A Walk Around the Manor Farm Housing Estate, Chalvey

 

 

View of Brammas Close from the main road through Chalvey

 

The Manor Farm housing estate as it looks from the road. As with all the buildings in the next few pictures, there is minimal variation in style, and in the row above none at all– it’s dark brick and white weatherboarding all the way, baby. All the housing in the estate is in terraces, in the background you can see further microcosms of misery extending identically at right angles to each other.

 

There is also minimal differentiation between individual houses, with the cars parked outside being the only visual cues as to who lives where. This ties in perfectly with the ethos of social housing estates– you’re not housing people or families, you’re housing a whole class at once, a class that we’ve been taught doesn’t deserve anything but the most basic of survival kits, almost like refugees in a camp. And yet the austere and minimalist designs were the product of the Modernist movement, which had at its ideological centre the hope that housing could be a great unifier of society, uniting classes together as one.

 

Housing providers of the mid 20th century loved this new idea of communality–provided it was for the lower classes, that is. They were a convenient, expedient way of housing large numbers of disenfranchised people without having to spend too much time or money– perpetually cash-strapped councils were happy, private contractors even more so.  So we had an era of hopeless estates, whose cheap, generic, monotonous designs could be explained away as clean, efficient (but ersatz) Modernism, and whose lack of individuality and forced communality could be spun as an attempt at hippyish unification. But you can bet your boots none of the people who designed these places ever went to live there themselves.

 

Pedestrian access to housing, Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

The token sections of ‘green’ add nothing to this very basic landscape, they are merely absences of houses on the blueprint. In the nearly fifty years since this estate was built, have the powers that be not seen fit to add a single decent-sized tree? The simple addition of a large, mature tree would have improved this view considerably and broken the monotony of parts of this depressing estate. 

 

 

 

Children’s play area, Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

Quite why this children’s play area has been sequestered by railings is not evident– it’s in a pedestrian area, so no crazy cars, and is right in the middle of the estate, so no weirdos lurking in the bushes… it ends up giving the psychological impression that, as in all estates, the kids are to be kept in, rather than the dangerous things kept out. 

 

It is a feature of social housing estate design that certain basic provisions are to be robotically included to provide a kind of generic, minimum-quality existence, the kind that ticks the boxes on government’s key performance indicators list and satisfies the health inspector. Adequate light per house, the smallest acceptable front ‘garden’ per home, minimal aesthetic stimulation with no unnecessary variation in housing styles, regulation play-areas to combat ill-health in children… and yet the paternalism of the thinking that made such estates is at odds with the rather patrician attitude that says that social housing shouldn’t be too nice, because it’s for poor people. So we’re allowed a few square metres of breathing space so the kids don’t go insane from boredom, but only if it’s railed off and mediocre– there is such a thing as too much fun, too much freedom, in a housing estate.

 

The small earth hump provides a slight variance from the dull, flat, topography in an area of unchanging elevation, while the logs and boulders are the only reminder of natural, uncontrolled forms in this strictly regulated and ordered landscape. No such efforts at breaking the monotony of the estate exist outside the playground, adults presumably not being worthy– it took the strongest empathy, that for the wellbeing of children, to get it in at all. So enjoy it while you can, kids, because the moment you get too big for the playground such essential forms will be lost to you forever; the only features you’ll see outside it will be controlling features like the concrete pillar on the left, the wall in the foreground, and the inevitable 'no ball games’ sign. Those railings around the playground are just a primer. 

 

 

Childrens play area #2, Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

A better attempt at a play area than the one we saw in the last post: the absence of railings and the visual accessibility of the ‘entrance’ are immediately more welcoming and optimistic, and the whole space becomes more 'open’ as a result. There’s more interesting topography and yes! more boulders here, plus the kind of wooden climbing frames adventurous little tykes can really get their teeth into. Still, the conclusions of the last post still stand: look at the contrast between the rugged, interesting foreground and the strictly controlled housing strips and forbidding brick wall behind. At what age is the need for fun, visual stimulation and references to nature supposed to end? The imposed conformity of the estate sits uncomfortably with the playground’s admission that humans need stimulation, adventure and chaos in their environments.

 

 

It had to be in there somewhere! It was inevitable… no social housing estate is complete without its mantra: NO BALL GAMES. Yes, you. Are you listening? I said NO BALL GAMES. Graffitti tags underage sex casual drug use gang violence internet porn happy slapping and habitual truancy yes but NO BALL GAMES! 

Of course, it’s also a relic from a distant past when kids played outside instead of on Xbox. Give it another decade and kids will walk past thinking, ‘What’s a ball game??’

 

 

Street sign showing “plan” of Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

The first time I walked around this housing estate I got lost, and there’s little wonder why– the estate is a maze of identical housing terraces aligned in only two directions with no individual characteristics to distinguish one part from another. It’s also mostly pedestrianized, so there aren’t any obvious roads or streets to navigate by, and there certainly aren’t any identifiable landmarks. Like so many housing estates of the 20th century it has been planned to provide a certain density of housing rather than as a coherent neighbourhood, and as such isn’t particularly user-friendly in either the aesthetic or navigational senses. It lacks focus and a centred identity, and appears clinical and artificial.

 

The difficulties of finding your way around this maze of mirrors are tacitly admitted by the council’s provision of this map by the road-side– never before have I seen a residential area that’s needed a map to make sense of it! And what a map it is. Look closely and you will see that it hardly makes any sense at all, it isn’t even clear which bits are houses. Only the High Street is named, and half of it looks like it hasn’t been finished, with the features simply disappearing into sketches and construction lines. Even the ‘You are here' blob doesn’t seem too sure of itself. It's a typical council map– it leaves you none the wiser, its purpose being to merely exist, not to actually be useful. Well, off you go now, find your way home and, er, good luck.   

 

 

Staggered housing, pretty much facing East head on to fulfil the ol' light specifications.

 

 

View of Brammas Close from Chalvey rec ground

 

A final look at the Manor Farm housing estate, an expression of conformity in social housing from the late 60s. This picture is from the Chalvey recreation ground on the other side of the main road, which consists of a field and this stately basketball court. Alas, the lonely hoopstand looks more like a hangman’s gallows– as if the area needed any more depressing suggestions!

A Walk Around Winvale

 

 

Refurbished 60s apartment block, Winvale.

 



Winvale is a small estate of social housing built in the early 60s. It consists of several apartment blocks such as the one pictured and a row of terraced housing. They were built using a concrete panel system that allowed speedy construction (and which is why all the apartment blocks are identical in design). A project to refurbish the apartment buildings was recently completed; before, they were depressing pebbledashed cuboids in a state of decay that even graffiti couldn‘t hurt. The refurbishment added an insulating rendered layer on the outside, replaced all the windows and painted the buildings in various shades of exciting off-white, blue and grey. According to the website of Niblock, the builders who completed the project for Slough Borough Council, Class ‘O’ paint was used in the common areas– this is a special type of paint designed to be fire-resistant. The roofs were originally flat, but now pitched roofs have been added, probably for a combination of aesthetic and insulation reasons. 

 

The end result is surely an improvement for the residents, even if visually it simply looks like a transition from 60s-style social housing back to the 50’s style. The buildings still look appropriately drab and depressing, but a lot of this is due to the design flaws of 60s social housing, when it was still thought prudent to knock up ugly quick-build estates and fill them with needy people in a rush; estates that were designed to be built quickly from mass-produced elements that produced identical buildings, all aesthetically constrained so as not to be too ‘nice’– after all, it is social housing. Can’t be too generous, can we?! As if further evidence were needed for the slightly punitive aspect of social housing, the estate is cornered by the busy Windsor Road and by the mighty M4, which is a matter of yards away and whose din is inescapable.

 

Slough is returning to this style of social housing provision; current plans for a stretch of Windsor Road just round the corner from Winvale involve a series of large, identical apartment blocks that will merely be a 21^st century version of the above estate. Just like the situation in the 60s, foolish housing developments are being rushed through to avert a crisis with little thought spared for the future fabric of the town, a programme of hasty measures when what is needed is a sensible, national and regional strategy that builds for tomorrow, not for yesterday… hang it all, I’m starting to sound like David Cameron. Anyway, to conclude: never learn from your mistakes, you never know when you might need to commit them again.

 

 

Another shot of the refurbished apartment blocks at Winvale.

 

Repetition of style, orientation and even colour scheme in the newly-refurbished estate. Once again the ‘rules’ of estates have been applied: 'basic’ and 'generic’ are the aesthetic guidelines, and the denial of individualism betrays the lack of aspiration, identity and sense of worth that characterises social housing. The lack of private space shows the 'forced communality’ of life in estates: residents’ clothes are hung out to dry inches from the public pavement.

Fun fact: just behind the fence you can see by the furthest block is the M4, one of Britain’s busiest motorways. Enjoy!

 

 

New fence at Winvale, Slough.

 

As part of the mini-estate’s refurbishment, Winvale has been given a perimeter fence. You know you’re going up in the world when you get a fence! Not the grandest of boundaries– the green wire fencing looks like something you pick up at a garden centre– but once the greenery has grown in it should look better (hopefully the fence itself will be removed once the shrubs are established).

I can’t help but wonder if the fence is meant to keep other people out, or Winvale people in; in any case, it is largely cosmetic as everywhere on the other side can be accessed easily from the road. The biggest consequence in terms of trespass, then, is that the local kids can’t play across the path as they used to– a pity, as this was one of the few places in Slough where kids could play outside near to home without being squashed.