CHARITY
Right: Children playing in the estate gardens in 1985
There were homes of up to three rooms, meaning small families could rent a flat fairly cheaply in the early 1900s, particularly with low-priced private accommodation becoming hard to find. Many residents were ladies with very low-paid domestic jobs or charwomen. This tradition continued right through two wars, and many people who were moved away when the bombs started to rain down insisted on coming back to the Sutton estate. And when they did, the building was as they left it. “Block D, which is called Delmarend House, had a direct hit from a German bomb – and it stood,” says Ian. “It blew the windows out, but the actual structure stood.” Today, many residents remain fiercely loyal to the buildings. Their oldest resident, who is almost the same age as the estate itself at 100, has been living there for 70 years. “It’s a community,” says Ian. “It’s that lovely thing where someone can have a hell of a lot of money and someone can have no money and they just get on. Everybody would love a community like that. The greatest thing about that little patch of Chelsea is if you go to the
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pub you’ve got a judge and you’ve got a postman both having a pint together.” Now, Affiny Sutton believes it can do more with the land, and has been consulting with the council over redevelopment plans. Social housing would still represent the lion’s share of any new flats, although private homes are likely to make up around a third of the mix. A spokesperson for the housing association said: “At the time of its completion, there were question marks raised by London County Council about the site’s layout, which provides little private amenity space for residents. Similarly the internal layout of many of the flats on the estate fall well below what would be acceptable today. This includes small bedsit apartments and bathrooms accessible only through the kitchen.
“Our plans for the estate are at an early stage.
We are working closely with our residents and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to promote a plan that regenerates what we know is a special site in terms of its heritage and the sense of community that has developed over many years.”
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