of the Victorian Era into the 20th century. The layout of the streets and the placement of the rows of terraced houses are still an extension of Victorian practices.

This changes when Unwin comes into contact with German urban planning (a new occupation at that time). Muthesius was probably helpful in this!  Now we see the appearance of urban planning on artistic principles with shorter blocks and special attention paid to the corners, junctions and the building line along streets. Here a typically Unwinesque angled corner where Woodfield Crescent and Winscombe Crescent meet.

Another feature of Unwinesque and informal planning is the use of so-called closes, cul-de-sacs with houses around it as an ensemble. Here the close-like corner of Fowler's Walk. This housing from the last building phase (1912-15) is rather simple in character with little ornamental use of structural details or varying materials.

Fowler's Walk was built on the last section added to the garden suburb, that was never completed as planned. This downhill street is rather uninspired with few Uwinesque principles used by the project architect.

Brentham Way is a long straight street, which is against the doctrine of informal planning. The gardens with the prescribed privet hedges and the trees lining the street create an altogether different feel than in the Victorian streets. Also the varying building line with set-back sections create visual interest and subdivide the streets along its length.

Again an angled block on a corner. This winged angled block with several dwellings emphasises the junction of Brunner Road, Neville Road and Brunswick Road. Such blocks are always a clear indication of a development inspired by the Garden City Movement and designed on Unwinesque principles.  

More angled blocks on corners on Rusking Gardens. A combination of short terraces and semidetached dwellings is what Unwin advocated as perfectly suited for a garden suburb. The result is informal and visually pleasing; yet the layout is almost formal when looking at the plan.

Ludlow Road has a slight curve and the building line the street in long terraces with protruding sections at the ends (another Unwinesque device). The small gardens and hedges create a pleasant semi-rural feel. This housing is very much Arts and Crafts inspired.

More of the same type of architecture lines the straight street along the northern edge of the garden suburb of Brentham. Behind these houses the playing field are still located as originally planned. The brick building with the tower isn't a church, but Brentham Club.

Holyoake Way is again a curved residential street lined with trees. When this suburban housing estate was first designed cars were not so abundant and the intended rural feel of pleasant greens streets is somewhat lost with all the metal in file.

This 1912 complex was built specifically as a residential block with apartments for single people. This was quite forward thinking at the time, as living as part of a family unit was the norm back then. The architecture is in contrast inspired by ages of old and almost castle -like.

North View is the name of this curved street. So there is actually no clear line of sight but at the end of this street a narrow footpath takes you to the river Brent. Again cars dominate, whilst the abundance of greenery -from trees and gardens- make up for this slightly.  

Brentham Garden Suburb, Ealing: the first cooperative garden suburb in England

Ealing Tenants Limited was founded in 1901 to build houses that members would own collectively and rent themselves. The model is very similar to the nineteenth-century German Baugenossenschaft. Collective ownership and shared responsibility was also one of the cornerstones of Ebenezer Howards idea(l)s laid down in his seminal book Garden Cities of To-morrow. In contrast to earlier garden suburbs (Merton Park and Bedford Park) that were more akin to philanthropic model housing, Brentham Garden Suburb wasn't built for profit of the landowner.

The tenants cooperative acquired land near the Pitshanger Estate north of Ealing. The suburb was started on fields near Pitzhanger Manor about a mile north of Pitzhanger House (that still stands at the entrance to Walpole Park off Ealing Green). On 20 April work began on the first nine houses. In total three streets lined with long rows of terraced housing were built. This first building phase was completed between 1901 and 1905.

In 1905 more land was bought by Ealing Tenants Ltd. from the Fowlers Hill Estate. In 1907 some adjoining field were bought from the Pitshanger Estate.  With this expansion it was felt necessary to pay greater attention to the design of the houses and to the overall street plan. The first streets were similar to those of a commercial housing development and even lacked the attention to detail so characteristic of dwellings company housing. With this in mind, Raymond Unwin and his partner, Barry Parker, were asked to design the layout of roads for the creation of the expanded estate at Brentham. This introduced a different Arts and Crafts inspired aesthetic and also meant a shift towards a more picturesque arrangement and the introduction short terraces, linked terraces, and semidetached cottages. Unwin also makes repeated mention of the Ealing Tenants Project in his book, that became the cornerstone of specific garden city design. Unwin and Parker drew the urban plan, the housing was designed by architects George Lister Sutcliffe and Frederic Cavendish Pearson.  

The garden suburb was consciously designed with a semi-rural picturesque effect in mind. There are three clear subsections within this housing development that are indicative of changing ideas in urban development and design. The first building phase (1901-05) is standard Victorian group of streets with terraced housing. The second phase (1905-06) was planned by Unwin and Parker, but lacks the typical Unwinesque characteristics as the design was made before Raymond Unwin came into contact with German urban planning on artistic principles. The third building phase (1907-15) reflects Unwinesque principles and was also featured as an exemplary project in his 1909 book Townplanning in Practice. Playing fields and allotments are a reoccurred feature of housing on Garden City principles; in Brentham 10% of the site was set aside for such functional green spaces.

Brentham Garden Suburb isn't a full garden city development according to the models presented by Ebenezer Howard. The main focus of the development is on mixed housing in a semi-rural setting with few amenities included. The housing wraps around the existing church (1). Further north the Brentham Club (2) is situated on a small green (3). The river Brent (4) is the northern edge of the development. The focus is on family housing with a single block of apartments for single people (5) included in the last development phase. Originally the garden suburb was designed as a unit that only connected to pre-existing roads. A corner (6) wasn't built as a result of WW1 In the 1930s a new street for a neighbouring estate was made here.

During the period Brentham Garden Suburb was being built, co-partnership housing -often modelled on the Rochdale Principles- became a national movement. The Co-partnership Tenants Housing Council was set up in 1905 to advise numerous societies. A federation of tenants' societies had been established, known as Co-partnership Tenants Ltd, under the chairmanship of Henry Vivian the chair of Ealing Tenants Ltd. As a result many of the later co-partnership schemes closely followed the ideas of Ealing Tenants. At Letchworth Garden City, Garden City Tenants Ltd had close associations with Ealing Tenants Ltd. At Hampstead Garden Suburb Vivian organised a tenants' society on the same lines as Ealing Tenants. The movement also spread overseas to many countries, including Canada and Russia. Examples from the Low Countries are, however, modelled on the German Housing Coops.

Brentham is not only important as an early example of cooperative housing, but is also shows the development of Unwinesque design. The first section is Victorian in character (V). The second section (s1) shows garden suburb design by Parker and Unwin without knowledge of Sitte-esque artistic principles. Whilst working on this development Unwin became aware of German urban planning and Brentham is for the most part a showcase of Unwinesque design principles and thus a true garden suburb (gs). In the north the playing fields (pf) were located on lower ground near the river. Allotments were located behind the private gardens.

Brentham Garden Suburb wasn't returned to collective ownership of the tenants as originally intended. The main reason for this was the unravelling of the cooperative movement. Also, the development was never completed as WW1 terminated building activity. Most of the proposed development had been built by that time however. In the late 1930s the estate was privatised. In 1969 Brentham Garden Suburb was declared a conservation area and given protected listed status. A dedicated residents group was set up to guard the future conservation of this important housing project.

Iris: a rainbow of blues

There are many species of Iris, some are bulbous others have rhizomes. All have colourful flowers in every colour imaginable, ranging from white to almost black, from pink to red to purple to lilac to blue, but also yellows and oranges. It is therefore very fitting that this genus of plants was named after the personification of the rainbow,  Iris, messenger of the gods. There are some 300 wild species within the genus Iris, and many, many hybrids have been recorded as these plants are universally seen as beautiful and symbolic.

Iris siberica, grows throughout eastern and central Europe into Asia, so not merely in Siberia as the name suggests. These plants are grown in temperate regions as ornamentals. In the wild the colour can vary from violet via dark blue to a pale almost white icy blue. They grow best on slightly moist meadows.

The bearded irises are a section of iris with -as the name suggests- a tufted hairy section on each fall. These examples are all hybrids known as Iris x germanica. This German iris is not a true wild species but a long cultivated descendent of several wild species. The large blooms come in every colour, but I prefer the blues. These plants like dry stony soil and lots of sunlight.

The variety in Iris is immense. On the left the lovely Iris laevigata 'Variegata'. This Water iris comes from Japan and will even grow in shallow water. The pale blue flowers of Iris x hollandica, commonly known as Dutch iris, are again beardless. These hybrids arose from crossing Iris xiphium (Spanish iris) with Iris tingitana (Tangiers iris). These plant require free draining growing conditions. Iris graminea grows from rhizomes and has violet blue flowers amongst the grasslike leaves. It is native north of the Mediterranean Sea  into the Caucasus.

Bedford Park, London: an exemplary garden suburb

Often called the first garden suburb, Bedford Park served as an exemplary development for the many garden villages and garden suburbs that would follow after 1900.

The housing estate of Bedford Park was named after an estate of the same name that lay adjacent to Acton Green Common just north of Chiswick. The common is now a large expanse of grass bordered by trees that hide the elevated railway that runs alongside on a bank. It is used as a public park by residents. The whole housing estate was designed with streets focusing on the green.

On the edge of the green some amenities were included in the housing plans. There is a row of shops along what was once the edge of the gardens of Bedford Park House (left) and another near the station. These houses all feature Tudor revival architecture. Along the green several large villas were built, as there was an intentional mix of building types.

Some houses were designed to emulate mansions, they are in fact linked family houses.The outline of the roofs with the large chimney stacks recall grand buildings. This was seen as especially fitting in this suburban setting. Before the car the impression would have been rather convincingly rural.

The estate was designed as a whole. So great attention was paid to unifying details like the fences and gates that separated street and garden space. Several types of fence were designed, but all share the overall characteristic of a brick plinth with a white wooden fence on top. Posts can be in wood or in brick. Some of the gates have an ornamental arch in metal. As part of the conservation area status these fences are being restored throughout the estate.

An example of some blocks in what is known as Queen Anne Revival, a nineteenth century reiteration and reworking of the original architecture from the Queen Anne period. The reign of Queen Anne coincided with the baroque era although the architecture was more subdued than for instance contemporary French examples. There is a connection with Dutch Classicism. This is clear in these Queen Anne Revival blocks with shapely gable ends that resemble Dutch Gables. Also note the eclectic combination with the large chimney stacks and the white fence.

The architect Shaw, who was responsible for most of the housing on this estate, is known for popularising Queen Anne Revival, but is actually an eclectic architect who mixed various styles simply for overall effect. This is clear in these houses with bicoloured faced in a combination of white render and red brick, with protruding upper halves.

Some of the architecture was lees ornate and less aimed at creating visual effect. These houses have brick facades with a continuous decorative roof trim in white. Ground floor bay windows create rhythm and add a vernacular flavour, especially in combination with the white fences.

Although most of the housing was built as family housing in two storeys on similar floor plans, some building know a greater height. On the left a double-height building with apartments. The corner window bay was extended into a tower-like feature. Other eclectic houses have a New-England feel with square window bays topped by balconies with wooden railings. These square bays may extend over one or two floors (right).

Shaw was well known for mixing Dutch Classicism with Tudor Revival element, including hanging tiles and timber frame panels. Examples of this Mock-Tudor style may be mixed with buildings in another style creating great visual variation. The floor plans are often similar however. 

The timber frame panels were mostly used on the elevation. The timber is often not structural and merely decorative, as the architect tries to evoke a sense of times gone by and rural architecture. On the left an example with timber frame panels that dominate the protruding elevation and thus the whole facade. The brick support post is a nice detail. The same rural reference can also result in buildings with a combination of render and brick details that contrast a sense of lightness and heaviness (shown on the right).

These blocks are not dissimilar to those of Merton Park as they use the same London stock brick. Here a contrasting upper section that protrudes of a central bay window is dressed with hung tiles in red creating contrast and a more rural effect. The planted streets -with an eclectic mix of species- create the desired semi-rural feel that would inspire the Garden City Movement.