Brandon Estate Flowers


Here's two amateur films from the sixties of the Brandon Estate in Southwark. I used to live next to the estate, back in the days before Doctor Who made it famous as Rose Tyler's home in the mid-noughties. It never felt particularly edgy, in fact, the mixture of buildings, eras and designs made it feel pretty integrated with the rest of the area. The estate, with its six point blocks and 40 low rise blocks, sits on the edge of Kennington Park and was designed by Ted Hollamby for the London County Council, and built between 1955-61. It was also notable for the extensive renovation of the existing properties by the LCC, rather than wholesale demolition. There's a great article about the estate on modernistestates.com.

The first film was shot in 1961, just after completion of most of the estate. You get to see it inside and out, and from all sort of unusual angles. It's a peerless record of a new estate from the residents' viewpoint, in this instance Richard Morgan and Brian Waterman of the Brandon Estate Cine Club.



The second film is from 1969, and shows the sports day and fete held by the Brandon Estate Social Club. This is a terrific glimpse of working class life and solidarity at odds with the usual depiction of postwar estates as violent and atomising slums. Again, it was filmed by Richard Morgan and Brian Waterman.

Comments

  1. Great post........An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time alive or dead. It is the sum of a person's assets – legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind – less all liabilities at that time.Disputing A Will

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