A few weeks ago, Keeling House in Bethnal Green featured in BBC2’s Great Interior Design Challenge. Its presenter Tom Dyckhoff paid due homage to the building’s architecture – a Denys Lasdun brutalist masterpiece – and to its history. But let’s pay a little more attention to the latter here. Now privately owned, Keeling House was once a vision of high quality housing for the people.
Before the Second World War, Bethnal Green was the heart of the traditional working-class East End – with social conditions to match. At the height of the Great Depression, it was stated that 23 per cent of the borough’s men were unemployed and some 43 per cent of its population living in overcrowded conditions. (1)
Both the London County Council and Bethnal Green Metropolitan Borough Council built extensively to rehouse local people. The Claredale Estate was a local council scheme, begun in 1932. Claredale…
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Old School Garden 