Brigg needs to be careful not to miss an important centenary.
We refer to the 100th anniversary of the first council houses being built in the town.
There's an interesting picture in the book Around Brigg, by John and Valerie Holland, published in the 1990s by Chalford.
The image shows work underway to construct new homes on Woodbine Avenue, and the caption suggests this scheme started in 1920 and was carried out by a local builder.
Brigg Blog has asked various local people in recent months, and checked a couple of archives, to try and find the date when the first tenants moved into the first Brigg council houses, on Woodbine Avenue. But so far we've drawn a blank.
There are three sections to Woodbine Avenue, but were these properties all built at the same time?
Britain had a post-war housing crisis between 1918 and 1920, with an Act of Parliament being passed to facilitate the building of council houses "fit for heroes" who returned from the conflict.
Brigg Urban District Council was keen to get involved and still building properties in the late 1960s, following which is refurbished many of its original ones.
Following the construction of Woodbine Avenue, the UDC added other streets nearby, including Central Square, East Parade and Hawthorn Avenue.
During the 1930s it built the Newlands estate, with many people relocating from courtyards behind Wrawby Street, on land now occupied by the town's main car park.
The Springbank estate was developed after the Second World War, with Western Avenue being added to it in the 1960s.
Collectively, that added up to a very fine stock of council houses, many of which have since been sold to tenants under the government's Right to Buy initiative.
Ongo is now the social landlord for North Lincolnshire, managing the remaining housing stock. We intend to contact Ongo to ask whether it can say, perhaps from deeds, when the first council homes in Brigg were built and let.
Once we can confirm the 100th anniversary, it's surely good reason for some sort of celebration.
PICTURE ABOVE: A recent picture of Woodbine Avenue (on the left). The street continues along two corners before meeting Glebe Road.
3 comments:
the woodbine avenue estate was started in 1969.
remember it well as it was my playground [no health & safety fences in those days]
I thought 'Woodbine' was circa 1927...
....On the other hand, Nige...there is an unexpected address of the NofK of a Ww1 soldier named on Brigg Monument.
Not now certain of the facts, but some years ago, I did some research into WW1 casualties...and came across the 'the wife of comment whose address was given as Woodbine Ave.
At least 2 soldier's names were added to the Monument after its erection/dedication in 1919...these soldiers appeared to have died of war wounds..one who died in 1920 in Glanford Hosp..
Whether it was this guy who lived in Woodbine Ave I'm not now certain, but why would the Commonwealth War Graves have a Woodbine Ave address in 1918, or before...
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