There were those who looked askance at the London County Council’s new Dover House Estate in 1919. Well-heeled local people in the big houses nearby expressed concern that transport links were poor for the area’s new residents. And then there was another ‘element for consideration’ – ‘that its conversion into a working-class district must enormously depreciate the rateable value of property in the vicinity’. (1)
Dover House Road
In fact, worries that the Estate would blight the neighbourhood and would be filled by ‘very, very poor people from the bad areas of the East End’ were illusory. The Dover House Estate, initially known as the Roehampton Estate, would become a ‘show place in its day…visited by many from all over the world.’ (2) And it would house an overwhelmingly ‘respectable’ working class. Many of these worked in the public services – in public transport, as police officers or postal workers – and they…
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The second and final stop on our trip home from Devon recently, was Montacute House, Somerset. Surrounded by beautiful, formally laid out gardens, the warm, honey-coloured stone of the house glowed in the spring sunshine. There was a splendid display of tulips and wallflowers and a magnificent ‘cloud’ yew hedge reminiscent of those at Blickling House, near our home in Norfolk. We were fortunate to meet a gardener in the ”orangery’, which, she explained, was not really in the best spot for this and had in the past been more of a shady water feature, with its 
Another trip out whilst in Devon recently, involved a rather tortuous journey (and the need to pre book parking) at the former home of Agatha Christie, Greenway, near Brixham. We were a little limited in what we could see of the gardens, and we didn’t get to some of the feature areas like the walled garden and rhododendrons. Another day perhaps….What we did see was a fascinating house (and contents too) and some beautiful riverside sloping gardens full of interesting plants, typical of so many ‘sub tropical’ gardens along this south west coastline.
Old School Garden 