The Excalibur Estate was a post-war 1940s

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States ...

of 189

prefabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term ...

houses in

Catford Catford is a district in south east London, England, and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Lewisham. It is southwest of Lewisham itself, mostly in the Rushey Green and Catford South wards. The population of Catford, includ ...

, South London. The estate contained the last sizeable collection of post-war prefabricated houses in the United Kingdom. In 2011, Lewisham Council approved a plan to replace the prefabs with 371 houses, with demolition scheduled to begin in 2013.

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

has granted

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

status to six of the "prefab" houses. The proposed demolition led to campaigns by residents, English Heritage and the

Twentieth Century Society The Twentieth Century Society (C20) is a British charity which campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards. The society's interests embrace buildings and artefacts that characterise 20th-century Britain. It is for ...

to save the properties, with an unsuccessful legal challenge to prevent redevelopment, and a return to parkland, if they were demolished. Apart from the six with Grade II listing, all the buildings are due for demolition by early 2023, with the redeveloped estate planned for completion by the end of 2023.

Background

Following the

London Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

was facing a severe housing shortage. To quickly alleviate this problem, London, like many other British cities set about building temporary prefabricated houses. Fifteen hundred homes in Lewisham were destroyed in the first year of the war alone. The level of destruction across many British cities brought about the passing of the

Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944 The Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (7 & 8 Geo. VI c. 36) which was passed in order to provide solutions to the housing crisis which occurred at the end of World War II. The Act was th ...

, which led to the building of Excalibur and many estates like it. The Excalibur Estate was constructed as one of these projects on parkland in Catford between 1945 and 1946 by German and Italian prisoners of war. The estate consisted of single-story prefabricated bungalows designed by the Ministry of Works; each with two bedrooms, a private garden and an indoor lavatory. Despite only being intended to stand for ten years, many prefabricated estates survived much longer. Many corporations replaced such estates with conventional-build or permanent prefabricated council houses throughout the 1950s, 60s and early 1970s. Unusually Excalibur survived to the 2010s.

Etymology

The estate is so called because the streets are named after characters from Arthurian legend. The precise reason for these street names is unknown.

The estate

The estate consisted of 189 single storey, two-bedroomed prefabricated bungalows constructed by the Uni-seco company. The nearly flat roofs have a 7 degree pitch. There were no amenities situated on the estate except for the church, St. Marks. This building was originally two huts, it was constructed on site in the conventional manner with a sheet-metal barrelled roof, similar to an

Anderson shelter Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but many ...

. The nearest railway station to the estate is Bellingham.

Demolition proposals

The

London Borough of Lewisham Lewisham () is a London boroughs, London borough in south-east London; it forms part of Inner London. The principal settlement of the borough is Lewisham. The local authority is Lewisham London Borough Council, based in Catford. The Prime Merid ...

proposed to demolish and replace all of the properties on the site from 2013, using the developer L&Q. As they were the last large inhabited collection of prefabricated houses of this era, this decision proved controversial.

Conservation battle

Conservationists fought to save the estate from demolition, which they claimed was a unique surviving example of twentieth-century architecture. They succeeded in seeing Grade II listing applied by English Heritage to six buildings on the estate including St. Mark's Church, exempting them from demolition. The conservation of the estate has been spearheaded by the

; which claimed that the overall layout and planning of the estate was key to its uniqueness and that just keeping six buildings and surrounding them with new houses did not suffice. Despite the Twentieth Century Society campaigning for the entire estate to be made a conservation area and English Heritage recommending 21 buildings be listed, the

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would only go so far as to list six of the buildings. Under listing guidelines for twentieth-century buildings, only buildings with few moderations should be listed; in the case of Excalibur, most buildings had modified windows and doors. A prominent local resident favouring conservation stated: "The Excalibur Prefab Estate is the largest of its kind now left in Europe. Europe values its war time history, we on the estate think it’s time we did too." Emily Gee of English Heritage said of the estate: "The historical resonance of the estate is considerable. The design of the buildings, with their subtle modern influences, and the community-focused planning of the estate testifies to the thoughtfulness of post-Blitz reconstruction."

Case for demolition

Lewisham Council rebutted claims that the houses had historical significance and maintained that it would be "virtually impossible to bring them up to modern standards, a view shared by a number of residents, who were mainly council tenants." The council repeatedly argued that residents favour redevelopment; citing a poll amongst residents in which 56 percent voted in favour of redevelopment. Conservationists have argued this result was inevitable as residents felt there was very little prospect of the council spending any money on their homes, leaving them in outdated accommodation. Of the estate Lewisham Council stated "We have a responsibility under the national Decent Homes programme to bring all its housing up to a recognised standard. It simply is not financially viable to refurbish the estate." Of the listing, Lewisham mayor Steve Bullock said. "The listing by English Heritage was perverse and it has made me extremely concerned about the way that organisation behaves… These are temporary prefabricated buildings, not architectural gems"

Parkland covenant

Campaigners argued that the proposal to build new homes on the site could be subject to legal challenge. Prior to the building of the prefabs, the land was parkland. The land was donated by the then Governor-General of Australia,

Lord Forster Henry William Forster, 1st Baron Forster, (31 January 1866 – 15 January 1936) was a British politician who served as the List of Governors-General of Australia, seventh Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1920 to 1925. He had previ ...

to the then

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

as parkland. In a 1946 letter, the London County Council promised to return it to parkland once the temporary houses had been cleared. When Lewisham council took over the estate in 1965, this letter was then made void, as Lewisham council never agreed to uphold the content of this letter. Nor had Excalibur Estate been designated a temporary housing estate. Uni-Seco, the prefab manufacturers and builders, never claimed their homes had a limited life span of only 10 years. Parts of the original

Forster Memorial Park Forster Memorial Park, is a public park in London Borough of Lewisham. It takes up the land between Bellingham Road and Whitefoot Lane, Catford – the park and surrounding roads form Southend or Southend Village. The nearest stations are Belling ...

are still in existence to the west of Excalibur. Other housing however separates Excalibur from the remaining parts of the park, so if returning the estate to parkland were to become a reality, Forster Memorial Park would be divided into two parts by Longhill Road and Battersby Road.

Redevelopment

In April 2011, Lewisham Council approved a plan to replace the prefabs with 371 homes. Only some of the new homes would be for social housing. The project was originally set for completion by 2018, but after delays, all the buildings – apart from the six with Grade II listing – are now due for demolition in 2023. The redeveloped estate is due for completion by the end of 2023.