Flight of Fancy

A friend of mine recently bought a large, red brick semi detached house in The Avenues area of our city. It is so called for obvious reasons. It is tree lined.

I have to qualify that point because there are many so named residential streets throughout the UK which are devoid of anything more than leylandii hedges or those ornamental trees which seemed like a good idea when seen at the local garden centre but subsequently prove to be most disappointing.

New housing estates similarly have iconic names to their cul de sacs and narrow car crammed looping roadways but as yet have no established lilac's, acacia's or fuschsia's to speak of.

At least in the now largely demolished parts of out cities and towns there was no pretence or snobbery in living on Gas Works Row, Sewer Lane or Slaughterhouse View.

Within The Authentic Avenues my friend lives on Park Avenue.

This is one of four broad and long streets running east to west with grand villas, terraces and a few individual residences with towers topped with ramparts together with other architectural eccentricities.

Amongst its collective occupants there is a constant dialogue and argument over in what order, into what hierarchy of desirability the four streets fall.

To outsiders the area has always been associated with those of the brown, wholegrain bread persuasion, readers of the Guardian newspaper and also who know how to cook such organic foods as lentils, chick peas and are not phased by houmus or sun dried tomatoes.

If the criteria for one-upmanship is purely based on the calibre of houses then perhaps my friends street would come out on top.

Park Avenue may have the highest proportion of detached three storey late Victorian examples but would be hard pushed by perhaps Victoria Avenue, followed by Westbourne and Marlborough. The two latter avenues are a bit narrower and less grand in appearance and their eastern sections, closer to the inner city, do have more of the larger properties sub divided into flats and bedsits or operating as Houses in Multiple Occupation. This may be frowned upon or just as easily ignored by the owner occupiers who are still, just about, in the majority.

Adopting the criteria of which street has the highest proportion of subsidence damaged housing is another way to allocate status to the area.

A common feature under just about all of the stock of buildings is a marsh. The local name of Newlands is rarely used as it may infer an association with the busy shopping street of almost the same name and detract from the residential character. It does explain the origins of the boggy ground in that Newlands relates to the reclamation of the land from a previous existence under the surface of a lake.

A few entrepreneurs and time served builders took on the land, which in the early to mid 1800's was regarded as being sufficiently distant from the city slums to be desirable and developed individual plots or blocks on a bespoke and later a more speculative basis. This was a piecemeal process on the basis of time but also explained the wide variety of sizes, styles and calibre of housing.

The unavoidable clay subsoils groaned under the imposed weight of bricks and mortar and in the early years following construction and occupation many homes settled and found a more natural level. Today this is clearly illustrated by the distinctive sloping and crowning of the timber floors, out of true doorheads and a degree of involuntary movement and separation between front and rear parts of the large and substantial dwellings.

In the intermittent drought years , but in more recent times on an almost alternate year basis the extraction of moisture from the clay by evaporation and primarily the action of the Avenues trees has wreaked havoc with the shallow pad foundations.

The two storey front bays were the first to subside followed by internal load bearing walls and then the breaking away of the slim two storey rear wing offshoots. It was a common sight following a drought year to see major structural works in progress in all of the four streets. Money from insurers was lavished on providing underpinning and remediation works. A flexible joint was the Engineers specification between the two main elements of the houses. Legal actions flourished between owners and the Council who as guardians of the offending trees were held liable for the subsidence problem.

Amazingly, in the midst of all the adverse publicity and large scale structural repairs which led to a clogging of the roads with builders vans and cement mixers intermittently over 20 years or so there was no tangible decline in the desirability of the area.

My friends house was so affected. Although stabilised on a new foundation there were still inherited features of distortion, quite discernible, to the main front elevation and throughout. Again this had not served to deter his purchase.

The third criteria on which to assess the hierarchy of the four streets is the number of blue heritage plaques relating to famous former residents.

The list is pretty impressive for such a concentrated area. Westbourne Avenue has, amongst its glitterati the versatile actor Ian Carmichael, the crime and suspense writer Dorothy L Sayers, Alan Plater, playwright and Joseph Boxall who had the honour of being the third most senior officer to survive the sinking of the Titanic. I have seen another plaque commemorating two pioneers of Hollywood movies, Ralph and Gerald Thomas on Westbourne.

Park Avenue was the home for some years of Anthony Minghella, film director whose work included The English Patient.

The house purchased by my friend has its own blue enamelled metal sign. The pioneer aviator Amy Johnson was a former occupant. She was the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia as well as many other milestone achievements.

On weekends a few cars do slow down at the roadside and camera lenses are thrust out to take a few furtive pictures. There is obviously still quite a following.

There is however a downside to the ownership of the home of a famous person. What is missing to assist in modern living is a driveway. Parking in The Avenues is very much a current problem as the area did not have to consider car ownership and use when it was first developed. My friend applied for Planning Permission to create an across the deep grass verge in front of his Park Avenue residence. The level of opposition from the Residents Committee, Heritage Organisations and the Council was strong and his application was refused.

In conveying his obvious disappointment and annoyance to me I did jokingly suggest that, given the illustrious former owner occupier, would he possibly have been more successful in trying to get consent for a small runway. We have not spoken since.