Our speaker on 4th April was Joanne Harrison who gave us a talk entitled ‘180 Years of Eastmoor – It’s People and Their Houses.’ Joanne is a Director of Harrison Architectural Heritage and began her talk by telling us what the aims of the project were: to find out what Victorian Eastmoor was like, about the Eastmoor Council Estate from the 1930s and to find out about the changes in Eastmoor over the last 50 years.
She explained that the workshop sessions developed people’s research skills and looked at house histories and Eastmoor in maps and drawings. The project looked at the architectural character and social history of Victorian Eastmoor. The sessions also included the marking up and location of the different house designs on a map of the estate and compared life in the early years of the estate to what the estate was like now.
We were told that the earlier Victorian housing on Eastmoor was built in an ad hoc fashion, with variable construction quality and poor sanitation. There were some improvements during 1866 to the 1890s when the housing improved and there was a more uniform approach to urban layouts, better facilities and thus the houses appealed to a wide range of working class people. Joanne showed us the location of Eastmoor on a map and what the area included and a closer look revealed a variety of housing from back to back through to larger terraced houses with bay windows. The map also showed the different yards in the Eastmoor area.
The talk then moved on to look at the Stanley Road area where there were lots of different types of housing and Joanne showed us some photographs and also plans of the larger terraced houses with bay windows. The Co-op was the main shop but there was a wide range of specialist shops.
We were given a little of the history of the inns and public houses such as the Albion Inn, The Butchers Arms and the Fox and Grapes which was a place for inquests and auctions. Joanne then moved on to the Jacob’s Well Lane area and gave us a case study of the Smith Family who were on the estate for a long time, living on various streets depending on their circumstances. One family member was one of the founding members of the Eastmoor Working Mens’ Club and one of the descendants of this family, May, had lived in the family house for over 90 years.
The Warrengate area was much more mixed and we were given another case study of a family on Pincheon Street; census records, trade directories and electoral registers had been used which gave us a flavour of the people who lived there.
Council housing was built between the wars and after World War II and provided housing for those who could not afford to rent privately or own their own house; it also offered replacement housing for that which had been lost during the war and for those who had been moved through slum clearance. We were shown graphics and maps showing the phased construction of the housing. Joanne then went through the different types of housing and when they were built with images showing housing from the 1930s, brick built with Victorian features, through maisonettes, flats and bungalows.
Joanne explained that sometimes tenancies of the council houses lasted for generations, passed on from one to another; a family could upsize or downsize depending on need. Joanne brought her talk to a close by telling us about the key findings from the project: that the Victorian housing was varied and so was the community, that the estate was built in four phases and that the early Victorian houses were cleared in the 1930s. It was found that Eastmoor was a place people could live for their whole life.
The project gave the participants new knowledge and research skills and an opportunity to discuss their life experiences. A map showing the location of the different housing types has been added to the Wakefield Library Collection and there is a forthcoming potential publication. People can visit the website to find out more https://bit.ly/180 yearsofeastmoor
Lorraine Simpson
