sarah in waterloo

I have recently been geeking out investigating the history of my new flat in Walworth and have been interested in learning about the life of Octavia Hill, pioneer of affordable housing for the poor who designed and commissioned my building and lots of others in the Walworth estate. She believed that tenemant houses ‘should not exceed three stories in height’ and should have the ‘maximum amount of sunlight and the freest circulation or air’, access to recreation land and a backyard. A shame these principles were disregarded in the design of the majority of social housing in London over the last 50 years.

Octavia Hill was criticised by left-wingers for disagreeing with women’s suffrage on the grounds that men and women ‘have different gifts and spheres’ (on these grounds I should probably dislike her), but she definitely knew how to design a decent tenemant building, and I’m a fan of any social pioneer, especially if they’re a woman.