1949 - and construction begins on the first 120 permanent houses of the New Town we now know as Harlow. Chippingfield - to the south of the original village of Harlow - now Old Harlow.
The first houses were tenanted by employees of the Development Corporation and many of the tradesmen brought in to construct the new town, and their families. It must have been very strange for their wives in particular - having come from places like Walthamstow and a Tottenham in London, areas which would at the time have had an infrastructure that they knew and house styles that were familiar - in the new town neither of these things applied.
Not only were shops more distant, and initially fewer than the new residents were used to. The houses too - the traditional London terrace build of the time would have seen a sitting room at the front, looking into the street, with living/dining room behind and the kitchen behind that. The toilet would likely have been either directly adjoining the kitchen, via the back door, or in a building across the yard. The designers of the new houses favoured kitchens at the front, theoretically allowing the “modern housewife” to feel like she was part of the community even whilst going about her day. In some cases the interior layout would have also been far more open plan than these families were used to also.
Chippingfield today is a pleasant area, surprisingly quiet considering it’s proximity to Gilden Way. Many of the original features of the estate remain - the “open fronts” are far more universally maintained than in many areas of the town. The biggest change is that there are of course now cars everywhere - clogging the streets in a way that the designers could probably not have anticipated!
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