The Golden Lane Estate

I live here so I thought I should blog about it. The Golden Lane Estate was one of the first high rise social housing blocks in the UK. Built in the late 50s the estate was a precursor to the iconic modernist estate the Barbican which is located just next door, and was designed by the same architects Chamberlain Bon and Powell. Unlike the Barbican though, it was built to provide general need Council housing at affordable rents, rather than to affluent city workers. Many of the flats were sold off as part of the Right to Buy policy that began in the mid 1970s, but there continues to be a mix of council housing and private dwellings.

[Image by Tim Crocker, via Walking City]

The estate is the one of two council housing estates within the City of London, and makes up some of the 8000 people living within the City. It is sandwiched between one of the UK’s most deprived wards, the extremes of wealth in the Square Mile, and the media and arts centre that is Clerkenwell. In other words its a really interesting place that has seen a lot of change and continues to.

One of the lovely things about living here is that unlike a lot of other places in London its actually really easy to get to know your neighbours. Its just a really friendly, welcoming place to live. Anyway, earlier this week, when we were down looking at the fish in the pond at the bottom of our tower block, we got talking to our neighbour and his 5 year old son. We live on the top floor so we invited them up to have a look at the view. We got talking about the estate and as a result he pointed us in the direction of a film on YouTube looking at the construction of Golden Lane Estate in the post-war period. Panoramic views from Great Arthur house show the extent of bomb damage suffered during the second world war. It also shows the optimism and belief in modernist architecture to offer good quality housing and a community life for its residents. Interestingly it still seems to work. I wonder why it continues to succeed while other housing estates of a similar era have failed?