Local resident Jonathan Moore steps back to 1933 and finds a house with all mod cons.
Tom’s house on Birch Tree Avenue is a pristine example of the J2 Major: Morrell’s semi-detached, two-bedroom offering ‘with room for garage’. The freehold price back in 1933 was a heady £575, requiring a £58 deposit. Houses in Coney Hall were a full £50 cheaper that those in Petts Wood, due to the higher cost of land at the other Morrell housing project.
The building firm did offer financing – although that was a sore topic for some contemporary buyers, as you may know. Local resident Elsy Borders was forced into landmark legal action in protest at the mortgage arrangements and the original quality of the fit and finish of Coneyhall Estate houses.
Thankfully, the problems were rectified and we have ended up with the solid houses we enjoy today.
The J2 Major is one of the designs that is gone into in some detail in the 1933 sales brochure, with a full five pages dedicated to a house that offered a ‘pleasing air of dignity and real homeliness’.
The houses came fully finished and ready for occupation, complete with electric wiring and gas points. With the caveats of the problems that some new residents had experienced, the fittings were high quality and cutting edge for the time: a quarry-tiled sill in the entrance hall; a mahogany-finish mantelpiece; a gas boiler providing hot water to the sink; a larder with tiled shelves; built-in cupboards in bedrooms; and a smart white-tiled bathroom with hot water, a bath and toilet.
The houses were also fitted with a gas copper: not something I was familiar with, but it was the common method for supplying the majority of hot water in houses since Victorian times. Coppers were originally large bricked-in water containers, with a coal fire lit underneath to heat water (which required a lot of work to use), but Coneyhall Estate houses were in the first wave of 1930s houses to heat their coppers (by now actually aluminium) using gas. You can see the copper visible in the kitchen annexe pictured.
It’s easy to forget how ground-breaking and modern a lot of these facilities were at the time – but then, we forget that central heating only became common in the 1970s and I’m sure some older residents may even remember outside toilets in their lifetime!
Coney Hall Village Residents' Association (CHVRA) 