Municipal Dreams
municipaldreams.bsky.social
Municipal Dreams
@municipaldreams.bsky.social
Social historian of housing. Author of 'A History of Council Housing in 100 Estates' (RIBA Books) and 'Municipal Dreams: the Rise and Fall of Council Housing' (Verso). I blog at https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/.
The fight to save Sheringham's 1950s 'Streamline Moderne art-deco design' bus shelter (where I used to catch the bus to school from) has now made the national news:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
The battle for Sheringham bus shelter: protesters defiant as bailiffs sent in
Norfolk county council wants to demolish a ‘beloved’ 1950s bus shelter in Sheringham, but campaigners are staging a 24/7 sit-in
www.theguardian.com
December 9, 2025 at 7:16 AM
It's all kicking off in my home town of Sheringham over proposals to demolish this 'Streamline Moderne art-deco design' bus shelter from the 1950s ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
December 7, 2025 at 3:42 PM
1/ Two C15th misericord carvings (misericords were the ledges on which choristers perched) from St Andrew's, Norton, Suffolk: a cleric studying and a woman carding wool, separating and untangling the strands.
December 7, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Council housing, Norton, Suffolk
December 7, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Another example of the far-reaching impact of the 1951 Festival of Britain: the local history exhibition in Blaxhall, Suffolk (pictured Robert Savage and Henry Hewitt). The exhibition was organised by George Ewart Evans, rural historian and author of Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay.
December 6, 2025 at 11:47 AM
This week's new blogpost reviewed Ned Newitt's excellent history of social housing in Leicester:
municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/b...
December 6, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
🚨 New on Substack, my post on the postwar Regent’s Park Estate, St Pancras: ‘catering for the main bulk and backbone of our people’
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-regent...
December 4, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Fascinating exhibition on school meals at the @foodmuseumuk.bsky.social. You'll be pleased to see Bradford's pioneering role given due coverage, @rdrberry.bsky.social
December 4, 2025 at 8:14 PM
🚨 New on Substack, my post on the postwar Regent’s Park Estate, St Pancras: ‘catering for the main bulk and backbone of our people’
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-regent...
December 4, 2025 at 8:48 AM
I'm in Thetford again, @grindrod.bsky.social! It's a good time to remind people about our chat about the town here:
johngrindrod.substack.com/p/monstrosit...
December 3, 2025 at 6:25 PM
An article about an interesting new book by Eoin Ó Brion, ‘Flats and Cottages: Herbert Simms and the Housing of Dublin’s Working Class, 1932–1948’
www.irishnews.com/news/norther...
Architect of the young Irish Free State’s public housing drive left ‘enormous legacy’
Book explores the work of Herbert Simms and asks what can be learned to tackle today's housing crisis
www.irishnews.com
December 3, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
I'm looking forward to talking with Jessica Field about her fine new book, Eviction: a Social History of Rent, at Bookmarks, Bloomsbury, next Friday 5th December. Free event but reserve your place here:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/authorsboo...
authors@bookmarks: Jessica Field | Eviction
Join author live in conversation to discuss "Eviction: A Social History of Rent" at Britain's leading socialist bookshop
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 28, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
🚨 New post - my review of Ned Newitt's excellent new book, 'Housing the People of Leicester – a History of Social Housing'.
municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/b...
Book Review: Ned Newitt, Housing the People of Leicester – a History of Social Housing
Ned Newitt, Housing the People of Leicester: a History of Social Housing (Leicester Pioneer Press, 2025) When I started this blog almost twelve years ago, council housing was a strangely neglected …
municipaldreams.wordpress.com
December 2, 2025 at 7:56 AM
King Charles the Martyr, Selland, and St Mary's, Woolpit, Suffolk; morning and late afternoon.
December 2, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
How I wish this London Transport wonder at Manor House from 1933 had survived! As well as the signpost it masks a tram/trolleybus overhead pole with a remarkable "UD" Underground finail. Sigh.
December 1, 2025 at 10:04 PM
🚨 New post - my review of Ned Newitt's excellent new book, 'Housing the People of Leicester – a History of Social Housing'.
municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/b...
Book Review: Ned Newitt, Housing the People of Leicester – a History of Social Housing
Ned Newitt, Housing the People of Leicester: a History of Social Housing (Leicester Pioneer Press, 2025) When I started this blog almost twelve years ago, council housing was a strangely neglected …
municipaldreams.wordpress.com
December 2, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
Ah - the usual air of breezy optimism in an 'architects sketch'; this as part of an advert for Fram Russell Construction & the Richmond Park estate in Ashton-under-Lyne from the Borough's 1968/9 official guide. @municipaldreams.bsky.social #housing #architecture

↘️ flic.kr/p/2rJoZty
December 1, 2025 at 7:23 PM
1/ Like the infamous Cutteslowe Walls in Oxford and a wall built at the Downham Estate in south London, we are seeing barriers going up between council estates and their posh neighbours.
www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...
‘Posh-poor divide’: the rise in areas of England where wealth and deprivation appear side by side
Data shows increase in neighbourhoods where few metres of asphalt, hedgerow, or wall can separate deep inequality
www.theguardian.com
December 1, 2025 at 5:46 PM
'The 'Pillar of Salt': a Grade II-listed road sign designed in International Modern style by Basil Oliver, Borough Architect, for Bury St Edmunds Town Council in 1935.
December 1, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
Attractive scheme of flats on Aylesford High Street/Mount Pleasant, built by Malling Rural District Council in 1968. The plaque gives due credit to C Brown Architect, Engineer and Surveyor to the Council 1954-1967.
November 27, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
The Hufeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate), Berlin - a modernist masterpiece designed by Bruno Taut and and built by the socialist trades union housing association, GEHAG between 1925 and 1927.
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-hufeis...
November 29, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
Ipswich's council housing - ahead of the game according to the c.1949 Official Guide with this aerial view of the borough's Racecourse Housing Estate first laid out according to then 1920s contemporary town planning on the site of the Racecourse that closed in 1911. @municipaldreams.bsky.social
November 29, 2025 at 11:56 AM
The Hufeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate), Berlin - a modernist masterpiece designed by Bruno Taut and and built by the socialist trades union housing association, GEHAG between 1925 and 1927.
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-hufeis...
November 29, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Municipal Dreams
🚨 New on Substack: the Hufeisensiedlung, Berlin; Bruno Taut's modernist masterpiece of the 1920s - ‘light and air, dignity and order’.
municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-hufeis...
November 27, 2025 at 7:53 AM