Nottingham/Buildings/Council Housing

Nottingham Borough Council started building residential accomodation to rent in 1876 with Victoria Dwellings on Bath Street.

The next accommodation were semi-detached houses on ?? Street, Sherwood constructed just after WWI.

Thereafter the council embarked on a massive programme of construction of large council estates (and a limited amount of infill) which lasted until the completion of Clifton Estate by Wimpy in the mid-1950s. It is estimated that around 17,000 residential units were built over this period. The vast majority of them are extant.

Principal areas of between the wars & early post-WWII housing are:

• Stockhill estate.
• Wollaton Park estate. Many houses were 'Crane' houses built using pre-fabrication techniques.
• Penn Avenue. Built by Jesse Boot.
• Ainsley Estate.
• Broxtowe Estate. About 2000 properties.
• Bulwell Hall Estate.
• Strelley Estate.
• Bestwood Estate.
• Sneinton Dale Estate.
• Sherwood Estate.

• Clifton Estate. Mainly Wimpy No-fines structures. Original population around 20,000 so perhaps 5000 properties.

Standard pre-war houses

The bulk of housing constructed from the mid-1920s to the late 1940s was designed by T Cecil Howitt. Each specific design had a code and estates were built with a judicious mixture of the various designs. By far and away the commonest type were terraces of 4 houses: the smaller one with a one storey extension in the centre to provide more space around the door; the larger one with a passage through the centre of the middle two houses.

pre-war housing Perry Road, the group on left is design B59

Catalogue of Housing Types

Note in the absence of precise codes derived from architectural drwaings held in the archives I am using temporary codes prefixed with my user name (SK53). These are usually made-up of a letter for house type (D=Detached,S=Semi,T=Terrace; a number for number of dwellings; a string to indicate the form). The Howitt/NCC codes will be derived from design documentation. In addition, some non-standard housing may used codes based on those in official documents.

Form	Units	Construction	Howitt/NCC Code	SK53 Code	Tags	Remarks
Bungalow	1	Crane House		Crane1D		Wollaton Park Estate Only
Bungalow	2	Crane House		Crane1S		Main type on Wollaton Park. Some may be brick
Terrace	4	Brick		T4NoPassage		Probably the commonest single housing group. A terrace of 4 2-bedroom houses, the middle two accessed through a small one-storey porch in the centre of the terrace. 2 chimney stacks. At least 2 variants: the common one with a triangular 1-storey porch for the 2 central houses, and one (extensive in Broxtowe) where the doors to the two central houses are flush with the main wall. There seems to be slightly smaller terraces in Aspley too. Locations: Aspley, Heathfield, Bulwell Hall, Cinderhill, Bestwood, Broxtowe Road (Bilborough)
Terrace	4	Brick		T4Passage		Slightly larger in form with a central arched passage through the centre of the block. 3 chimney stacks. Typical 'twitchell' of Nottingham City Council houses . Locations: Edwards Lane, Beechdale.
Terrace	4	Brick	B59
Semi	2	Brick		SCorner	building:levels=2	Three-bedroom semis, basically a steep pitched gable roof with separate gables for each house at the front. Very common on corner plots or in other places where a break in the flow of ordinary houses was needed. Usually completed in brick, but some earlier examples rendered, or (at least in Wollaton Park) tile-hung on 1st floor
Semi	2	Brick	B66			Semis with central gable, the gable end changing angle half-way up giving a 'flicked' out appearance.

Post-war Pre-fabricated Houses

Form	Units	Construction	Howitt/NCC Code	SK53 Code	Tags	Remarks
Semi	2	BISF (British Iron & Steel Federation), see BISF house		BISF2S		Examples along Wigman Road Wigman Road Houses
Semi	2	Tarran Newland		TarranNewland2S		Also in Bilborough
Many	?	Wimpey No Fines		WimpeyNF??		Clifton, some in Bilborough (top of Wigman Road). Also several tower blocks (Southchurch Court, Clifton; Radford, Seinton Elements)

Tagging Approach

Basic tags which can be assigned directly to building outlines.

• roof:material=*. Nearly all houses have tiled roofs. The original tiles on Crane Houses are of a somewhat different type, closer to pan tiles than regular roof tiles, furthermore many of these houses have the original tiles replaced with a wide range of materials, including Marley Tiles and slate-effect tiles.
• building:levels=*.
• building:material=*. Note this is the externally visible material, so usually either brick or render.

More elaborate tags which may require the addition of building_part polygons:

Non-standard Houses further afield

Placeholder table tbc separate page

Form	Units	Construction	Wikidata	SK53 Code	BRE Code	Tags	Remarks
Nissen_Petren house	2	Prefabrication along lines of Nissen Hut (semicircular corrugated roof profile)	Q123762440	Nissen-petren house		building=semidetached_house building:design=Nissen-petren house design:wikidata=Q123762440 levels=1 roof:levels=1	Quite rare, restricted to Somerset, 2 in Yeovil, 8 in West Camel Unusual Roof Shape - geograph.org.uk - 1406051

Further Reading

• Alex Ball, Nottingham’s Early Council Housing: ‘Nothing like this had been seen before in the city’ on Municipal Dreams blog.
• Municipal Dreams. Review of Chris Matthew's book (q.v.)
• Chris Matthews,
• Nottinghamshire Archives.
• Lenton Times. Crane Houses. The unique buildings of Wollaton Park Estate.