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All buildings are wired for electric light, and gas installed for domestic hot-water services
and cooking purposes, the living-rooms being fitted as sitting-rooms with tiled register hob-grates.
The facings of the flats are red-brick, with blue brick plinths and artificial Portland stone
dressings and main moulded cornice and roofs covered with hand-made sand-faced roof tiles.
The maisonettes are roofed with similar tiles and faced with red bricks and brown plinths, the
upper part of each intermediate block being roughcast, the eaves being formed with tile soffits.
The windows of the flats are boxed sash and frames and wooden casements for the maisonettes,
and all floors of steel and concrete covered with wood. The interior decorations are both cheery
and serviceable.
The subsoil is a poor clay, necessitating special care with the foundations laid in cement,
concrete and London stock footings, the trenches being exposed as long as possible for shrinkage
before concrete was put in.
The scheme is exceptional in that it provides accommodation for as many as 20 tenancies
to the acre, and at the same time gives large gardens and ample open space about and around
the buildings, this being only possible by adopting as a principle the combined use of flats and
maisonettes, thus saving actual building-site area on land too costly for the usual lay-out of
groups of houses.
The general effect is very pleasing, and the whole scheme is unique as a housing scheme,
an entire departure from the usual stereotype planning, and shows that in designing the scheme
care has been taken not to deteriorate the values of adjoining properties.
The scheme is designed and supervised by Mr. Albert J. Thomas, M.S.A., L.R.I.B.A.
The contractor is Mr. Albert Monk, of Lower Edmonton.
Selection of tenants.—Careful consideration has been given to allocating the Estate. I n
selecting tenants, preference has been given to those whose existing accommodation was overcrowded.
The Committee received hundreds of applications in excess of the accommodation
available. These were'reduced to a manageable number and referred to a Visiting Sub-Committee,
who called upon the applicants, and thus obtained first-hand information of the conditions
under which the families were living.
The Estate was formally opened by the Mayor, Councillor T. W. McCormack. J.P., on
the 24th June, 1922, and some 60 flats and maisonettes are tenanted.
School Treatment Centre.—On the 23rd March, 1921, the Council resolved that application
be made to the Ministry of Health for sanction to let on building lease to Mr. R. Kohnstamm
for a period of 99 years at a ground rent of £35 per annum, a piece of land on the Brookfield
Estate, surplus to housing requirements, with a frontage on Chester Road, for the erection of a
School Treatment Centre. The Ministry sanctioned the proposal, and rapid progress is being
made with the buildings.
Agreement with the Mansfield Bowling Club, Limited.—A commilnication was received
on behalf of the Club, drawing attention to the fact that in one of the blocks of maisonettes,
a door and window opening had been formed immediately overlooking the Company's land.
While not desiring to do anything to hamper the building scheme, the Company desired to protect
their rights by entering into an agreement with the Council in the matter. The Committee
were advised that the Council as freeholders should formulate an agreement with the Club
setting out their mutual rights so as to obviate any misunderstanding in the future, and thus
avoid the erection of a hoarding on the party fence. An agreement was accordingly entered
into on these lines.