Throckley's Bank Top and the post-war housing crisis

In August 1952, when Corporal John McLoughlin moved his family into their new home on Throckley's Bank Top they did so under cover of darkness. There was no running water in the one-up-one-down stone built house and the only light they had came from an oil lamp. The first jobs on the list were to fix the floorboards in the bedroom, board over the kitchen ceiling and slate the roof.

Group of children outside the houses on Bank Top, about 1925

The house that John McLoughlin now called home with his wife and two children had been unoccupied for years - one of many on Bank Top that had been condemned in 1938 and earmarked for demolition. Following the 1936 Housing Act, it had become the responsibility of local councils across England to make plans to demolish unsuitable slum housing, much of which had sprung up in towns and villages like Throckley during the height of the industrial revolution. Whole streets and communities around the North East suddenly started to be earmarked for demolition and residents told to leave or face eviction or homelessness.

Map showing the houses on Bank Top, Throckley that were proposed for demolition, Tyne and Wear Archives, UD.NB/40/3

Letters were sent to the residents of Bank Top telling them to prepare to move out and offering a new home in one of the newly built housing estates. However, many refused and chose to risk homelessness rather than give up their homes and their community. Despite this the council offered no alternative and many residents were left in limbo.

"It has been reported to me that you have refused to accept the alternative housing accommodation recently offered to you by this Council at Throckley. As I intimated in my letter of the 10th August, 1939, the council is therefore under no obligation to offer other accommodation but you will be required to seek alternative accommodation yourself."

Letter from Clerk to the Council to a resident of Bank Top, Throckley, 1939

(Tyne and Wear Archives, UD.NB/40/3)

Despite the urgency and the pressure put on residents to move out, in September 1939 the country was plunged into the Second World War and the planned demolitions were put on hold. Suggestions were made for the houses to be made available for evacuees fleeing bombing raids in towns and cities. But even for those most in need the houses were seen as too unsuitable and dangerous. At the height of the War the houses were briefly occupied by the military as billets for servicemen but by the time the War ended in 1945 the houses once again stood empty with no plan for repair or demolition.

The aftermath of the War soon plunged Britain into a housing crisis. Almost half a million homes had been destroyed or left uninhabitable by bombing raids, while the return of servicemen from overseas and a sharp increase in the birth rate meant demand for homes was greater than ever. The pressure to find homes and housing was felt across towns and villages and in Throckley numerous pleas were made to the Council to find ways to use or repair the Bank Top houses so they could serve as temporary homes for elderly miners, agricultural workers or ex-servicemen. The Council, however, still refused, declaring the houses unfit for human habitation even if repairs were made, and the houses remained empty.

"I seriously would like your Council to consider the question of these houses now they have been released by the Army and yourselves. The crying need of houses in this district is so great that any that can be made habitable temporarily might help."

Letter from W Stephenson of the Throckley Coal Company requesting to house elderly ex-miners at Bank Top, 9 December 1944

(Tyne and Wear Archives, UD.NB/40/3)

Across the country though, former servicemen and their families began to take matters into their own hands. The severe housing shortage led thousands of families to occupy abandoned military camps and other empty properties, sparking what would become the largest squatting movement in British history, involving over 45,000 people (see 'A Domestic Rebellion: The Squatters’ Movement of 1946', by Howard Weber, Kings College London). It wasn't long before the abandoned Bank Top houses were targeted and by August 1946, nine of the houses had been occupied by families with no other alternative but to squat in these abandoned and dilapidated properties. A list of the names and previous addresses of the squatters (Tyne and Wear Archives, UD.NB/) tells us that many of the squatters were families with children as young as 7 months. No information is given on the fate of the squatters but the council's letters suggest that in the following months they were moved on.

By 1950 work on a new housing development in Throckley was underway and plans were made to demolish yet more of the village's old and unsuitable housing stock. Yet the fate of Bank Top was still to be decided. Despite some progress in housebuilding the housing crisis still rolled on with many people unable to find a secure home.

‘The Mount Pleasant of the Future’, 1951 (Picture Post Magazine, March 1951). Photo shows indoor baths being installed at houses in Throckley's new Mount Pleasant housing development

Such was the situation when the McLoughlin family entered Bank Top in 1952. Perhaps unaware of the area's recent chequered past and the previous squatters who had tried to find a home there, they too had found themselves newly homeless, unable to secure a council house and sleeping four in a bed at McLoughlin's sister-in-law's home.

The fate of the McLouglin's is unknown and whether they eventually found their own home. However, it wasn't until the 1970s that the houses at Bank Top were demolished having stood for decades in ruin and (mostly) empty and abandoned.