A305/14: English Flats of the Thirties

[@heinkle1]

Highpoint was 40 years old when this film was made - to think someone was still using original flooring and the bathroom fittings at that time is quite something. The building is now nearly 90 years old.

[@bigbear3450]

Many thanks for this posting.

[@BevMattocks]

The 1960s Hyde Park flats in Sheffield also used the Garchey waste disposal system which didn't always work and made the kitchen smell awful. I lived in one, as a student in 1979, for a while when many of the flats were rented to students.

[@lucym5163]

Excellent OU series - the days of intelligent documentaries! The laundry and dryers at Quarry Hill! The vast scale - surely in part its downfall but interesting comparison with Highpoint. Thanks for posting!

[@ebonysweetnesssweetness5153]

I enjoyed these glimps into the past

[@gustinian]

Once again, the British reluctance to adequately maintain anything is prevalent. No money is set aside for upkeep and so its no wonder that some of these well intentioned designs are often derided. Its not the design that is disliked, but the fact that the lift didnt work, or the grass was concreted over and the benches removed etc.

[@djcb4190]

From Leeds to Highgate, this Modern loft has it all.

[@BevMattocks]

I am almost certain that my grandad - a town planning consultant to Leeds Council in the 1930s - was probably involved at some level with the planning of Quarry Hill. The old petrol station on the roundabout is definitely 'his' - his ideal design for a 'modern' petrol station. Oh, and in a nod to this interesting channel being Canadian, my grandad worked in Vancouver, pre-WW1, with his uncle Thomas H Mawson on Stanley Park etc

[@BevMattocks]

I understood Quarry Hill flats were demolished owing to a design fault in the concrete making them structurally unstable?? They must have looked stunning back in the day before the white horizontal lines became the dirty grey I remember as a child in 1960s Leeds.

[@MrEurochannel]

A tragic loss, destroyed by the late 1980s, and replaced with that legoland yellow bricked 'Playhouse'.

[@nigelhorsley7395]

Never mind the flat being there also the Market just before the fire and Killingbeck police station still being completed.

[@chriskappert1365]

This reminds me of the architecture of the Amsterdam School verry much ! Architect Michel de Klerk built in this stile in the 1920s in Amsterdam .

[@andersonarmstrong2650]

Ignoring the necessity for streets undermines well-intentioned innovations. This is the biggest contrast between the Seidlung&developments such as the one in Leeds.

[@Smithy67]

Quarry Hill flats demolished 1978

[@TRACTATUS123]

Slums replacing slums.

[@paulallen8109]

Perhaps. But you have to remember that the people these were intended for didn't earn enough to afford anything fancy so rather than criticizing the urban planning of the time or the style of architecture maybe you should address the core problem? Anyways, these buildings were a huge improvement on previous living quarters. No more leaking roofs, rotten walls, constant running repairs, outside toilets, difficult garbage disposal. While most people *today* take these for granted this was by no means something ordinary people were raised with prior to the war.

[@jacquesmertens3369]

Inspired by the USSR. Poverty for all (except for the party leaders obviously). It's a good thing they've demolished this monstrosity.

[@djcb4190]

I have become illiterate.