A tour of St Saviour’s Estate: Rising from the ashes of a World War 2 bombsite – it was luxury for its first residents in 1959

I have a real soft spot for St Saviour's Estate in Abbey Street. For a short time I lived there and never got over how lovely the flats are. Most of them are maisonettes and they really have a feel of living in a proper house, writes Debra Gosling...

No concrete here, they have floorboards that creak, again just like a proper house! And I'm told by a man in the trade who lives on the estate that the electrical wiring in place is of the best quality and costs a bomb to replace.

No expense was spared for this estate where the blocks all have names that are connected to the Mediaeval abbey. However, two newly built blocks have names that have no connection, which is sad.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/bermondsey/40-new-council-homes-completed-on-st-saviours-estate-in-bermondsey-and-named-after-local-figures-burgwin-and-manze-family/

Opened in 1959, they provided decent homes for decent people, who previously had lived in old and damp places. Some residents had been living in temporary accommodation (prefabs) after being bombed out in the war. It had a real community feel as many had came from the same street and all had moved out together. It was cosy, familiar, bright and a new start for many.

Prefabs, 1946. Credit: Southwark archives

The people of Galleywall Road were some of the first to move into the estate - their houses had been very damp, crowded and in bad repair - there were mushrooms growing in the passage, subsidence and rickety window frames. Most kept chickens so they had to go, along with the tomato plants and the veg. I imagine chicken soup was on the menu for weeks...

One of the occupants described their old house: "We only had one bedroom for four of us so my parents partitioned part of it off so us kids could have our own space - but I had a sister and it was crowded and awkward. Imagine our delight to have a room each in the new flat.

"My parents had the pick of the estate so they chose one on the first floor, with a balcony overlooking Bermondsey church. Mum was overcome with delight! And she had a rota with the other tenants to keep the balcony clean and they had to wash the stairs down too".

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/history-plus/laundries-mangles-and-polishing-the-doorstep-not-slumming-it-in-bermondsey/

Attilburgh House St Saviour's Estate Abbey Street Copyright Bede House

But that is a community isn't it? It keeps good neighbourly relations and installs a sense of pride. But the estate has a council cleaner now who is top notch at his job.

The estate had been designed to ensure all those who moved in had the same kind of set up to that of a house. Downstairs was the loo, the kitchen and the lounge and upstairs the bedrooms and a bathroom with a nice big bath, not a tin one hanging on a nail in the yard!

The rooms are big and have built in cupboards: reaching in to get out a shirt is a bit like entering Narnia.

View from top of Tomson House St Saviour's Estate Abbey Street. Metal Box Co below. Copyright: Bede House

Who had the genius and foresight to design these delightful places? Clifford Ewart Culpin, that's who. His family already had a connection with Bermondsey when his father, Ewart Gladstone Culpin had worked with Bermondsey Borough Council to create those picturesque cottages in Wilson Grove.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/news/community/local-lives-hilda-on-growing-up-in-bermondsey-rotherhithe-where-she-partied-with-pop-icon-tommy-steele/

Built in 1927-28 at the instigation of Ada and Alfred Salter, they set new standards for working class housing in the area. What the dynamic duo wanted was to " pull down three-quarters of Bermondsey and build a garden city in its place".

Ewart G Culpin greatly supported the Garden City movement and was later a prominent Labour member of the London County Council (LCC). But sadly the Salters' vision was never fully put in place.

The cottages were lucky to escape too much damage in the war, unlike Abbey street, which really took a pasting at the hands of the Luftwaffe.

Abbey Street,1939 Credit: Southwark archives

From the corner of Tower Bridge Road down to the arch in Abbey Street was a scene of devastation with the majority of buildings razed to the ground.

In fact, I remember being delighted as a child to see a small rockery with flowers growing in it but this was just rubble that was left over and used to try an bring a bit of beauty to an ugly space.

Abbey street showing a rubble flower display Credit: Southwark archives

Miraculously, Abbey Buildings were not too badly damaged in the blast. I assume the Germans were aiming for the two tin works that were situated either side of Abbey Street: John Fever in Tower Bridge Road and Metal Box in Riley Road.

Yet long before Hitler was born, Abbey street had suffered the first lot of turmoil with the coming of the London & Greenwich railway. Look around this area today and you can see so many arches and yards taken up by the rails.

All of this space had to be cleared to make way for the new development back in the 1830s - but those that lived on these sites were turfed out of their homes, with no compensation offered for those that only rented.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/history-plus/londons-first-train-line-ghost-stations-and-the-golden-age-of-travel-a-history-of-southwarks-railways/

Once the railway was up and running new houses were built in its shadow and the area around it was christened Bermondsey New Town before its destruction by the Germans.

So Clifford Culpin had a blank canvas to implement his plans for a post-war modern housing estate. Previously, in 1939 he had built the Grade II-listed modernist Greenwich Town Hall. It's a bit of a brute but you can see his style and he applied it to the flats with care.

View of the estate. Copyright Debra Gosling

St Saviour's Estate copyright Debra Gosling

All of the flats were completed while Bermondsey Borough Council was still the overseeing body. In 1965 it was engulfed in Southwark Council so we can thank our lucky stars that the Abbey street site did not become some huge concrete monster!

Today there's a whiff of a garden city around the estate with great planting of daffodils and roses. There used to be so many pretty blossom trees but these were cut down a couple of years ago - sadly they were old and unstable.