URBANISATION 1920 - 1939

The desertion of Deritend and west Bordesley was hastened by World War One factory development. It continued during the 1920s as its inhabitants moved to less decayed Middle Ring districts vacated by seekers after gracious living in the semis of Hall Green and Yardley. The Lloyd roads were still preserves of respectability and the newer parts of Small Heath were good addresses until the early 1930s. From 1925 on the Haybarnes Estate of council houses in twos, fours, and sixes, was being built on 122 acres between Monica Road and the new highway, Haybarnes/Newbridge Road. Rejecting the long tunnelback terrace that covered so much of central Bordesley, the Council adopted the cottage-type house pioneered by Bournville: contractors built with variations of external design but to common specifications.

Gardens, verges, small grassed play-areas and a few cul-de-sacs were first steps toward today's precincts, but most of the streets were still long throughways. On Garrison Lane the first three-storey flat-blocks, the Holmes Estate, went up on a slum site off Garrison Lane. Bordesley's urbanisation was then complete. More slums were to be replaced - by cottages (Glover and Sarah Streets and Spring Vale), maisonettes (Gordon/ Witton Streets and Kingston Hill), and the 1938 St. Martin's Estate of long three-storey flat-blocks between Vaughton and Dymoke Streets.


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