After the Bombing
The post-war reconstruction of Belsize Park and the surrounding neighbourhood was shaped by two sets of forces: the immediate need to replace housing destroyed or damaged by the Blitz, and the broader social and political agenda of the post-war welfare state, which committed the new Labour government to providing decent housing for working-class families regardless of their ability to pay market rents. The intersection of these forces in NW3 produced a pattern of development that was very different from the Victorian and Edwardian private development that had previously shaped the neighbourhood.
The London Borough of Hampstead — which was merged with the boroughs of St Pancras and Holborn to create the London Borough of Camden in 1965 — was responsible for the development of social housing in the Belsize Park area during the post-war decades. The housing that was built ranged from the modest infill development that replaced isolated bomb sites with terrace houses or small blocks of flats, to the larger estates that represented a more comprehensive approach to the rehousing of working-class families from the inner city.
The social housing development of the post-war period introduced a new demographic into the Belsize Park neighbourhood — working-class families who would not have been able to afford the rents or purchase prices of the Victorian housing stock. This demographic diversity was not always welcomed by the existing middle-class residents of the area, and the social tensions between the different communities that shared the neighbourhood were not always gracefully managed. But the post-war social housing also provided decent, well-constructed homes for families who had previously lived in conditions significantly worse than those available in Belsize Park, and the social investment it represented was a genuine achievement of the post-war welfare state.
The Architecture of Social Housing
The architecture of post-war social housing in Belsize Park reflects the design philosophies that dominated British social housing in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The early post-war period favoured low-rise terrace houses and small blocks of flats that maintained a relatively human scale and a relatively traditional relationship between the building and the street. The 1960s brought the enthusiasm for high-rise development — point blocks and slab blocks that concentrated large numbers of residents on relatively small sites — that is now widely recognised as having created as many social problems as it solved.
The social housing estates of Belsize Park and its surroundings represent a range of these approaches, from the modest post-war infill that is barely distinguishable in scale and character from the surrounding Victorian housing, to the more ambitious estates of the 1960s and 1970s that made a more explicit architectural statement about the radical difference between social housing and the Victorian private housing that surrounded them. The quality of these estates — their design, construction, and management — has varied enormously, with consequences for the lives of their residents that are still visible today.
Social Change and Gentrification
The post-war social housing of Belsize Park has been the subject of significant change in the decades since its construction. The sale of council houses under the Right to Buy legislation of the 1980s transferred many former social housing units into private ownership, changing the social composition of the estates. The subsequent resale of purchased units into the private market has brought new residents into estates that were originally built for working-class families, changing the demographic character of some estates significantly.
The gentrification of the surrounding neighbourhood — the dramatic increase in property values that has made Belsize Park one of the most expensive residential areas in London — has had complex effects on the social housing estates. The increasing value of the land on which the estates sit has created pressure for redevelopment that would replace the existing social housing with private development, generating significant community controversy and political debate. The maintenance of social housing in a neighbourhood where land values are extremely high is one of the most difficult challenges facing the local planning authority and the housing management organisations responsible for the estates.
A Mixed Community
The post-war social housing of Belsize Park is a reminder that the neighbourhood is not, and never has been, exclusively a middle-class or upper-middle-class enclave. The presence of social housing — whatever its architectural quality and its management history — maintains a social diversity in the neighbourhood that would otherwise have been extinguished by the operation of the property market. This diversity is a value in itself: it maintains the possibility of a neighbourhood that reflects the social complexity of the wider city, rather than becoming a monoculture of the prosperous.
The social housing residents of Belsize Park have made their own contributions to the cultural life of the neighbourhood — as residents, as community members, as participants in the social and civic life of an area that takes seriously the value of community. Their presence is part of the neighbourhood's story, as much as the famous artists and writers and the Victorian middle class who built the terraces in which they live. A complete account of Belsize Park's history must include them.
*Published in the Hampstead Renovations Heritage Collection — exploring the architecture, history, and stories of London’s most remarkable neighbourhoods.*