While visiting the Brunel Museum and Thames Tunnel in London’s south-bank Rotherhithe area, I noticed some rather handsome apartment buildings, clearly part of a project or estate of some sort; I took pictures and knew I’d eventually follow that particular rabbit hole.
And here we are. Seaford House and its across-the-alley neighbor Hythe House were built in 1902 as part of the Swan Road Estate, which was built to provide new homes for working families whose homes were demolished to make way for work on the Rotherhithe Tunnel. In all, there are five buildings with 140 apartments, which local authorities considered space for 1,270 people!
The Swan Road Estate was some of the earliest social housing in this area of London. It’s now a mix of social housing and private ownership. Here’s a view from earlier in their life, taken in 1907.
Nearby is another residential building, but with a far different history. Brandram’s Wharf is today a housing co-op for low-income singles and childless couples in the area, but was a warehouse and shipping site for Brandram’s, a company that dealt in paint, acids, white lead and other noxious chemicals; their factories were down-river where Canary Wharf is today.
The building was burned out in 1940 and remained a shell until the 1980s when it was reclaimed for housing. The exterior is true-to-original, but the gutted interior was completely rebuilt as housing.
Nearby are several other rows of smaller-scale social housing from a later period.
