Trail:

The Cottage Exhibition

The exhibition was the idea of Henry Aldridge, who was Secretary of the National Housing Reform Committee. He wanted to hold the exhibition on the outskirts of a great industrial city. Sheffield and Newcastle were the two choices. A Committee was set up to decide. It included W.H. Lever who had founded Port Sunlight, near Liverpool for workers in his soap factory, John TudorGlossary Term Walters the MP for Sheffield Brightside and the municipal reformer Thomas Nettlefold of Birmingham.

Prizes were to be awarded for different classes of housing. Class A had two bedrooms and a living room. Class B had three bedrooms and living room. Class C had three bedrooms, a living room and parlourGlossary Term.

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Sheffield, Flower Estate, Plan

The winning entry for the estate layout was by W. Alexander Harvey & A. McKewan of Bournville. It displayed some advance on the Bournville plan. The building line was irregular with curving roads and buildings placed at an angle at the junctions. These ideas of planning were promoted by Raymond Unwin It also had a formal central avenue leading to a semi-circular space in front of a church. This was not built, and a school stands on the site.

Glossary

Parlour

In an abbey or monastery, a room for talking to visitors in; in a medieval house, the semi-private living room below the solar or upper chamber.

Tudor

Strictly, the architecture of the English Tudor dynasty (1485-1603), but used more often for late Gothic secular buildings especially of the first half of the 16th century. These use a simplified version of Perpendicular, characterised by straight-headed mullioned windows with arched lights, and by rooflines with steep gables and tall chimneys, often asymmetrically placed.

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