Holford Garden Estate, London

Architect	Skinner, Bailey and Lubetkin
Date Built	1954
Location	Holford Street
Description
During WWII parts of all four sides of Holford Square in Finsbury were so badly damaged by bombing that they were declared beyond repair. In March of 1946 Finsdbury Council were advised that the only logical way forward was to "scrap the old buildings entirely". A number of proposals were presented to redevelop the site and address the serious housing shortage in the area. In the end the plan that was accepted came from Berthold Lubetkin's Tecton Group. However, before work started Tecton was dissolved and the successor firm Skinner, Bailey and Lubetkin completed the project between 1951 and 1957. At the heart of the project is Bevin Court a Y-shaped block that comprises 130 flats and maisonettes. The original plan was to call it Lenin Court because years before Lubetkin had designed a memorial for Lenin that stood in Holford Square. Over the years though communist support had dwindled and instead it was named after the trade unionist and statesman Ernest Bevin. The BBC has a story on its website about the Lenin Memorial. It says that, ".... After the outbreak of the Cold War the memorial was closed and Lenin's bust removed. Lubetkin managed to bury the memorial plaque surreptitiously. 'During the last stage of the construction of Bevin Court, Lubetkin hired a crane and brought the memorial here to bury it in a basement of the building,' explains Mr Ford. Despite Lubetkin's fears, Lenin's bust itself has survived. For many years it gathered dust in storage at the mayor's office in Islington. Now the bust is part of the collection of Islington Museum. 'After the memorial was vandalised many times, Lubetkin made a few copies of the bust. For a long time we were certain that here, in the museum, we had one of the copies. But later it turned out to be the original,' says Alex Smith, who works in the museum." We visited the museum and found Lenin's bust on display. In 1998 Bevin Court was designated as a Grade II* Listed building. When it was listed, it was described as follows: "... Reinforced concrete box frame construction, clad in pre-cast storey-height aggregate panels finished with Hoptonwood stone chippings, an early use of such a material but now painted, and brick panels under windows. Flat roof y-shaped plan. Two wings of one and two-bedroom flats, the third (to the south west) with three-bedroom maisonettes, all with balcony access reached off lifts and stairs in central linking drum. Eight storeys. .... .... The elevations to the flats demonstrate the flexibility of the box frame construction with alternating pairs of windows and panels on alternate floors. On the gallery side there are alternating patterns of panels and stations. All windows of metal frames with opening side casements and top lights. Rooftop canopies, tapering and thin, to each range. ..... .... Entrance reached under angled canopy in centre of blocks, leads to remarkable entrance hall. Mural by Peter Yates depicting elements of Finsbury's history and coat of alms, arranged as a diorama behind balustrade. .... ....Beyond, the centre of the drum filled with staircase of straight flights rising to central circular landings and onto galleries round the edges, at alternating angles." Across the road from Bevin Court is Atwell House (see below) a building of twelve small flats with bed-sitting rooms, it was allotted to Skinner, Bailey and Lubetkin by Finsbury Council in 1956 and built in 1957–8 by James Webb & Son. It is remarkable only for its run of west-facing bay windows, otherwise untypical of the architects Holford House (see below), located on the corner of Percy Circus and Great Percy Street, is the third element of the estate. It is a plain four-storey maisonette block.

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