O is for Octavia
Hill
Octavia Hill by John Singer Sargent 1898 (National Portrait Gallery)
A hundred years after
Octavia Hill’s death, the housing estate she helped build still stands and
bears her name. Meanwhile just a stone’s throw away the bulldozers are already
at work razing the Aylesbury Estate to the ground. Twin planning disasters the Heygate
and the Aylesbury might have benefited from an Octavia Hill. She was
undoubtedly one of the noblest characters of her time, seeking her utmost to
better the conditions of the poor, preventing open spaces being built upon, and
founding many notable organisations of which the National Trust is the most
well known. But it was her work with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners that she
will always be remembered for in Walworth. The transformation of a notorious 22
acre slum site into several new streets and groves (Merrow, Portland ,
Villa, Wooler, Liverpool, Burton ,
etc.) filled with healthy affordable homes in the shape of pretty cottages and
low-rise tenement blocks. The Faraday
Gardens recreational
ground was thrown in for good measure, a green space we are still profiting
from today.
Part of a letter from Octavia Hill regarding Faraday Gardens
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