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Published: 2 September, 2010
by DAN CARRIER

A COUNCIL housing estate in Gospel Oak is set to be afforded the same type of protection as historic stately homes after conservation body English Heritage gave it a Grade II*-listing.

The Dunboyne Road estate, designed by architect Neave Brown and built between 1966 and 1969, was given the coveted protection this week.

Mr Brown, who also worked on the Grade II-listed Rowley Way estate, and built homes for himself and friends in Highgate Newtown, now lives in one of the homes he built nearly 40 years ago. 

He said: “I am delighted. I had no idea back then when I was designing it that it would be seen in this way four decades later. But we knew we were breaking ground and were on the cusp of a situation where designs for social housing were changing and getting better.”

Commissioned by the Town Hall’s architects department, it was just one of a number of modernist estates built in the 1960s and 1970s which made Camden one of the most admired local authorities in the country. 

The department was run by council officer  Sydney Cook and he sought out young architects who were keen on designing high tech social housing. He didn’t want to resort to high-rise blocks like the ones already built, which had been hard to maintain and offered a poor quality of life .

Neave Brown, who based the designs on homes he had built for himself and friends in Winscombe Street, in Highgate Newtown, recalled how the council had commissioned the three high-rise tower blocks on the Ampthill estate, in Somers Town – and that housing chief Sydney Cook regretted the scheme being started and asked him for something completely different. 

Mr Brown added: “When Sydney Cook came in, there were the three blocks that the council were committed to building which he did not like. He did not know what type of social housing he wanted, but knew he did not want to do high-rises like them.”

Mr Brown recalls the support he and his team were given by the Town Hall’s housing department. He said: “Sydney followed everything acutely but did not intervene. He would take our drawings home over night and come back full of questions the next day.”

The English Heritage report that prompted the listed status being granted said Dunboyne Road stood out for a number of reasons.

It was identified as one of the first in a tranche of low-rise social housing projects and a trailblazer that led to other estates in the borough being built along the same lines.