Woodberry Down
Woodberry Down, Hackney
A very large housing estate situated just east of Manor House, comprising the area within a loop of the New River, now undergoing radical regeneration
This was dairy farmland until the 1820s, when it was opened up by new roads. The conversion of disused clay pits into reservoirs alleviated the threat of flooding.
By the early 20th century this had become “the posh end of Stoke Newington,” home to several wealthy Jewish families and to Albert Chevalier, the music hall artiste.
In 1934, despite powerful opposition, the London County Council compulsorily purchased all of Woodberry Down and the construction of an ‘estate of the future’ began after the Second World War. By the time the project was completed in 1962, 57 blocks of flats had been erected on 64 acres of land.
The 2,500 homes had a mix of deck access and lobby access, with the majority being two- or three-bedroom flats. Woodberry Down school (since closed) became one of Britain’s first purpose-built comprehensives in 1955.
As with some other utopian schemes of a similar nature, Woodberry Down became a flawed place in which to live, with an array of characteristic inner-city issues. There were few amenities and the flats suffered from water penetration and other structural problems.
An ongoing regeneration plan is providing new and refurbished housing and aiming to improve the ‘life chances’ of residents. However, in order to fund the project, Hackney council has permitted a high proportion of the properties on the rebuilt part of the estate to be sold at market prices – often upwards of half a million pounds. Critics dubbed this “state sponsored gentrification.”
In defence of the council, as Municipal Dreams points out, “it can be said they had little option in financial terms – public funding for large-scale council housing development was simply not available. Moreover, the actual council housing stock was not diminished and the proportion of ‘affordable’ homes was – at 41 per cent – relatively high.”
The ‘new luxury development’ was at first going to be called Woodberry Park but the whole caboodle later adopted the Woodberry Down name.
In the first episode of the TV sitcom Birds of a Feather, Sharon reveals that Tracey and Darryl were childhood sweethearts who “met at Woodberry Down comprehensive in detention.”