Municipal Dreams
Social historian of housing. Author of 'A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates' (RIBA Books) and 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' (Verso). I blog at https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/.
- Not *that* view sadly (taken 2021) but still a lovely sight of trees next to Hadrian's Wall.
- Coronation Park, Haltwhistle, Northumberland, created 1953. It's a modest addition to the public realm but a proper bit of local individual and community 'place making' as the plaque makes clear.
- Haltwhistle Rural District Council's small but useful contribution to public convenience celebrates its centenary this year - and it's still open.
- 1/ Hemel Hempstead Water Gardens, 1957-9, designed by Geoffrey Jellicoe as part of the new town development he master-planned. Grade II-listed as 'an increasingly rare and largely intact example of a town centre water garden, created during the era of post-war renewal and new town developments'
- 1/ Public art in Hemel Hempstead. Mosaic Map commissioned by the Development Corporation and placed on what is allegedly the first multi-storey car park in the UK, 1960. Designed by Rowland Emett and painted by Phyllis Butler of Carter Tiles Ltd.
- A day trip to Hemel Hempstead
- ‘A craggy cliff … that projects and recedes, rises and falls, as it winds alongside Vauxhall Bridge Road’ (Rowan Moore). My post on Westminster's low-rise high-density Lillington Gardens Estate that broke with 60s' high-rise rush to build. municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-lillin...
- HT @glosbio.bsky.social. And the link below - pdf - explains the origins and survival of Bedfordshire County Council's scheme of 138 village signs to celebrate the 1951 Festival of Britain ... www.bedfordshire-lha.org.uk/wp-content/u...
- I've pulled together links to some of the pieces I've written about Bedfordshire villages. shellydennisonwriter.wordpress.com/2025/05/09/e... #LocalHistory #Bedfordshire #RuralHistory
- 🚨 New on Substack: The Lillington Gardens Estate, Westminster: ‘civilizing, elegant and exciting’ open.substack.com/pub/municipa...
- As we commemorate VE Day, we should remember the hopes and expectations of servicemen and women for a better, fairer country to emerge from the destruction of war. This is a poster created by and for British prisoners of war in the German prison camp, Stalag Luft III.
