Cranbrook Estate

The Cranbrook Estate is a housing estate in Bethnal Green, London, England. It is located next to Roman Road and is based around a figure of eight street called Mace Street. The estate was designed by Francis Skinner, Douglas Bailey and an elder mentor, the Soviet émigré Berthold Lubetkin.

Layout

Cranbrook Estate consists of six tower blocks in pairs in height order. The new Estate comprised two 15-storey blocks of 60 homes each, two 13-storey blocks of 52 homes each, two 11-storey blocks of 44 homes each and five four-storey blocks of 28 homes. With ancillary dwellings, there were 529 new homes in total with 43 bedsitter flats, 115 one-bedroom flats, 271 two-bedroom flats and 100 three-bed flats.

History

The site, which is east of Bonner Street and north of Roman Road, was called Cranbrook after the central street. "Terraced houses, workshops, and one large factory were replaced by a figure of eight called Mace Street, which echoed the diagonals of the street pattern to the north." The estate was designed by Soviet Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin, who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s and was helped by Francis Skinner and Douglas Bailey, with the Oxford House being an enduring presence during the area wide slum clearances and rebuilding including what would become the Cranbrook Estate as residents were rehoused into the new high rise flats.

The six tower blocks were opened in 1963 and were named after towns and boroughs that Bethnal Green (but now Tower Hamlets) was, at the time, twinned with – Alzette, Mödling, Offenbach, Puteaux, St Gilles and Velletri. Tillburg House is also named after the City of Tilburg in the Netherlands, but is a low-rise building.