Steve., but there is such a way - change things from what people like. Edit for people read mr and mrs joe public not some pretentious dogooder think they know best psychology studies failure with an architect as a best mate with an ego complex.
As someone who grew up near Thamesmead in the 80s I never had any idea it was supposed to be a different vision than every other concrete sink estate around it.
Almost all concrete estates were planned to be different fromt he others, this time they'd make it work! Same all over Europe. As long as you didn't go for building a district that was an actual city/town though, because that would be Bad for some reason.
@@Dec38105 Not all, but most were in practice that yeah. I know a couple ones in Stockholm were designed to be "like Venice" with cars and pedestrians fully grade separated. Turns out that is a real bad planning idea in practice unless you're in like central Hong Kong. Also: the metro that was to be the transit integrated into these two areas wasn't finished for like 5 years after people started moving in!
I used to play on the Marshes before Thamesmead was built. The Marshlands alongside the Thames were far from desolate wastelands. There were farms and small cottage industries all along the river. One of my Late Uncles had a pig farm on the marshes. Like most "new towns", the architects dream soon become the residents nightmare.
To be fair, a lot of the dreams just weren't properly implemented. And when things aren't build as designed, they tend to fail. That said, there is a point to being unable to design for an entity as unpredictable as human society. Design requires predictability, and while you can mostly predict us, there's always gonna be problems.
I'm reminded of that Todd Snider song: "Lead our children from living these lives of crime that they're living out in these streets, and lure them into lives of crime that take place indoors" (from "A Timeless Response to Current Events").
He may as well be describing what took place in Murica during the housing crisis. Interesting how much alike the US and UK are. Now that the British are no longer Europeans, they should seriously consider becoming the 51st state. They'd have everything they have now plus more....such as the right to go bankrupt if they get cancer and let's not forget automatic guns for everybody. YEEEEEHAAAAA
@@MrSloika Bad as Thamesmead was (by British standards) it was nothing like some housing project in an American inner city. Not even close. The rest of your post doesn't even make sense. Britain left the EU - leaving Europe would be geographically impossible. And I do know what you're talking about, but you're just wrong. There are huge differences between here and the US - the two examples you quote (healthcare and guns) being amongst the biggest.
a large part of the problem, i think, was that they half-assed the original construction. they never built the shopping center and the transport links, then they expected the urban utopia to still work? that's like using newspaper to join prefabricated high-rise parts together, then wondering why a gas explosion brought a big chunk of it tumbling down-
That sounds like Ronan Point on the Kier Hardie Estate in Newham......A large chunk of that fell down doe a gas explosion.....poor build quality was to balme!
I lived near Thamesmede in the 80's, and when I was depressed and wanting to give up my job, would drive through it on my way home just to remind myself, things could be worse.
That's so interesting that you'd drive through it as motivation. I'd drive through to compliment my mood, not lift it. If I was really depressed, I'd walk through, probably get shouted at that I was going to get raped, maybe some POS would oblige.
@@DJDreadnought In fairness, a persons capacity to spell has little to no bearing on their ability to tell the truth. They also said they lived *near* there and just drove through...
I lived in Thamesmead from around 1971-76 and I always remember it as being a wonderful place to live. We'd moved from a Victorian tenement on Albany Road in Southwark into a bright, brand new and luxurious maisonette on Maran Way in Thamesmead and it was like paradise. No rats, two indoor toilets, no mold, no rubbish, no tramps kipping in our doorway, it was everything our old home wasn't. The elevated walkways were perfect for us kids, play was safe with no busy traffic to worry about. I could ride my Chopper from one side of the estate to the other without ever going down to ground level. Going into Woolwich for shopping wasn't too difficult as we were fairly well served by busses and there was a little shopping precinct just a short walk from our front door and a large health centre right next to it. Socially we had something we'd not experienced before, neighbours we could actually talk to and would talk back. We made friends with several of the families on our street (platform? Section?) and I had quite a good circle of friends I used to play with. I am obviously painting the place with a rosy hue. I suspect we were lucky enough to live there in some kind of golden age for the estate. It was new and the rot hadn't yet set in. I was devastated when we moved in '76, to Peckham of all places. I'm not saying it didn't have its rough elements, it did even then, but when I was there the experiment was working. At least for me.
@@Leonards-leopard I think you're right, the Thamesmead experiment was going very well when I was there and, from what I gathered, the dumping of undesirable elements into the estate were what "did it in." Maybe they should've kept that vetting system going. Another feature I'd forgotten to mention is how much nature we had around us. We could go to the lakes and go stickleback fish with nets and jars. There were many local footpath that went through some quite rural places in the surrounding area and in the autumn we'd go picking blackberries and come back with a bowl full. Also some farms were still working just outside the estate limits. You could walk out there and see horses and goats and other farm yard animals. You can see the appeal of such a place to a kid who's previous home was a slum.
@@midnightmosesuk I think you have a point there. The fact that 1970s housing projects decline into social ghettos is often blamed on the architecture, when the real reason is that mostly poor people move there and the middle and upper classes avoid them for whatever reason.
I’m in the north east and I’ve got a few towns built near me with similar thinking.For a while during the 80s when the north east closed for business they seemed grim soulless places but now they seem to have settled down to something very like their original vision.They seem to work pretty well
As a Telecommunications Technician I hate these places , no maintenance black holes . No one knows where anything is, no plans or maps and no one passes on to the next guy what they found doesnt work . Plus cannot get close enough to unload heavy tools and ladders . Wiring set deep into the wall inaccessible to find or replace
Even with a condo association though, and all private residents- ALL of those things hold true. I live in a cooperative type building that is from the 60s, and literally everything you mentioned there, every one of those things. The association is run by volunteer residents who run for the positions, and everything is word of mouth- no notes are kept, we have building plans (they're 58 years old) but nobody understands them...
@@jimtuite3451 No idea . When you find them let me know . My role was Telecommunications Technician . Supplying and repairing . Engineers would be assessing Telecom science standards and codes before fit out or design
@@jimtuite3451 As someone who spent far too much time in the industry, as with washing machine, gas engineer etc we were in the main not engineers, most were not members of the institute or suitably qualified to use a professional title.
The dreaded place when I was first working subs apps was the University for all the reasons you mention. One guy ended up there almost permanently because the longer he spent the more of the esoteric knowledge of the place he had. Poor guy had a complete breakdown in the end.
I lived there for 15 years and my late husband was a lifelong resident who was heavily involved with Radio Thamesmead. It certainly does have a reputation but also wasn’t a bad place to live. Sometimes reputations are exaggerated and self fulfilling.
I remember the housing woman in the housing offices saying to me and the missus "don't go near the p-word as they are expletive expletive" meaning the travelling folk in their little camp next to offices and I was drinking with 'em the next day in the pub opposite and their head chap blessed my newborn daughter, I said to the travellers what the woman had said in the office and heard she got the tin tack over that. I was a regular in the old social club esp as was one of the few places that sold Woods 100 57% navy rum and I do remember going through a couple of them esp the night me daughter was born.
I lived across the street from the travelers. Beyond them letting their horses graze on the grass in front of the flats, they were no different than anybody else living in that area.
Maybe you think it was not “a bad place to live” because it’s the best you’ve known, but that doesn’t mean it was good place. No shops, very little transportation, no underground stations, no jobs and a criminals Paradise. Sounds fucking shite love. That’s coming from someone who left Bromley by Bow in 1969.
@@JulieWallis1963 i wasn’t born or raised there but did spend a decade and a half living across from Tavvy Bridge. I’ve lived in multiple places, including my current location of Los Angeles. Believe me, I know Thamesmead has problems but it’s more that it is not as bad as can be made out. Also, there is a ton of public transport compared to many other places. I’d have loved it to have the underground but it has numerous bus routes and Abbey Wood station which has undergone a huge renovation. There is now a huge super store supermarket right next to that station and Thamesmead Town Centre (such that it is) has a bunch of shops. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no Greenwich or even Bexleyheath but it also is not Clockwork Orange.
I have lived in Thamesmead for 36 years and though it has its faults, since Peabody took over things have improved enormously. Yes there are a few problem families but in my area it is generally quiet and peaceful. My biggest complaint is the poor transport, rail is the only way of commuting into the city and the service could be better. Hopefully when Cross Rail opens sometime in this century, this will help.
“Not just a place to live, but a community” is a far better philosophy than what seems to drive development today: “not just a place to live, but something to make money off of.” Even if it fails, at least the intent is there...
I grow up in Thamesmead, living there from 1971 to 1994 and my Mum still does. I had a great childhood and never felt unsafe. We could walk to the shops and play in the playground at Tavy Bridge without ever having to cross a road. We would never be indoors during school holidays. I think the change happened when they stopped vetting new residents and a lot of original families moved away. The building materials & lack of maintenance where another issue and I was so sad to see the state it became.
I grew up in Woolwich and Thamesmead was seen as a bit of a no go zone for outsiders with the 80s being the low point when gangs really took over, trading guns between the 'stages' and the like. The Marina building constantly closing and reopening as ever increasingly rough bars and clubs. In many respects the reputation was probably worse than reality, but as I did when I'd fish on the lake as a young teenager you would keep your head down, keep your wits about you and hope to get out alive. It was rough, it was grim, but I always strangely liked it and the architecture, but like other people's babies, the best part is you can hand them back
When I was growing up my Nan lived in Barnehurst and we'd go to Erith for the market. My Nan would blanche at the thought of setting foot in Thamesmead though.
At the time I lived in New Cross but overslept my stop and ended up in Erith. Not knowing london that well on foot, i decided to follow the route back to New Cross via Thamesmeade - talk about running the gauntlet.. still made it into work ok :D
A comprehensive and damning indictment of modernism and town planning in less than ten minutes. A bravura performance and without a raised voice. Thank you!
Hi pmichael73 My father was a boy soldier during the second attempt to stop the Prussians Landed up in the Royal Engineers That taught him a trade of BUILDING things like many at the end of a conflict were loved ones had Died he wanted to have a better future for his children(not sure if you're a Parent)As a young married man He managed through hard work to become a(Greater London Council)surveyor The whole Country was on the cusp on a future that wasn't death and destruction So NO Michael modernism wasn't the problem People are
I don't entirely agree, +pmichael73. I mean, yes, there certainly is some deserved criticism of the building style, but what doomed it was that they build what they promised. You have to build for living, not just for housing. You can build the most gorgeous suburb, it's going to ruins if people can't live there, and for living, you need more than a house, you need transportation, education, work, leisure... Entire eastern block cities are built with this concept, and for all the hate they get architecturally, they are not as horrible to live in as you might think, even if the flats lack insulation, have crazy things like windows from one apartment into another, etc, because a tram line was build simultaneously with the flats, shops, kindergartens, schools, workshops... were built next to it, or often even within the same block... These are some of the more sought after areas to live in in Berlin, Prague, etc...
@@barvdw @bryan smith British domestic architecture is among the worst in Europe. Planners and builders are as much responsible as the councils and governments who cut the funding. New "starter homes" for upwards of £200k have no distinguishing features, no basements, no usable lofts, no closets, insufficient parking, (often no garages) no place to expand, and not enough space for separate recycling bins in kitchens. (Planners and architects have not learned that apart from bottles and cardboard, people will not sort rubbish outside their homes.) Families have to keep moving and live with perpetual mortgages, and communities fail to grow because of this endless need to move. Actually, ,my original comment was a simple praise of Jago's concise narrative and did not express an endorsement of his ideas.
@@pmichael73 again, that's pretty much the standard in many countries, I bet you'd call the average housing size in say the Netherlands as miniscule too (not just in the Randstad region). And many are absolutely boring architecture. Yet people still want to live there... Because they aren't isolated islands in the middle of nowhere, without local amenities. Bus lines, cycle lanes, sometimes even stations are often opened before the first people move in, schools and businesses are built at the same time, etc.
I was just starting to feel a little twinkle of optimism about something. This video has restored the bleak sense of an unending, descending spiral of hopeless and despair that I was missing. Thanks, Jago!
There is, I find, a sort of beautiful desolation in London, and in British urban planning in general. It's unsettling and curious and haunting, and yet strangely attractive at the same time. It's just utterly morbidly fascinating. Thank you for your work in documenting it, Mr. Hazzard.
Beautiful desolation? Surely two self-contradictory terms. Thamesmead is hideous. But then again, so too is much of the recent development in East London centred around the old docklands. I’d call it inhuman, indeed anti-human. Not beautiful in any way, imho of course.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 it's an oxymoron to be sure, but that doesn't make it less real. If you ever visit old ruins, or a desert, or places of urban decay there is a sort of beauty to them. Look at images from Chernobyl, there's a mysterious charm to them. You're more liable to feel it if you're an introverted type of person, where the loneliness of such places has an allure of its own, the sense of stillness. It's entirely subjective and completely individual of course, but it is real.
@@xmlthegreat - I agree, desolation can be beautiful. That is how Wordsworth (I think it was him) saw the Lake District, perhaps starting the great British appreciation of the countryside, especially the bleaker parts of it. But the stark desolation of Thamesmead is quite unnatural, as in not part of nature, and to me the antithesis of beauty.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 like I said, it's not about natural beauty but about loneliness in places that should be inherently bustling with life. The english countryside is not desolate, it is natural beauty and is teeming with natural life. It is not silent or lonely. For another example of the beauty of abandoned places, look at the scenes in Blade Runner where the puppeteer is shown living in an abandoned building, or the scenes in Blade Runner 2049 that take place in the desert where Ryan Gosling meets Harrison Ford. That is desolation. Even the bleakest north sea islands feel alive compared to some places. Thamesmead feels like urban decay and there is some kind of attraction that that aesthetic holds. You'll see it in Soviet cityscapes as well, or places in the former Soviet Union. A sort of vast emptiness. That's what I meant here.
Bristol had a similar project in the city centre. Each block was to be linked with walkways, cobwebbed over the cities roads. It was scrapped pretty quickly, but until a few years ago some of these walkways were still up. You can see some clues of their existence if you know what to look for.
I would love to know why they never built the shopping centre back in the day, with so many people to be living in the area there would have been a ready-made customer base for at least a basic shopping centre...
This is an ongoing problem. Developers promise all manner of social assets to get their planning consent. Once they've broken ground they can do anything you can't stop them doing. Local developments in rural areas will promise health and community centers, skate parks and even libraries. If they ever get built, you've been lucky.. Ta.
@@Peasmouldia There seems to be a raft of recent developments that don't even have footpaths, which is so bizarre. Not even enough space to put your bins out.
@@Peasmouldia Maybe its time to change planning laws to penalize (fines and other penalties) developers who promise to build things like retail and services and such and then don't actually build what they promised to build.
Developers seem to have carte blanche to do whatever they want as soon as planning permission has been granted. Local Councils are either powerless or clueless when it comes to enforcing the provision of community benefits pledged by the developers.
My father was a town planner in this era (not responsible for Thamesmede, thankfully!)… It's interesting contrasting stories like these to what happened last century with the expansion of the tube lines out of London, with new suburbs springing up everywhere. It really shows the importance of getting your transport links sorted (and we can be eternally grateful that the housebuilders of the 1930s didn't have access to cheap concrete).
Indeed, though much of Zone 2/4 expanded with the arrival of the tram system. That Thamesmead missed out was indeed as marshland and flooding and a much wider thames changed how the locality felt.
I knew some people who were watersports instructors on the 'marina'. For all the jokes it was one of the few things about Thamesmead that worked. Until the council pulled the funding of course.
I have an urge to jump in my car and drive there for a look see, but sadly I sold my car this evening, missing it already! I used to live in West Norwood where Kubrick shot another scene from CO.
The local bar was a real gay bar, the Gloucester, in Greenwich. Times move on and it's no longer a gay venue. It's now the Greenwich Tavern, 1 King William Walk, SE10.
@@Martindyna The paper shop where Jamie stole the magazine is a two minute walk from that bar. The 180 bus went the wrong way up a one way street when the lead characters got off.
I have had two near death experiences. One a documented cliff fall in Dorset. The other a telly whizzing past my head whilst walking under one of Thamesmead's walk ways. Only one still gives me nightmares.
Another gem from Jago. The irony is the private sector has enough capital to do the rest if govt. took its infrastructure responsibilities seriously. Govt needs to get serious, extend tube, rail, tram lines to unfancied areas and get development going
Father bought a new house in Thamesmead 1976 near a canal. Went to a new primary school called Jubilee. Missed the open spaces, lake, where people used to fish but not much else, very much a concrete jungle in places. Moved out in 1987, glad to 😕
Went to Jubilee also! Though mid-90s/2000s. Got a commemorative coin with the school crest on the tails side for the Queen’s golden Jubilee. Moved away the same year.
It looks like the main issue here was, what had been the issue with so many of these projects. On paper, it all looked great and tbh, I hardly see anything wrong with the initial plan. But you have to launch the project completly. They started to move people into finished parts. Problems came up because there was still a lot of infrastructure missing. And we all know: problems mean that fundings get cut. So huge parts of what was planned never got built because there were problems with the parts that already existed.
The concrete walkways are a huge problem with the initial plan. Any time you force people into confined spaces with no sight-lines and no escapes, you've just built a mugger's paradise.
It's amazes me that no one at the time looked at a Concrete design and said who would want to live in the same material they make Multi-Storey Car Parks out of there. 5 mins in it's presence is enough to bring your mood down.
Splendid stuff, Jago. As a town planner, I’d like to apologise for the past and I only wish that the planning system wasn’t so geared up to the developer so that all the ‘nice’ things - schools, doctor surgeries, parks, shops etc are always shaved off developments!
I had a cousin who lived in Thamesmead up until quite recently (though they might still live there), though they've often said it's a rough area. It does seem like council estates built from the 1960s onwards have ended up being dumping grounds for problem tenants, I grew up on an estate that was built in the 1950s and clearly designed to be more spacious and a huge step-up from the Victorian era terrace houses.
I once stayed at my cousin's place for a week in Thames mead. His place was very small, but the one thing I really didn't like was there was a terrible smell in the area. I was told it came from the sewage system. I'm not sure if being near, or built on The Marsh had something to do with it. The air almost felt unbreathable and was very unpleasant.
We moved into Thamesmead about fourteen years ago. Although it had a reputation as a rough place, we have NEVER seen any problems! We are in the Limestone Walk area (so walking distance to Abbey Wood Station). The Jubilee Line or DLR WOULD have been of massive benefit to Thamesmead. Crossrail will fill the that gap WHEN it opens. Thamesmead sadly didn't get the 50th celebrations we should have had last year for obvious reasons. On the whole not a bad place to live!
If you look at what is happening over a Kidbrooke and other ex-council and new build (Colindale/Hendon) I think you can see the difference / no real difference.
The video seems to have been centering mostly around Southmere Lake (Tavy Bridge, Binsey Walk, Coralline Walk and their immediate surroundings), I don't think that that's fully representative of the rest of Thamesmead. Yet, in all fairness, it is exactly what people see in their minds when they think about Thamesmead.
Like all places, you get your good and bad areas. I have worked on the thamesmead estate for the last three decades and it’s not the easiest on the eye . I used to pop in the dashwood club in the estate and the locals used to be some of the nicest people you could meet.
Been a Subscriber since around 600 subs and all I can say is wow. Just wow. The quality, detail, research and information in your videos just keeps getting better. Despite being more of a fan of your Tube/Rail videos, I can safely say that the standard of your property and architecture content is easily better than most people who produce these things for professional purposes, and I say that as someone who works on the property and development industry. Excellent stuff.
In fairness, ‘Beautiful Thing’ did manage to imbue the location with some romance! The hot summer of 1995 was almost certainly a factor. I see the residents have adopted an Alexandra & Ainsworth feel with the now ubiquitous reclaimed flower troughs.
Some romance indeed, but even there the neglect was quite noticeable. The actors got to 'swim' in an E. coli infested South Mere for example... (in all fairness, they were only told afterwards I believe, so it can't have been all that bad then, right?)
When I was a kid, my brother lived in the flats. Everywhere stunk of the processed human turds at the sewage plant. Remember it being a kinda nice day out with my parents and I once won a toy dog at a pub raffle. I even liked the sci-fi elevated walkways.
I went to university in Colchester. Also built in the 60s and the result is not dissimilar. The problem, I think, is that when you impose a new town, it never really works because its forced. There will be shops here (or not), there will be a pub there etc and so on and so forth. Towns dont evolve like that. Towns form on the top of hill for defence or by a shallow part of a river where people will cross or a narrow part where you can build a bridge. Makes sense to set up shop there because you will have lots of customers. . They evolve from necessity. Fundamentally, a new town is anti-Darwinian.
That's all well and good, but when you have a major housing crisis (as was the case for two or three decades after the Second World War), homes have to be built. In such circumstances, you can't really wait for natural evolution - hence the new towns, expanded towns and new estates that were developed in large numbers between the late 1940s and the 1970s. Many are much derided now, but not all were failures by any means. New satellite estates undoubtedly fared worse than the new towns, which at least benefited from better facilities (such as proper town and neighbourhood centres) and, for a while at least, a real employment base that enabled people to both live and work within the new towns. The problem with Thamesmead is that it wasn't developed in the same way as the government-designated new towns were, and was essentially a housing estate that offered precious little else than housing, with atrocious transport links to the rest of London to boot. When you add in a lack of maintenance to that mix, it's hardly surprising it declined so quickly.
@@nuneatonolly Satellite estates: Yes, I was brought up on two such in Oxfordshire. But that was the evolution of the town. One was built, initially exclusively, for a new industry that was formed on the edge of the town. But that was evolution. The town centre shops expanded. The town centre evolved as more people used it.. Thats really what I'm getting at. Whereas, there are all sorts of reasons why Milton Keynes, Crawley, Glenrothes to name a few were "difficult" towns but chief among the reasons for that is that they were imposed rather than evolving from what was there already.
@@roderickmain9697 Thanks for your response! Without meaning to cherrypick, one of the examples you cite is poorly chosen: Milton Keynes. It's actually a pretty successful town! Yes, it has been the butt of no end of jokes (almost without exception made by outsiders), but it's a town that is still growing today, and one whose residents are generally very happy to live there. It looks a bit weird and might feel soulless to some, but it was in reality quite well designed. The key criticism I would make is that its design is far too car-oriented (and not conducive to efficient public transport), but it does have an excellent system for getting about by bike or on foot (the Redways), and decent neighbourhood facilities mean that access to Central Milton Keynes is not perhaps as essential as in other towns anyway. A number of other new towns, while maybe not the prettiest places, have also proven fairly successful (e.g. Basildon, Bracknell, Redditch, Telford, Crawley), despite being "imposed" by the government, so I'm not sure your evolution argument holds. (Conversely, others have clearly not been a success, but these are often cases where the town in question was reliant on one or two major industries or companies that subseqently went to the wall.) And, as I've commented elsewhere here, planned cities like Brasília and Washington, DC, are hardly considered failures - but then, as national capitals, they were assured the funding and facilities necessary for any settlement to thrive.
@@nuneatonolly Milton Keynes, bless it, (30 years ago I had g/f who lived there) was used a an example of why places like that did not work as well as other towns. It was genuine study. Their conclusion was (and it wanst exclusive to Milton Keynes) that people moved there without family. If/when there were issues, with relationships, work , whatever, there was no one to go to, no family, no social support network of friends (as no one knew anyone else) so it meant the suicide rate was about 4 times higher than elsewhere in the country. These days, I would surmise that those sorts of things have slowly disappeared and its now evolving like a "normal town". Now if I had my academic time again this might be a topic I could spend lots of time with. In the case of Thamesmead, it was never properly completed so it was even further handicapped.
@@roderickmain9697 Yes, absolutely! This point is key, I think: in MK, the planners' vision was largely able to be realised (thanks no doubt to the resources that come with a new town development corporation), whereas so much of what was planned for Thamesmead never happened.
It's a shame and a pity that well intended projects get wasted so often (I can mention similar projects here in the Netherlands). Interesting to hear about the "Clockwork Orange" bit. Designers/planners need to be able to take a step back and ask themselves "What problems did I forget and what can go wrong?“ Instead it's often a matter of ego, overconfidence and arrogance that prevents designers/planners from doubts about their own proposals.
I'm not sure I agree with that. The buildings without much in the way of decorations sure look bleak, but if you look carefully you can see how spots were reserved for greenery and humanity. It's the dropping in of problem tenants from elsewhere that's a really large part of the problem - along with the lack of finishing some important details such as transport and shopping that _were in the plans_. Although I'll grant you, those stairwells do look cozy and closed off - no wonder people with no other options chose to lie there.
I used to live here, 2017>2020 -- it was like living in a spread-out sleepy village, that was undergoing a serious makeover. Its a nice place for a quite walk around the lakes. I NEVER saw any crime gangs etc, or cops - just workmen knocking old stuff down.
What a bleak picture you paint of the place I called home from the age of five to my early 20s. I moved there in 72 and experienced none of the misery and depressive environment you describe. Moving on as I grew up into other areas of London - Greenwich, Tooting, Woolwich and also Wimbledon, I was astonished how uncomfortable and poorly designed the housing was. I never felt safe in those other areas but in Thamesmead I did. From my perspective, this video feels like pure snobbery.
Planners where I live built hundreds of rabbit hutches (starting in 2013) and part of the approval included the fact they would build a supermarket. Permission was granted and all but the supermarket block was constructed... Then came the "we want to change our minds and put housing there..." revision - which was approved. So the residents of nearly a thousand flats who bought them thinking the shop was handy now had to go over a mile to the nearest Tesco, which closed down in 2016, because there was another Tesco nearby - only two miles each way for the new development...
Misfits was also filmed here, I think it really gave the show a bleak, unnerving feel, I went through there the other day to get to a friends and realised they may have made the setting look more upbeat and vibrant in the show
I grew up in Thamesmead in the 80's and 90's and my parents still live there along with many of the same neighbours. Yes it is more known for it's concrete blocks but there are some amazing houses along crossways (right at the boiler house) which no-one ever talks about. I loved living there and had a great childhood. It's always had a bad reputation but it doesn't live up to it.
When I left school in 1967 I worked for GLC at County Hall in the Highways Dept. where the Thamesmead Spine Road was in the planning stages. I did not know about the proposed town and this video has filled in a lot of information for me. Many thanks.
I've visited a few times in the nineties and noughties. A local resident we knew always warned us to never visit alone though. And to stay on the upper level. We were also warned not to interact with the locals as not all of them would be equally accepting of outsiders walking around on the estate. To be fair I never noticed anything untoward, although the lower level did give me the creeps.
@@UrvonDiviner - Used to work there in the 90s. Right in the heart of it. Never felt especially at risk there, perhaps because I was there in the daytime and the inmates only started to get out of bed just as I was heading home.
There was a concrete walkway/bridge that used to go from the south of the estate to the north. I used to think that you would have to be very brave to walk along that late at night.
The bit in "A Clockwork Orange" where Malcom is in hospital was filmed in Harlow (Princess Alexandra Hospital, to be precise). Kubrick's location planner knew a dump when he saw one!
Thamesmead did get a boost (at least in my eyes) from the play "Beautiful Thing" by Jonathan Harvey which in the theatrical production I saw is just a background in the film release I think they got Thamesmead in the two weeks that concrete looks good - sunny warm weather It certainly isn't the hellscape suggested. Two things that interest me in failed housing projects 1) failure to plan for maintenance - the ongoing costs 2) connecting the places with other places Both of these factors are present in Thamesmead The later was mostly when the car was king so public transport / bicycles / pedestrians took a backseat to the car.
Oddly enough Thamesmead (at least the part around SouthMere Lake) was nothing like you could see in Beautiful Thing. So much was done to make the place presentable, if they would have done that to the entire estate people probably would actually have enjoyed living there...
I was going to make this exact point about Beautiful Thing: contrary to what @Jago Hazzard suggests in the video, this particular film *didn't* depict Thamesmead as a nightmare location. If anything, it showed the kind of community spirit (along with its attendant disadvantages, i.e. everyone knows everyone else's business) that the planners clearly intended to foster, and which possibly did exist briefly, but which quickly died out. (And yes, the good weather - with the kids playing in the water, people enjoying drinks on the pedestrian decks above, etc. - clearly helped convey this positive image.) Also, apparently Kubrick chose Thamesmead not for its dystopian feel but for the clean, crisp lines of its architecture (indeed, at the time of filming, Thamesmead had not yet quite acquired its bad reputation). [Source: municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/9488 - an interesting read, and an excellent site on social housing in the UK more generally.] I can't help thinking that keeping Thamesmead split between two boroughs was a mistake that can't have helped matters, but the perennial errors of inadequate facilities, inadequate upkeep and (woefully) inadequate transport links would no doubt have been made even if Thamesmead had been all in one borough. Still, there is some hope for the future: I get the impression Peabody is quite a good social landlord, and perhaps has more financial means at its disposal than increasingly cash-starved local authorities. Fingers crossed...
I really enjoy these looks at the interface of society & architecture. I grew up in the seventies on what used to be a lovely, peaceful council housing estate in Torbay. It was full of people thankful for their cheap to rent, 1950's council houses. The weekends were shrill to the sound of Flymos as front gardens & hedges were tended. The council who'd built them looked after them along with the residents. All the way up to Right to Buy. It was the big four & five bed traditional houses with huge gardens front and back that went first. These were modernised inside and out until someone had the bright idea of seeking planning permission to build another house in the back garden. Suddenly those huge nature reserve style back gardens of my youth disappeared as housing density doubled. Owners who'd made a packet moved away with what was, in effect, the council's wealth to the big private estates of mock Tudor opulence. I went back a few years ago & something was very different from the 70's. Along with the doubling of housing density by building in the gardens were thousands of cars! What I remember as wide open roads were now torture to drive or walk down because of cars parking not only on the street but on that blight of the front garden culture of well clipped hedges, formal patch of lawn and flower borders... The Car Port! Acres of concrete, gravel & faded, moss ridden, blue corrugated plastic. My old road was unrecognisable. Closed in, enough space (just) to get one car down it. My Dad's front garden was now a car park. I got lost walking from my old house to the estate parade of shops due to footpaths being built over, wild patches left by the council because they were too steep was now huge blocks of flats. Places to dump all the people that should've moved in to the council houses as tennents died or moved away but now were private homes for people "on the housing ladder". The place has been ruined. The "them & us" of council & private residents exacerbated by the capital of what the council had built getting sequestered in to private bank accounts & private home ownership and the lack of funding for our councils. Councils are the true interface of government and the population. The council housing estate I grew up on from 1970 to 1980 worked. It was an almost idyllic place live. That sounds like hyperbole when you look at the mess the tories have made with our council estates. Right to buy and defunding of councils have caused a lot of pain & harm to ordinary working families & especially the disabled & retirees. A British council house used to be a comfy, well maintained home for life with zero stigma! It's the tories wrecking ball fueled by greed & their divide & rule philosophy that ruined this once important asset.
I love going to Thamesmead always feels like an important event. Sad seeing so much of it being torn down, it's a bit of a strange lil utopian project that I admire.
Sadly old tavy Bridge as gone the architecture went well being next to the flyover, what are they going to build cottages next to the flyover,them old buildings should have been heritage buildings all they needed was a jet wash and refurbishment
I've a lot of memories of Thamesmead stage 1, 2 and 3. I moved to Abbey Wood in 1970. Used to play on the undevoloped land toward the river. Joined the Newacres library in '73. It was nice then and felt futuristic. It became run down for some of the reasons you gave. Peter Sellers also made a film here, The Optimist of Nine Elms in '73. I believe much of it has been demolished for a new housing project, may be learning from previous experiences. Anywhere can be nice...it's people that make it nasty.
I watched a new drama movie yesterday called "The Nest" and in a very brief scene, Jude Law's character goes to visit his mom in London and the place she lives looks a lot like Thamesmead as Jude Law is walking towards her apartment. It immediately reminded me of this video, so here I am watching it again for the 5th time.
Thanks Jago. Not only interesting but disturbing, sad and thought-provoking at the same time. How do councils keep making these mistakes and how do we, the voters, keep allowing it? This is bad in the same way that Stonebridge Park and Chalkhill Estates in North London were bad, and also built in the 1960s.
How would voters stop it? It takes ten years to discover the mistake. Then what? You vote them out? Great, now you have a council full of people who've never designed a housing estate before, and they make the same mistakes next time.
Remember it's not the elected councillors who specify and design the estates, it's the permanent council officers and planners/developers. And councillors actually have very little chance to reject a plan when the final version is presented to them for approval - it tends to be too late by then.
I lived in a riverside apartment in the new Barratt homes opposite that place 20 years ago... was really hoping to see a bit of that from across where you were filming as it was just over the roundabout. That estate was quite something to drive past to my apartment every day. I remember being told that our houses were basically built on sewage... Lovely. But the view was nice. And that estate nearby was really something to behold. Shame it's all disappearing. Thanks for the vid.
I learned to kayak on Southmere Lake, the first thing we were told was, "if you capsize and come out of the kayak, don't put your feet down get back in the kayak or swim to the edge". I hate to think what was at the bottom. I also remember fishing the lake as a teenager, so many eels, so much slime...
I led a team replacing the walkway decks in the 80’s along Binsey Walk plus other places. South mead Lake used to be visit by the Police most Mondays. Cars galore used to be dragged out - presumably stolen in the week before then dumped in the lake. I’ve never seen rats as big as there also. At the time we were told a lot of the residents were Vietnamese. They used to drain their rice into the gullies in the middle of the walkways. Take away food for the rats!
It's the only pub I'm come across where the windows and doors were fitted with security grills. The only other place I seen this is Belfast back in the day.
Built on a marsh, with lots of water & lakes around, low rise flats...there are loads of places like this in the Netherlands and they are really nice. But the idea of above-ground walkways with traffic below, and the lack of organisation and lousy execution results in a dystopia.
Sad after it started with such good intentions. Is there something about human nature that reacts against ugly buildings? In the 1980s I stayed in Runcorn New Town on a work secondment. The flats had orange and purple ribbed plastic cladding over concrete, and porthole-shaped windows. Demand was low, so the YMCA had taken several over and I was able to stay in one as a flatshare at rock bottom prices. They were actually comfortable and pleasant inside, but just looked hideous outside and the area felt dubious. I wondered each morning if I would find my car still there or propped up on bricks, though it was an old Austin Maxi and I hadn't realised at that stage that nobody would want to nick it. It too was surprisingly comfortable, spacious and practical, but burnt almost as much oil as petrol.
I visited southmere lake 2 weeks ago for the fields of everywhen project to collect images and get a feel for the area so I could do an embroidery of a Lady's story about her experiences there. I live in west london and have never been to thamesmead before and it was a weird feeling. I felt really emotional about it eventhough I never even heard of it. It felt so peaceful and solemn. I know it's a bit weird but I really felt something different here and it made me think about life differently as well. I spoke to a taxi driver on the way there and he told me a bit about the area which was nice as well. I'm not even 20 yet so I don't really know much but I really looked at it for what it was in that moment and admired it. How the towers melted into the reflection of the lake and the whole vibe was just so sad but peaceful, like someone who had passed away long ago and now all you have is the pictures of them smiling and you see what is in front of you and can't think about what could have been, just what's in front of you.
West Thamesmead is known for being the prettiest side. Hence why it’s harder to get a house to rent on that side 😂. No one moves out and the rent is pricey.
Excellent insight into a social housing project that had high ambitions, and low results. The description of A Clockwork Orange being that you can’t impose a mechanical constraint on an organic object is one of the best descriptions of the underlying message of the film I’ve ever heard! Viddy well oh my friends!
Of course the Come to Daddy music video was famously edited and published from Aphex Twin's house, the stainless steel building on the Elephant and Castle gyratory.
Me and my son went to take pictures, there just before they knocked the best part down by the lake. We found one particular stretch of pathway with probably the most amount of dog poo ever recorded...
nah near me is an unnamed alley, i say unnamed but locally and for as long as i'vee been old enough to be aware of it it's been reffered to as 'Dog' and you wouldnt want to try your luck after dark unless pissed and of diminished judgement 💩
@@alan-sk7ky The place in Thamesmead had signs throughout the pathway warning of fines for not cleaning up after your dog and I swear the Dogs had arranged a dirty protest...
I've just finished my third year architecture essay about the Barbican, exploring why it stands successfully when so many others have failed. was wondering if you would like to read a copy? I found you vids very useful when trying to understand more about the city of london.
I would guess that the location and the "mixed tenure" accounts for the Barbican being sucessful housing... Take eithier of those two away and it would be a dump...
"adopting the yea you know whatever approach to new housing that preferred cars to pedestrians" you just described 98% of American architecture and city planning
"The problem with housing experiments is that by the time you know they have failed, it is too late." Yes, and/but houses needs to be as alive as the people living in them because failure and problems will always occur. We are living in one big housing estate called Earth. We need to actively maintain and protect it. Likewise, any new estates need to empower the residents to benefit from their own semi-tangible investment in the estate. All this requires a level of governance we do not truly have Earth. Hence, the success of any estate is dependent upon being in a bubble that would isolate it from reality. That is to say, reality will always wreck a perfect plan.
If you ever get chance the story of park hill flats Sheffield would be an intresting one for you. They were due to be knocked down but the European Union made them a listed building and now they've been refurbished and completely modernised. Anyway great videos btw
@@danielsellers8707 it's really weird as the people who lived there seemed to. Love it, but as you say no one wanted to. Live there. But it had everything you needed, a school, few shops 3 pubs.
I worked as an apprentice electrician at Thamesmead during construction. I think there was just about every nationality employed there. It looked pristine and modern when new but I returned some years later and most of the nice facilities and features were boarded up or vandalised . Usual sad story I suppose.
Cor, can almost smell the burnt cabbage, smell of bleach and urine just by watching.. to think back in the early 2000's we almost moved to Thamesmeade, was nice and safe in New Cross :)
It’s a rare occasion that a JH video that leaves me feeling somewhat depressed (at the tragic inevitability of it all). Thank you for a tiny glimmer of hope near the end!
ah yes because the best way to fix the issues of the ugly concrete hell hole tower is to flip in on its side and repeat exactly the same things you did vertically but this time horizontally. most advanced. at least they figured out the most important problem of the 21st century. walking up lots of stairs sucks.
In South Vienna there is the 'Alt Erlaa' Social Housing Estate , which has the most satisfied inhabitants, in a city with already one of the best housing quality in Europe! So although estate projects often are troublesom (like the Amsterdam SouthEast Bijlmer neighbourhood) and became dumping grounds , there are succesfull examples. They did it quite different than in Thamesmead. Alt Erlaa consist of 6, 7 dense 23 stories high Flatbuildings with 10k inhabitants. But they added six 25 meter swimming pools on the roofs , indoor pools and sauna's in the basements!! a shopping centre and sport clubs and leisure facilities on ground level. The appartment are open to people with (higher) middle class incomes (60% of viennese live in a 'social housing'). There are several transport links (streetcar, commute train and since the 90s a metro). And the Estate has a 50 person staff to maintain everything. The inhabitants (and also other Viennese) describe it as a village in the city. So it has a lot of social cohesion , something that rarely is seen in high rises ! ( and what cities really need... ) There are considerable costs involved in al this, but it is a very healthy neighbourhood. (The overall costs of crime, deprivation and renovation of Thamesmead and other projects are a lot higher, I reckon.) th-cam.com/video/d6DBKoWbtjE/w-d-xo.html
This was interesting - I accidentally visited Thamesmead while on my way a year or two back to find the Sheerness Pumping Station - the very literal proof that 'steampunk' was real, and used to pump shit out of London. I wasn't looking to find Thamesmead and had never heard of it till I got to the lakeside and though 'blow me - I'm _here_' as I immediately recognised it from Clockwork Orange and Misfits. There was a fair amount of construction in place then - and it didn't so much feel dangerous and run down (I was a bright summer day) as just astonishingly empty and deserted.
Interesting review. What didn't help was that the buildings, designed in the 60s, were poorly thermally insulated and so were difficult and expensive to heat and if you couldn't afford to heat them thoroughly I guess they would then suffer from black mould on the interior surfaces of the cold outside walls. They were originally heated by `District Heating' (a central boiler house) with warm air ducting in each flat (the room warm air grills could be seen in the film `Beautiful Thing' btw). This was later removed and replaced by individual boilers in each flat with radiators. As originally built I believe the windows were single glazed. Again as featured in `Beautiful Thing' the sound insulation between flats wasn't all that either.
That centralised heating was fabulous. My mil came from a freezing 1920's estate to thamemead and it was just lovely to be so warm and to have so much hot water continuously.
The #1 lesson should be "sort out the transit FIRST". If the scheme had included a couple tube stops (or similar-frequency rail) from the start I bet 80% of the other problems would have sorted themselves out. There are similar bits of housing stock that have done OK in zone 2/3 areas because the people who work there have quick access to a whole London-full of jobs/education/etc. Lacking that, Thamesmead sadly fell into a vicious cycle and became an out-of-the-way place few cared much about.
the problem with peabody is theyre dodgy as hell, and overtly complicit in gentrification. especially grisly is how theyve trapped people in shared ownership schemes in which their rent is unaffordable but they cant sell on and move out. i believe peabody will make thamesmead a good place to live. and will then privatise all the housing.
If only there was a way to foresee a development without shops, businesses or transport links would be a failure!
And a concentrated cohort of deprivation
And a lot of exterior institutional grey colour, adding to the deprivation, depressing!
Call Captain Hindsight! :)
@@AFCManUk Good point, he's always 20/20
Steve., but there is such a way - change things from what people like.
Edit for people read mr and mrs joe public not some pretentious dogooder think they know best psychology studies failure with an architect as a best mate with an ego complex.
My uncle Sid used to work there. He was a rear gunner on a milk float.
what ?
He deserves a VC.
@@itsMe_TheHerpes they’re saying the place wasn’t very nice!
Oh, Sid was a lucky fella, 86% of Milk Float casualties were in the front.
🤣🤣🤣 love it
"Nothing ages so quickly as yesterday's vision of the future.” - Richard Nelson Corliss.
Should bald people have rights?
Barbican anyone?
As someone who grew up near Thamesmead in the 80s I never had any idea it was supposed to be a different vision than every other concrete sink estate around it.
Almost all concrete estates were planned to be different fromt he others, this time they'd make it work! Same all over Europe. As long as you didn't go for building a district that was an actual city/town though, because that would be Bad for some reason.
@@GustavSvard they were all a council dumping ground from the start.
@@Dec38105 Not all, but most were in practice that yeah. I know a couple ones in Stockholm were designed to be "like Venice" with cars and pedestrians fully grade separated. Turns out that is a real bad planning idea in practice unless you're in like central Hong Kong. Also: the metro that was to be the transit integrated into these two areas wasn't finished for like 5 years after people started moving in!
I lived on Manor Way in 84 for a year.
That was long enough.
I used to play on the Marshes before Thamesmead was built. The Marshlands alongside the Thames were far from desolate wastelands. There were farms and small cottage industries all along the river. One of my Late Uncles had a pig farm on the marshes. Like most "new towns", the architects dream soon become the residents nightmare.
He might have been a fascist pig... But Mussolini built some new towns that are today attractive and nice places to live...
To be fair, a lot of the dreams just weren't properly implemented. And when things aren't build as designed, they tend to fail. That said, there is a point to being unable to design for an entity as unpredictable as human society. Design requires predictability, and while you can mostly predict us, there's always gonna be problems.
They should have left it how it was. To build anything decent costs a fortune
"Respectable crimes like mortgage fraud" really made me laugh.
Not wrong though :)
I'm reminded of that Todd Snider song: "Lead our children from living these lives of crime that they're living out in these streets, and lure them into lives of crime that take place indoors" (from "A Timeless Response to Current Events").
He may as well be describing what took place in Murica during the housing crisis. Interesting how much alike the US and UK are. Now that the British are no longer Europeans, they should seriously consider becoming the 51st state. They'd have everything they have now plus more....such as the right to go bankrupt if they get cancer and let's not forget automatic guns for everybody. YEEEEEHAAAAA
@@MrSloika Bad as Thamesmead was (by British standards) it was nothing like some housing project in an American inner city. Not even close.
The rest of your post doesn't even make sense.
Britain left the EU - leaving Europe would be geographically impossible.
And I do know what you're talking about, but you're just wrong. There are huge differences between here and the US - the two examples you quote (healthcare and guns) being amongst the biggest.
@@rodjones117 Pruitt-Igoe?
a large part of the problem, i think, was that they half-assed the original construction. they never built the shopping center and the transport links, then they expected the urban utopia to still work? that's like using newspaper to join prefabricated high-rise parts together, then wondering why a gas explosion brought a big chunk of it tumbling down-
... I mean, I'd wonder that too...
How on earth did it stay up long enough for That to be what did it in?
You are absolutely right... The miserable tower block suburbs of Paris wouldn't be so bad if they at least had decent transport links..
That sounds like Ronan Point on the Kier Hardie Estate in Newham......A large chunk of that fell down doe a gas explosion.....poor build quality was to balme!
@@SoiBuakhaoRoutemasterbus That was in fact the joke, well done
I lived near Thamesmede in the 80's, and when I was depressed and wanting to give up my job, would drive through it on my way home just to remind myself, things could be worse.
😆🤣😂
That's so interesting that you'd drive through it as motivation. I'd drive through to compliment my mood, not lift it. If I was really depressed, I'd walk through, probably get shouted at that I was going to get raped, maybe some POS would oblige.
you lived there but some how cant spell it hmmm
@@DJDreadnought In fairness, a persons capacity to spell has little to no bearing on their ability to tell the truth. They also said they lived *near* there and just drove through...
I lived in Thamesmead from around 1971-76 and I always remember it as being a wonderful place to live. We'd moved from a Victorian tenement on Albany Road in Southwark into a bright, brand new and luxurious maisonette on Maran Way in Thamesmead and it was like paradise. No rats, two indoor toilets, no mold, no rubbish, no tramps kipping in our doorway, it was everything our old home wasn't.
The elevated walkways were perfect for us kids, play was safe with no busy traffic to worry about. I could ride my Chopper from one side of the estate to the other without ever going down to ground level. Going into Woolwich for shopping wasn't too difficult as we were fairly well served by busses and there was a little shopping precinct just a short walk from our front door and a large health centre right next to it.
Socially we had something we'd not experienced before, neighbours we could actually talk to and would talk back. We made friends with several of the families on our street (platform? Section?) and I had quite a good circle of friends I used to play with.
I am obviously painting the place with a rosy hue. I suspect we were lucky enough to live there in some kind of golden age for the estate. It was new and the rot hadn't yet set in. I was devastated when we moved in '76, to Peckham of all places. I'm not saying it didn't have its rough elements, it did even then, but when I was there the experiment was working. At least for me.
I think it’s important to hear the positive side of thamesmead. In this country anything new and experimental tends to get viewed negatively
@@Leonards-leopard I think you're right, the Thamesmead experiment was going very well when I was there and, from what I gathered, the dumping of undesirable elements into the estate were what "did it in." Maybe they should've kept that vetting system going.
Another feature I'd forgotten to mention is how much nature we had around us. We could go to the lakes and go stickleback fish with nets and jars. There were many local footpath that went through some quite rural places in the surrounding area and in the autumn we'd go picking blackberries and come back with a bowl full. Also some farms were still working just outside the estate limits. You could walk out there and see horses and goats and other farm yard animals.
You can see the appeal of such a place to a kid who's previous home was a slum.
@@Leonards-leopard Did you ever live there, or even go there? Thought not.
@@midnightmosesuk I think you have a point there. The fact that 1970s housing projects decline into social ghettos is often blamed on the architecture, when the real reason is that mostly poor people move there and the middle and upper classes avoid them for whatever reason.
I’m in the north east and I’ve got a few towns built near me with similar thinking.For a while during the 80s when the north east closed for business they seemed grim soulless places but now they seem to have settled down to something very like their original vision.They seem to work pretty well
As a Telecommunications Technician I hate these places , no maintenance black holes . No one knows where anything is, no plans or maps and no one passes on to the next guy what they found doesnt work . Plus cannot get close enough to unload heavy tools and ladders . Wiring set deep into the wall inaccessible to find or replace
Even with a condo association though, and all private residents- ALL of those things hold true. I live in a cooperative type building that is from the 60s, and literally everything you mentioned there, every one of those things. The association is run by volunteer residents who run for the positions, and everything is word of mouth- no notes are kept, we have building plans (they're 58 years old) but nobody understands them...
As a what?
Whatever happened to telephone engineers?
@@jimtuite3451 No idea . When you find them let me know . My role was Telecommunications Technician . Supplying and repairing . Engineers would be assessing Telecom science standards and codes before fit out or design
@@jimtuite3451 As someone who spent far too much time in the industry, as with washing machine, gas engineer etc we were in the main not engineers, most were not members of the institute or suitably qualified to use a professional title.
The dreaded place when I was first working subs apps was the University for all the reasons you mention. One guy ended up there almost permanently because the longer he spent the more of the esoteric knowledge of the place he had. Poor guy had a complete breakdown in the end.
Ah yes. Another area of outstanding natural concrete.
Quotable.
You are on the Money, Sir!
😸
😂😂
Brilliant!
I lived there for 15 years and my late husband was a lifelong resident who was heavily involved with Radio Thamesmead. It certainly does have a reputation but also wasn’t a bad place to live. Sometimes reputations are exaggerated and self fulfilling.
I remember the housing woman in the housing offices saying to me and the missus "don't go near the p-word as they are expletive expletive" meaning the travelling folk in their little camp next to offices and I was drinking with 'em the next day in the pub opposite and their head chap blessed my newborn daughter, I said to the travellers what the woman had said in the office and heard she got the tin tack over that. I was a regular in the old social club esp as was one of the few places that sold Woods 100 57% navy rum and I do remember going through a couple of them esp the night me daughter was born.
I lived across the street from the travelers. Beyond them letting their horses graze on the grass in front of the flats, they were no different than anybody else living in that area.
.....but other times, as in the case of Thamesmead, they’re fully deserved....
Maybe you think it was not “a bad place to live” because it’s the best you’ve known, but that doesn’t mean it was good place.
No shops, very little transportation, no underground stations, no jobs and a criminals Paradise. Sounds fucking shite love. That’s coming from someone who left Bromley by Bow in 1969.
@@JulieWallis1963 i wasn’t born or raised there but did spend a decade and a half living across from
Tavvy Bridge. I’ve lived in multiple places, including my current location of Los Angeles. Believe me, I know Thamesmead has problems but it’s more that it is not as bad as can be made out.
Also, there is a ton of public transport compared to many other places. I’d have loved it to have the underground but it has numerous bus routes and Abbey Wood station which has undergone a huge renovation.
There is now a huge super store supermarket right next to that station and Thamesmead Town Centre (such that it is) has a bunch of shops. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no Greenwich or even Bexleyheath but it also is not Clockwork Orange.
I have lived in Thamesmead for 36 years and though it has its faults, since Peabody took over things have improved enormously. Yes there are a few problem families but in my area it is generally quiet and peaceful. My biggest complaint is the poor transport, rail is the only way of commuting into the city and the service could be better. Hopefully when Cross Rail opens sometime in this century, this will help.
Thamesmead was that rough, even the pigeons flew over it upside down.
And the tom cats went round in pairs, each with one eye closed.
😆
Best giggle I've had all day..
“Not just a place to live, but a community” is a far better philosophy than what seems to drive development today: “not just a place to live, but something to make money off of.” Even if it fails, at least the intent is there...
Now, we just plonk down a ton of houses. There's no community but at least there are no concrete walkways and dangerous enclosed spaces.
I've lived here since 1980. And what you have said is correct , we were dumped here and forgotten about. Funny to see my childhood home on TH-cam.
And then people wonder why huge chunks of London feel no community spirit or investment in their area.
yep that's how i'd put it, ain't shit here
@@Redrally UK*
I grow up in Thamesmead, living there from 1971 to 1994 and my Mum still does. I had a great childhood and never felt unsafe. We could walk to the shops and play in the playground at Tavy Bridge without ever having to cross a road. We would never be indoors during school holidays. I think the change happened when they stopped vetting new residents and a lot of original families moved away. The building materials & lack of maintenance where another issue and I was so sad to see the state it became.
I grew up in Woolwich and Thamesmead was seen as a bit of a no go zone for outsiders with the 80s being the low point when gangs really took over, trading guns between the 'stages' and the like. The Marina building constantly closing and reopening as ever increasingly rough bars and clubs. In many respects the reputation was probably worse than reality, but as I did when I'd fish on the lake as a young teenager you would keep your head down, keep your wits about you and hope to get out alive. It was rough, it was grim, but I always strangely liked it and the architecture, but like other people's babies, the best part is you can hand them back
you have a very nice writing style, sir
Growing up in Erith, it was always reconsidered rough. That's coming from somewhere that is rough!
Yes, my Parent's first home was on the Larner Road Estate and we'd think twice about going to Thamesmead!
When I was growing up my Nan lived in Barnehurst and we'd go to Erith for the market. My Nan would blanche at the thought of setting foot in Thamesmead though.
At the time I lived in New Cross but overslept my stop and ended up in Erith. Not knowing london that well on foot, i decided to follow the route back to New Cross via Thamesmeade - talk about running the gauntlet.. still made it into work ok :D
Erith isn't twinned with anywhere, but it's in a suicide pact with Dagenham, as they used to say.
@@rodjones117 I believe that wonderful one-liner (one of many) was from the late Linda Smith (who was from Erith).
If they're building private apartment blocks, the place will be full of Princesses and Maestros. Not a Marina in site
When did you last see a Marina, Maestro, or Princess?
A comprehensive and damning indictment of modernism and town planning in less than ten minutes. A bravura performance and without a raised voice. Thank you!
Hi pmichael73 My father was a boy soldier during the second attempt to stop the Prussians Landed up in the Royal Engineers That taught him a trade of BUILDING things like many at the end of a conflict were loved ones had Died he wanted to have a better future for his children(not sure if you're a Parent)As a young married man He managed through hard work to become a(Greater London Council)surveyor The whole Country was on the cusp on a future that wasn't death and destruction So NO Michael modernism wasn't the problem People are
I don't entirely agree, +pmichael73. I mean, yes, there certainly is some deserved criticism of the building style, but what doomed it was that they build what they promised. You have to build for living, not just for housing. You can build the most gorgeous suburb, it's going to ruins if people can't live there, and for living, you need more than a house, you need transportation, education, work, leisure...
Entire eastern block cities are built with this concept, and for all the hate they get architecturally, they are not as horrible to live in as you might think, even if the flats lack insulation, have crazy things like windows from one apartment into another, etc, because a tram line was build simultaneously with the flats, shops, kindergartens, schools, workshops... were built next to it, or often even within the same block... These are some of the more sought after areas to live in in Berlin, Prague, etc...
@@barvdw @bryan smith British domestic architecture is among the worst in Europe. Planners and builders are as much responsible as the councils and governments who cut the funding. New "starter homes" for upwards of £200k have no distinguishing features, no basements, no usable lofts, no closets, insufficient parking, (often no garages) no place to expand, and not enough space for separate recycling bins in kitchens. (Planners and architects have not learned that apart from bottles and cardboard, people will not sort rubbish outside their homes.) Families have to keep moving and live with perpetual mortgages, and communities fail to grow because of this endless need to move.
Actually, ,my original comment was a simple praise of Jago's concise narrative and did not express an endorsement of his ideas.
@@pmichael73 again, that's pretty much the standard in many countries, I bet you'd call the average housing size in say the Netherlands as miniscule too (not just in the Randstad region). And many are absolutely boring architecture. Yet people still want to live there... Because they aren't isolated islands in the middle of nowhere, without local amenities. Bus lines, cycle lanes, sometimes even stations are often opened before the first people move in, schools and businesses are built at the same time, etc.
I was just starting to feel a little twinkle of optimism about something. This video has restored the bleak sense of an unending, descending spiral of hopeless and despair that I was missing. Thanks, Jago!
I do my best!
There is, I find, a sort of beautiful desolation in London, and in British urban planning in general. It's unsettling and curious and haunting, and yet strangely attractive at the same time. It's just utterly morbidly fascinating. Thank you for your work in documenting it, Mr. Hazzard.
Beautiful desolation? Surely two self-contradictory terms. Thamesmead is hideous. But then again, so too is much of the recent development in East London centred around the old docklands. I’d call it inhuman, indeed anti-human. Not beautiful in any way, imho of course.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 it's an oxymoron to be sure, but that doesn't make it less real. If you ever visit old ruins, or a desert, or places of urban decay there is a sort of beauty to them. Look at images from Chernobyl, there's a mysterious charm to them. You're more liable to feel it if you're an introverted type of person, where the loneliness of such places has an allure of its own, the sense of stillness. It's entirely subjective and completely individual of course, but it is real.
@@xmlthegreat - I agree, desolation can be beautiful. That is how Wordsworth (I think it was him) saw the Lake District, perhaps starting the great British appreciation of the countryside, especially the bleaker parts of it. But the stark desolation of Thamesmead is quite unnatural, as in not part of nature, and to me the antithesis of beauty.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 like I said, it's not about natural beauty but about loneliness in places that should be inherently bustling with life. The english countryside is not desolate, it is natural beauty and is teeming with natural life. It is not silent or lonely.
For another example of the beauty of abandoned places, look at the scenes in Blade Runner where the puppeteer is shown living in an abandoned building, or the scenes in Blade Runner 2049 that take place in the desert where Ryan Gosling meets Harrison Ford. That is desolation. Even the bleakest north sea islands feel alive compared to some places. Thamesmead feels like urban decay and there is some kind of attraction that that aesthetic holds. You'll see it in Soviet cityscapes as well, or places in the former Soviet Union. A sort of vast emptiness. That's what I meant here.
What about it is specifically and uniquely British? How does the urban planning of other countries differ?
Bristol had a similar project in the city centre. Each block was to be linked with walkways, cobwebbed over the cities roads. It was scrapped pretty quickly, but until a few years ago some of these walkways were still up. You can see some clues of their existence if you know what to look for.
That phrase "Built from modern materials" always rings alarm bells.
I would love to know why they never built the shopping centre back in the day, with so many people to be living in the area there would have been a ready-made customer base for at least a basic shopping centre...
The tenants were either low income or completely unemployed. No money to be made around there.
This is an ongoing problem. Developers promise all manner of social assets to get their planning consent. Once they've broken ground they can do anything you can't stop them doing. Local developments in rural areas will promise health and community centers, skate parks and even libraries. If they ever get built, you've been lucky..
Ta.
@@Peasmouldia There seems to be a raft of recent developments that don't even have footpaths, which is so bizarre. Not even enough space to put your bins out.
@@Peasmouldia Maybe its time to change planning laws to penalize (fines and other penalties) developers who promise to build things like retail and services and such and then don't actually build what they promised to build.
Developers seem to have carte blanche to do whatever they want as soon as planning permission has been granted. Local Councils are either powerless or clueless when it comes to enforcing the provision of community benefits pledged by the developers.
My father was a town planner in this era (not responsible for Thamesmede, thankfully!)…
It's interesting contrasting stories like these to what happened last century with the expansion of the tube lines out of London, with new suburbs springing up everywhere. It really shows the importance of getting your transport links sorted (and we can be eternally grateful that the housebuilders of the 1930s didn't have access to cheap concrete).
As the proverb goes, "Want to be rich? Build a road first."
Agreeable living in Metroland. Ribbon development.
Indeed, though much of Zone 2/4 expanded with the arrival of the tram system. That Thamesmead missed out was indeed as marshland and flooding and a much wider thames changed how the locality felt.
He kept his word!!! I've been waiting for this one for a good time coming, thank you Jago
Are you the culprit who requested this depressing video?
@@Rog5446 perhaps, what if I have?
Jago: "Even a Marina"
Me: "What, a Morris Marina?"
They can kip in the back of that!
I knew some people who were watersports instructors on the 'marina'. For all the jokes it was one of the few things about Thamesmead that worked. Until the council pulled the funding of course.
@Ross Bourne A Morris never sounded so good.
Never thought I’d hear Jago talk about Aphex Twin
I just watched A Clockwork Orange last night, the algorithm is working overtime.
I was writing about A Clockwork Orange last night and here I am.
@A. Fox I quite like the colour orange and was lamenting then lack of clock in work today. Eerie
I have an urge to jump in my car and drive there for a look see, but sadly I sold my car this evening, missing it already! I used to live in West Norwood where Kubrick shot another scene from CO.
@@Ichioku ULEZ bollocks, I gotta get rid of mine too. 🤬
Jago the film "Beautiful Thing" made in 1995 was shot almost entirely on the estate. There was the 180 bus route towards Greenwich and Lewisham.
Good film.
I live in Lewisham and don't mind the odd bus journey and a Thames walk but just does not appeal at all. Let's hope that changes.
The local bar was a real gay bar, the Gloucester, in Greenwich. Times move on and it's no longer a gay venue. It's now the Greenwich Tavern, 1 King William Walk, SE10.
@@Martindyna The paper shop where Jamie stole the magazine is a two minute walk from that bar. The 180 bus went the wrong way up a one way street when the lead characters got off.
That was a delightful film
The 180 no longer goes to Lewisham anymore. It stops at North Greenwich.
I really like the thumbnail. The font that you used really adds to it.
I have had two near death experiences. One a documented cliff fall in Dorset. The other a telly whizzing past my head whilst walking under one of Thamesmead's walk ways. Only one still gives me nightmares.
Another gem from Jago. The irony is the private sector has enough capital to do the rest if govt. took its infrastructure responsibilities seriously. Govt needs to get serious, extend tube, rail, tram lines to unfancied areas and get development going
Father bought a new house in Thamesmead 1976 near a canal. Went to a new primary school called Jubilee. Missed the open spaces, lake, where people used to fish but not much else, very much a concrete jungle in places. Moved out in 1987, glad to 😕
Went to Jubilee also! Though mid-90s/2000s. Got a commemorative coin with the school crest on the tails side for the Queen’s golden Jubilee. Moved away the same year.
It looks like the main issue here was, what had been the issue with so many of these projects. On paper, it all looked great and tbh, I hardly see anything wrong with the initial plan. But you have to launch the project completly. They started to move people into finished parts. Problems came up because there was still a lot of infrastructure missing. And we all know: problems mean that fundings get cut. So huge parts of what was planned never got built because there were problems with the parts that already existed.
The concrete walkways are a huge problem with the initial plan. Any time you force people into confined spaces with no sight-lines and no escapes, you've just built a mugger's paradise.
Mr hindsight
It's amazes me that no one at the time looked at a Concrete design and said who would want to live in the same material they make Multi-Storey Car Parks out of there. 5 mins in it's presence is enough to bring your mood down.
Splendid stuff, Jago. As a town planner, I’d like to apologise for the past and I only wish that the planning system wasn’t so geared up to the developer so that all the ‘nice’ things - schools, doctor surgeries, parks, shops etc are always shaved off developments!
But it is - corrupt is the word. Thanks for the apology, not really accepted, because look where it landed us.
I had a cousin who lived in Thamesmead up until quite recently (though they might still live there), though they've often said it's a rough area.
It does seem like council estates built from the 1960s onwards have ended up being dumping grounds for problem tenants, I grew up on an estate that was built in the 1950s and clearly designed to be more spacious and a huge step-up from the Victorian era terrace houses.
Thamesmead is rough, not super rough like some other places in London, but it’s not the nicest.
I once stayed at my cousin's place for a week in Thames mead. His place was very small, but the one thing I really didn't like was there was a terrible smell in the area. I was told it came from the sewage system. I'm not sure if being near, or built on The Marsh had something to do with it. The air almost felt unbreathable and was very unpleasant.
We moved into Thamesmead about fourteen years ago. Although it had a reputation as a rough place, we have NEVER seen any problems! We are in the Limestone Walk area (so walking distance to Abbey Wood Station). The Jubilee Line or DLR
WOULD have been of massive benefit to Thamesmead. Crossrail will fill the that gap WHEN it opens. Thamesmead sadly didn't get the 50th celebrations we should have had last year for obvious reasons. On the whole not a bad place to live!
If you look at what is happening over a Kidbrooke and other ex-council and new build (Colindale/Hendon) I think you can see the difference / no real difference.
The video seems to have been centering mostly around Southmere Lake (Tavy Bridge, Binsey Walk, Coralline Walk and their immediate surroundings), I don't think that that's fully representative of the rest of Thamesmead. Yet, in all fairness, it is exactly what people see in their minds when they think about Thamesmead.
That's really good to hear.
Like all places, you get your good and bad areas. I have worked on the thamesmead estate for the last three decades and it’s not the easiest on the eye . I used to pop in the dashwood club in the estate and the locals used to be some of the nicest people you could meet.
Would you recommend people to move to Thamesmead now?
It is not cheap anyway.
I tip my cap at the The Tripcock Ness Monster gag, comedy gold right there sir.
Been a Subscriber since around 600 subs and all I can say is wow. Just wow. The quality, detail, research and information in your videos just keeps getting better.
Despite being more of a fan of your Tube/Rail videos, I can safely say that the standard of your property and architecture content is easily better than most people who produce these things for professional purposes, and I say that as someone who works on the property and development industry.
Excellent stuff.
In fairness, ‘Beautiful Thing’ did manage to imbue the location with some romance! The hot summer of 1995 was almost certainly a factor. I see the residents have adopted an Alexandra & Ainsworth feel with the now ubiquitous reclaimed flower troughs.
Some romance indeed, but even there the neglect was quite noticeable. The actors got to 'swim' in an E. coli infested South Mere for example... (in all fairness, they were only told afterwards I believe, so it can't have been all that bad then, right?)
@@UrvonDiviner Yes, little wonder Sandra was so keen to take on the tenancy of the pub in Rotherhithe!
Can you do a video of Kidbrooke? From Brutalist Achitecture to modern glass faced buildings and green parks.
A doctor buries his mistakes. An architect [or town planner] can just grow vines on them.
How about a video on the Ferrier estate now Kidbrooke village (overpriced shoe box flats and houses)!
Yet another misuse of the word "village"!
Indeed! £650,000 for a 1 bed shoe box. Criminal! Sorry to put a downer on another great video.
Sutcliffe slopes you mean ool
That would be tough to film. It's long gone
@@superadventure6297 true!
When I was a kid, my brother lived in the flats. Everywhere stunk of the processed human turds at the sewage plant.
Remember it being a kinda nice day out with my parents and I once won a toy dog at a pub raffle. I even liked the sci-fi elevated walkways.
I agree about the smell, it was terrible.
I went to university in Colchester. Also built in the 60s and the result is not dissimilar. The problem, I think, is that when you impose a new town, it never really works because its forced. There will be shops here (or not), there will be a pub there etc and so on and so forth. Towns dont evolve like that. Towns form on the top of hill for defence or by a shallow part of a river where people will cross or a narrow part where you can build a bridge. Makes sense to set up shop there because you will have lots of customers. . They evolve from necessity. Fundamentally, a new town is anti-Darwinian.
That's all well and good, but when you have a major housing crisis (as was the case for two or three decades after the Second World War), homes have to be built. In such circumstances, you can't really wait for natural evolution - hence the new towns, expanded towns and new estates that were developed in large numbers between the late 1940s and the 1970s.
Many are much derided now, but not all were failures by any means. New satellite estates undoubtedly fared worse than the new towns, which at least benefited from better facilities (such as proper town and neighbourhood centres) and, for a while at least, a real employment base that enabled people to both live and work within the new towns.
The problem with Thamesmead is that it wasn't developed in the same way as the government-designated new towns were, and was essentially a housing estate that offered precious little else than housing, with atrocious transport links to the rest of London to boot. When you add in a lack of maintenance to that mix, it's hardly surprising it declined so quickly.
@@nuneatonolly Satellite estates: Yes, I was brought up on two such in Oxfordshire. But that was the evolution of the town. One was built, initially exclusively, for a new industry that was formed on the edge of the town. But that was evolution. The town centre shops expanded. The town centre evolved as more people used it.. Thats really what I'm getting at. Whereas, there are all sorts of reasons why Milton Keynes, Crawley, Glenrothes to name a few were "difficult" towns but chief among the reasons for that is that they were imposed rather than evolving from what was there already.
@@roderickmain9697 Thanks for your response! Without meaning to cherrypick, one of the examples you cite is poorly chosen: Milton Keynes. It's actually a pretty successful town! Yes, it has been the butt of no end of jokes (almost without exception made by outsiders), but it's a town that is still growing today, and one whose residents are generally very happy to live there. It looks a bit weird and might feel soulless to some, but it was in reality quite well designed. The key criticism I would make is that its design is far too car-oriented (and not conducive to efficient public transport), but it does have an excellent system for getting about by bike or on foot (the Redways), and decent neighbourhood facilities mean that access to Central Milton Keynes is not perhaps as essential as in other towns anyway.
A number of other new towns, while maybe not the prettiest places, have also proven fairly successful (e.g. Basildon, Bracknell, Redditch, Telford, Crawley), despite being "imposed" by the government, so I'm not sure your evolution argument holds. (Conversely, others have clearly not been a success, but these are often cases where the town in question was reliant on one or two major industries or companies that subseqently went to the wall.) And, as I've commented elsewhere here, planned cities like Brasília and Washington, DC, are hardly considered failures - but then, as national capitals, they were assured the funding and facilities necessary for any settlement to thrive.
@@nuneatonolly Milton Keynes, bless it, (30 years ago I had g/f who lived there) was used a an example of why places like that did not work as well as other towns. It was genuine study. Their conclusion was (and it wanst exclusive to Milton Keynes) that people moved there without family. If/when there were issues, with relationships, work , whatever, there was no one to go to, no family, no social support network of friends (as no one knew anyone else) so it meant the suicide rate was about 4 times higher than elsewhere in the country. These days, I would surmise that those sorts of things have slowly disappeared and its now evolving like a "normal town".
Now if I had my academic time again this might be a topic I could spend lots of time with.
In the case of Thamesmead, it was never properly completed so it was even further handicapped.
@@roderickmain9697 Yes, absolutely! This point is key, I think: in MK, the planners' vision was largely able to be realised (thanks no doubt to the resources that come with a new town development corporation), whereas so much of what was planned for Thamesmead never happened.
It's a shame and a pity that well intended projects get wasted so often (I can mention similar projects here in the Netherlands). Interesting to hear about the "Clockwork Orange" bit. Designers/planners need to be able to take a step back and ask themselves "What problems did I forget and what can go wrong?“ Instead it's often a matter of ego, overconfidence and arrogance that prevents designers/planners from doubts about their own proposals.
I'm not sure I agree with that.
The buildings without much in the way of decorations sure look bleak, but if you look carefully you can see how spots were reserved for greenery and humanity. It's the dropping in of problem tenants from elsewhere that's a really large part of the problem - along with the lack of finishing some important details such as transport and shopping that _were in the plans_.
Although I'll grant you, those stairwells do look cozy and closed off - no wonder people with no other options chose to lie there.
Clockwork orange was just a film it's hyperthetical to thamesmead i live here and I've never witnessed idiot's wearing bowler hats 👒
I used to live here, 2017>2020 -- it was like living in a spread-out sleepy village, that was undergoing a serious makeover.
Its a nice place for a quite walk around the lakes.
I NEVER saw any crime gangs etc, or cops - just workmen knocking old stuff down.
the old 70s footage reminds me of "confessions of a ...." films with Robin Askwith.
Keep typing George, keep digging. :-)
@@steve0592 those were great comedies and gave opportunities to many aspiring actresses who later found film or TV success.
What a bleak picture you paint of the place I called home from the age of five to my early 20s. I moved there in 72 and experienced none of the misery and depressive environment you describe. Moving on as I grew up into other areas of London - Greenwich, Tooting, Woolwich and also Wimbledon, I was astonished how uncomfortable and poorly designed the housing was. I never felt safe in those other areas but in Thamesmead I did. From my perspective, this video feels like pure snobbery.
Thamesmead - Concrete Town
An excellent comment.
Planners where I live built hundreds of rabbit hutches (starting in 2013) and part of the approval included the fact they would build a supermarket. Permission was granted and all but the supermarket block was constructed... Then came the "we want to change our minds and put housing there..." revision - which was approved.
So the residents of nearly a thousand flats who bought them thinking the shop was handy now had to go over a mile to the nearest Tesco, which closed down in 2016, because there was another Tesco nearby - only two miles each way for the new development...
Misfits was also filmed here, I think it really gave the show a bleak, unnerving feel, I went through there the other day to get to a friends and realised they may have made the setting look more upbeat and vibrant in the show
I grew up in Thamesmead in the 80's and 90's and my parents still live there along with many of the same neighbours. Yes it is more known for it's concrete blocks but there are some amazing houses along crossways (right at the boiler house) which no-one ever talks about. I loved living there and had a great childhood. It's always had a bad reputation but it doesn't live up to it.
You write and present these videos so well. It’s a pleasure to watch
When I left school in 1967 I worked for GLC at County Hall in the Highways Dept. where the Thamesmead Spine Road was in the planning stages. I did not know about the proposed town and this video has filled in a lot of information for me. Many thanks.
Ahh the spine road - a great place for speeding back in the day.
I've never been to Thamesmede but I think I've had a nightmare set there.
A place I'd heard about from time to time since the 90s but never been to.
You’ve not missed anything. Hideous place fit only for aliens from another planet.
I've visited a few times in the nineties and noughties. A local resident we knew always warned us to never visit alone though. And to stay on the upper level.
We were also warned not to interact with the locals as not all of them would be equally accepting of outsiders walking around on the estate. To be fair I never noticed anything untoward, although the lower level did give me the creeps.
@@UrvonDiviner - Used to work there in the 90s. Right in the heart of it. Never felt especially at risk there, perhaps because I was there in the daytime and the inmates only started to get out of bed just as I was heading home.
There was a concrete walkway/bridge that used to go from the south of the estate to the north. I used to think that you would have to be very brave to walk along that late at night.
The bit in "A Clockwork Orange" where Malcom is in hospital was filmed in Harlow (Princess Alexandra Hospital, to be precise). Kubrick's location planner knew a dump when he saw one!
Thamesmead did get a boost
(at least in my eyes)
from the play "Beautiful Thing" by Jonathan Harvey
which in the theatrical production I saw is just a background
in the film release
I think they got Thamesmead in the two weeks that
concrete looks good - sunny warm weather
It certainly isn't the hellscape suggested.
Two things that interest me in failed housing projects
1) failure to plan for maintenance - the ongoing costs
2) connecting the places with other places
Both of these factors are present in Thamesmead
The later was mostly when the car was king
so public transport / bicycles / pedestrians
took a backseat to the car.
Oddly enough Thamesmead (at least the part around SouthMere Lake) was nothing like you could see in Beautiful Thing. So much was done to make the place presentable, if they would have done that to the entire estate people probably would actually have enjoyed living there...
I was going to make this exact point about Beautiful Thing: contrary to what @Jago Hazzard suggests in the video, this particular film *didn't* depict Thamesmead as a nightmare location. If anything, it showed the kind of community spirit (along with its attendant disadvantages, i.e. everyone knows everyone else's business) that the planners clearly intended to foster, and which possibly did exist briefly, but which quickly died out.
(And yes, the good weather - with the kids playing in the water, people enjoying drinks on the pedestrian decks above, etc. - clearly helped convey this positive image.)
Also, apparently Kubrick chose Thamesmead not for its dystopian feel but for the clean, crisp lines of its architecture (indeed, at the time of filming, Thamesmead had not yet quite acquired its bad reputation). [Source: municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/9488 - an interesting read, and an excellent site on social housing in the UK more generally.]
I can't help thinking that keeping Thamesmead split between two boroughs was a mistake that can't have helped matters, but the perennial errors of inadequate facilities, inadequate upkeep and (woefully) inadequate transport links would no doubt have been made even if Thamesmead had been all in one borough.
Still, there is some hope for the future: I get the impression Peabody is quite a good social landlord, and perhaps has more financial means at its disposal than increasingly cash-starved local authorities. Fingers crossed...
I really enjoy these looks at the interface of society & architecture. I grew up in the seventies on what used to be a lovely, peaceful council housing estate in Torbay.
It was full of people thankful for their cheap to rent, 1950's council houses. The weekends were shrill to the sound of Flymos as front gardens & hedges were tended. The council who'd built them looked after them along with the residents. All the way up to Right to Buy.
It was the big four & five bed traditional houses with huge gardens front and back that went first. These were modernised inside and out until someone had the bright idea of seeking planning permission to build another house in the back garden.
Suddenly those huge nature reserve style back gardens of my youth disappeared as housing density doubled. Owners who'd made a packet moved away with what was, in effect, the council's wealth to the big private estates of mock Tudor opulence.
I went back a few years ago & something was very different from the 70's. Along with the doubling of housing density by building in the gardens were thousands of cars!
What I remember as wide open roads were now torture to drive or walk down because of cars parking not only on the street but on that blight of the front garden culture of well clipped hedges, formal patch of lawn and flower borders... The Car Port!
Acres of concrete, gravel & faded, moss ridden, blue corrugated plastic.
My old road was unrecognisable. Closed in, enough space (just) to get one car down it. My Dad's front garden was now a car park. I got lost walking from my old house to the estate parade of shops due to footpaths being built over, wild patches left by the council because they were too steep was now huge blocks of flats. Places to dump all the people that should've moved in to the council houses as tennents died or moved away but now were private homes for people "on the housing ladder".
The place has been ruined. The "them & us" of council & private residents exacerbated by the capital of what the council had built getting sequestered in to private bank accounts & private home ownership and the lack of funding for our councils.
Councils are the true interface of government and the population. The council housing estate I grew up on from 1970 to 1980 worked. It was an almost idyllic place live. That sounds like hyperbole when you look at the mess the tories have made with our council estates. Right to buy and defunding of councils have caused a lot of pain & harm to ordinary working families & especially the disabled & retirees.
A British council house used to be a comfy, well maintained home for life with zero stigma!
It's the tories wrecking ball fueled by greed & their divide & rule philosophy that ruined this once important asset.
I love going to Thamesmead always feels like an important event. Sad seeing so much of it being torn down, it's a bit of a strange lil utopian project that I admire.
Sadly old tavy Bridge as gone the architecture went well being next to the flyover, what are they going to build cottages next to the flyover,them old buildings should have been heritage buildings all they needed was a jet wash and refurbishment
I've a lot of memories of Thamesmead stage 1, 2 and 3. I moved to Abbey Wood in 1970. Used to play on the undevoloped land toward the river. Joined the Newacres library in '73. It was nice then and felt futuristic.
It became run down for some of the reasons you gave. Peter Sellers also made a film here, The Optimist of Nine Elms in '73. I believe much of it has been demolished for a new housing project, may be learning from previous experiences. Anywhere can be nice...it's people that make it nasty.
'Planned community'? Wouldn't that be like 'organised spontaneity'?
No, because "community" is just a buzzword for "place where people live."
8:10 "The problem with housing experiments is that by the time you know they failed it's to late."
Words of truth, indeed!
I was unlucky enough to have a (divorced) Dad who I would visit at weekends there - it was truly diabolical :(
I watched a new drama movie yesterday called "The Nest" and in a very brief scene, Jude Law's character goes to visit his mom in London and the place she lives looks a lot like Thamesmead as Jude Law is walking towards her apartment. It immediately reminded me of this video, so here I am watching it again for the 5th time.
Thanks Jago. Not only interesting but disturbing, sad and thought-provoking at the same time. How do councils keep making these mistakes and how do we, the voters, keep allowing it? This is bad in the same way that Stonebridge Park and Chalkhill Estates in North London were bad, and also built in the 1960s.
Dont forget Graham Park and Dollis Valley. Although to be fair The Valley has been modernised.
How would voters stop it? It takes ten years to discover the mistake. Then what? You vote them out? Great, now you have a council full of people who've never designed a housing estate before, and they make the same mistakes next time.
@@nemo6686 you can only vote for who is on the card and if they are all egotists then what?
@@nemo6686 What does egotism have to do with it? Why is it more important than party platform?
Remember it's not the elected councillors who specify and design the estates, it's the permanent council officers and planners/developers. And councillors actually have very little chance to reject a plan when the final version is presented to them for approval - it tends to be too late by then.
I lived in a riverside apartment in the new Barratt homes opposite that place 20 years ago... was really hoping to see a bit of that from across where you were filming as it was just over the roundabout. That estate was quite something to drive past to my apartment every day. I remember being told that our houses were basically built on sewage... Lovely. But the view was nice. And that estate nearby was really something to behold. Shame it's all disappearing. Thanks for the vid.
Have a wander round some of the housing developments that have gone up on green field sites in rural areas.
"Be seeing you".....
Thanks JH.
I learned to kayak on Southmere Lake, the first thing we were told was, "if you capsize and come out of the kayak, don't put your feet down get back in the kayak or swim to the edge". I hate to think what was at the bottom. I also remember fishing the lake as a teenager, so many eels, so much slime...
I led a team replacing the walkway decks in the 80’s along Binsey Walk plus other places. South mead Lake used to be visit by the Police most Mondays. Cars galore used to be dragged out - presumably stolen in the week before then dumped in the lake.
I’ve never seen rats as big as there also. At the time we were told a lot of the residents were Vietnamese. They used to drain their rice into the gullies in the middle of the walkways. Take away food for the rats!
@@rogernorman200 theres a 360 digger in the middle of the lake
Only in Thamsmead could the first pub to be built get called 'The Barge Pole"......
It's the only pub I'm come across where the windows and doors were fitted with security grills. The only other place I seen this is Belfast back in the day.
Built on a marsh, with lots of water & lakes around, low rise flats...there are loads of places like this in the Netherlands and they are really nice. But the idea of above-ground walkways with traffic below, and the lack of organisation and lousy execution results in a dystopia.
Sad after it started with such good intentions. Is there something about human nature that reacts against ugly buildings? In the 1980s I stayed in Runcorn New Town on a work secondment. The flats had orange and purple ribbed plastic cladding over concrete, and porthole-shaped windows. Demand was low, so the YMCA had taken several over and I was able to stay in one as a flatshare at rock bottom prices. They were actually comfortable and pleasant inside, but just looked hideous outside and the area felt dubious. I wondered each morning if I would find my car still there or propped up on bricks, though it was an old Austin Maxi and I hadn't realised at that stage that nobody would want to nick it. It too was surprisingly comfortable, spacious and practical, but burnt almost as much oil as petrol.
I visited southmere lake 2 weeks ago for the fields of everywhen project to collect images and get a feel for the area so I could do an embroidery of a Lady's story about her experiences there. I live in west london and have never been to thamesmead before and it was a weird feeling. I felt really emotional about it eventhough I never even heard of it.
It felt so peaceful and solemn. I know it's a bit weird but I really felt something different here and it made me think about life differently as well. I spoke to a taxi driver on the way there and he told me a bit about the area which was nice as well. I'm not even 20 yet so I don't really know much but I really looked at it for what it was in that moment and admired it. How the towers melted into the reflection of the lake and the whole vibe was just so sad but peaceful, like someone who had passed away long ago and now all you have is the pictures of them smiling and you see what is in front of you and can't think about what could have been, just what's in front of you.
The western tip of Thamesmead around Gallion Reach Park is quite nice and entirely overlooked. It's not all grim housing estates.
West Thamesmead is known for being the prettiest side. Hence why it’s harder to get a house to rent on that side 😂. No one moves out and the rent is pricey.
Excellent insight into a social housing project that had high ambitions, and low results. The description of A Clockwork Orange being that you can’t impose a mechanical constraint on an organic object is one of the best descriptions of the underlying message of the film I’ve ever heard! Viddy well oh my friends!
Of course the Come to Daddy music video was famously edited and published from Aphex Twin's house, the stainless steel building on the Elephant and Castle gyratory.
Me and my son went to take pictures, there just before they knocked the best part down by the lake. We found one particular stretch of pathway with probably the most amount of dog poo ever recorded...
nah near me is an unnamed alley, i say unnamed but locally and for as long as i'vee been old enough to be aware of it it's been reffered to as 'Dog' and you wouldnt want to try your luck after dark unless pissed and of diminished judgement 💩
@@alan-sk7ky The place in Thamesmead had signs throughout the pathway warning of fines for not cleaning up after your dog and I swear the Dogs had arranged a dirty protest...
I've just finished my third year architecture essay about the Barbican, exploring why it stands successfully when so many others have failed. was wondering if you would like to read a copy? I found you vids very useful when trying to understand more about the city of london.
I would guess that the location and the "mixed tenure" accounts for the Barbican being sucessful housing... Take eithier of those two away and it would be a dump...
Places like this fascinate me. Thank you for featuring it 😊
"adopting the yea you know whatever approach to new housing that preferred cars to pedestrians"
you just described 98% of American architecture and city planning
"The problem with housing experiments is that by the time you know they have failed, it is too late." Yes, and/but houses needs to be as alive as the people living in them because failure and problems will always occur. We are living in one big housing estate called Earth. We need to actively maintain and protect it. Likewise, any new estates need to empower the residents to benefit from their own semi-tangible investment in the estate. All this requires a level of governance we do not truly have Earth. Hence, the success of any estate is dependent upon being in a bubble that would isolate it from reality. That is to say, reality will always wreck a perfect plan.
You just know that any development that wins an international architectural award will be a social disaster.
My dad lived in a church in Thamesmead & it stuck with me for the past 30 years
A real concrete jungle which I will never forget. RIP dad
If you ever get chance the story of park hill flats Sheffield would be an intresting one for you. They were due to be knocked down but the European Union made them a listed building and now they've been refurbished and completely modernised. Anyway great videos btw
My friend Matt lives in Park Hill and I've told him how it was once a place no-one wanted to be...
@@danielsellers8707 it's really weird as the people who lived there seemed to. Love it, but as you say no one wanted to. Live there. But it had everything you needed, a school, few shops 3 pubs.
I worked as an apprentice electrician at Thamesmead during construction. I think there was just about every nationality employed there. It looked pristine and modern when new but I returned some years later and most of the nice facilities and features were boarded up or vandalised . Usual sad story I suppose.
Cor, can almost smell the burnt cabbage, smell of bleach and urine just by watching.. to think back in the early 2000's we almost moved to Thamesmeade, was nice and safe in New Cross :)
It’s a rare occasion that a JH video that leaves me feeling somewhat depressed (at the tragic inevitability of it all). Thank you for a tiny glimmer of hope near the end!
ah yes because the best way to fix the issues of the ugly concrete hell hole tower is to flip in on its side and repeat exactly the same things you did vertically but this time horizontally. most advanced.
at least they figured out the most important problem of the 21st century. walking up lots of stairs sucks.
In South Vienna there is the 'Alt Erlaa' Social Housing Estate , which has the most satisfied inhabitants, in a city with already one of the best housing quality in Europe! So although estate projects often are troublesom (like the Amsterdam SouthEast Bijlmer neighbourhood) and became dumping grounds , there are succesfull examples.
They did it quite different than in Thamesmead. Alt Erlaa consist of 6, 7 dense 23 stories high Flatbuildings with 10k inhabitants. But they added six 25 meter swimming pools on the roofs , indoor pools and sauna's in the basements!! a shopping centre and sport clubs and leisure facilities on ground level. The appartment are open to people with (higher) middle class incomes (60% of viennese live in a 'social housing'). There are several transport links (streetcar, commute train and since the 90s a metro). And the Estate has a 50 person staff to maintain everything.
The inhabitants (and also other Viennese) describe it as a village in the city. So it has a lot of social cohesion , something that rarely is seen in high rises ! ( and what cities really need... )
There are considerable costs involved in al this, but it is a very healthy neighbourhood. (The overall costs of crime, deprivation and renovation of Thamesmead and other projects are a lot higher, I reckon.)
th-cam.com/video/d6DBKoWbtjE/w-d-xo.html
This was interesting - I accidentally visited Thamesmead while on my way a year or two back to find the Sheerness Pumping Station - the very literal proof that 'steampunk' was real, and used to pump shit out of London. I wasn't looking to find Thamesmead and had never heard of it till I got to the lakeside and though 'blow me - I'm _here_' as I immediately recognised it from Clockwork Orange and Misfits. There was a fair amount of construction in place then - and it didn't so much feel dangerous and run down (I was a bright summer day) as just astonishingly empty and deserted.
Interesting review. What didn't help was that the buildings, designed in the 60s, were poorly thermally insulated and so were difficult and expensive to heat and if you couldn't afford to heat them thoroughly I guess they would then suffer from black mould on the interior surfaces of the cold outside walls. They were originally heated by `District Heating' (a central boiler house) with warm air ducting in each flat (the room warm air grills could be seen in the film `Beautiful Thing' btw). This was later removed and replaced by individual boilers in each flat with radiators. As originally built I believe the windows were single glazed. Again as featured in `Beautiful Thing' the sound insulation between flats wasn't all that either.
That centralised heating was fabulous. My mil came from a freezing 1920's estate to thamemead and it was just lovely to be so warm and to have so much hot water continuously.
I was hoping you would do a video on this..
😍💯
The #1 lesson should be "sort out the transit FIRST".
If the scheme had included a couple tube stops (or similar-frequency rail) from the start I bet 80% of the other problems would have sorted themselves out. There are similar bits of housing stock that have done OK in zone 2/3 areas because the people who work there have quick access to a whole London-full of jobs/education/etc. Lacking that, Thamesmead sadly fell into a vicious cycle and became an out-of-the-way place few cared much about.
Old Oak common area development is a big change, but few substantial family properties where you can work and live effectively and affordably
Yes - totally agree. Have a cab-driver friend who went there once, I think - never again.
the problem with peabody is theyre dodgy as hell, and overtly complicit in gentrification. especially grisly is how theyve trapped people in shared ownership schemes in which their rent is unaffordable but they cant sell on and move out.
i believe peabody will make thamesmead a good place to live. and will then privatise all the housing.
Just a thought but if you add a business area, shopping precinct and transport links...don’t you get Croydon?