From GS Chatley of Bullwell Crescent

The Golden Anniversary

My wife and I originally looked over the partially completed houses in Palmer's way before deciding to buy out plot in Bullwell Crescent and we had terrible trouble later convincing the house agent that our house was actually being constructed because it wasn't scheduled to be constructive that way The Hubert C Leech brigade were supposed to start at No 1,the shop end of Bullwell Crescent and work their way around but they started at the other end and I ended up having to take a photograph of the house completed to
the ground-floor level to convince the agent to get the paperwork
started We were prevented from being the first people to move into
Bullwell Crescent by the fact that there was no electricity supply laid on and yet the people six doors away manage to move in a week before us because they were supplied with a generator for a week, well this guy was part of the building team even when we moved in the bureaucracy couldn't fit an electric meter on a Saturday so we were directly wired for the weekend so
every electric fire we could find was switched on to help with the
>drying out after plasterwork and we ended up boiling away part of the
>electrical cable conduit box which was filled with pitch. Still the people at the first in didn't stay long we are now the only original earliest tenants in Bullwell Crescent now As it is, we have always suffered with the problem that the even numbered houses go up to about 84 but the odd numbers only go to 45 so anybody who gets the house number wrong on a letter we always end up with it I can remember the bitter fighting that went on just after the estate was built when people tried to add things to the buildings and the councillors were adamantly opposed to anything that made houses look individual even when people who were able to build garages on the side of the house, they were ordered to leave things 3 feet back from the building line to allow room for the dustbin which would be on the way every time you tried to move a car. Now anything goes judging by the very peculiar extension things have been added on to the houses lately Reminiscence When you come to that bend nearly shops in Roundmoor Drive one of house owners there was puzzling why when they put in a new driveway how much rubble there was underneath All that was where the communal estate cement mixer was situated and the ground was so polluted the builder had to dig down about 7 feet to clearly cement mix out and replace it with rubble before he put the new path in Sign of progress All our
houses were originally supplied with gas water and electricity but I elected not to use gas having survived a gas explosion in a house years prev iously When we came to the yellow plastic gas pipe being installed I am suddenly disenfranchised and they would not connect a pipe up so that anybody who buys this house in the future will end up with £1000+ connection fee because of the bureaucracy of the gas authorities Still it's never going to affect me

Regards G. S. Chatley

From Hilda and Peter

Re Estates Golden Anniversary

We moved in this house in 1958 and were the second people in this road. The houses opposite were still being decorated and the ones at the top of the road (low numbers), were still being built, some by Hubert C Leach and some by Catchpole & Son, the difference can be identified by different facing in the brick work. The Catchpole ones were always scrubbed out and clean. There wasn't any pavement down so mud was a problem. The houses in Roundmoor Drive at the back of us and the shops were not started on, just a big mound of earth. You could not get through to Forest Road there was a brick wall across the road and to get to Gews Corner School - as it was then called - you had to walk through an alleyway in Bullwell Crescent - there was the School on one side and the Fire and Ambulance station the other side - which is now Hanbury Close. As none of us had much money neighbours shared various garden tools etc. It seemed a much more friendly place then.

We were one of the first members of the Residents Association.

Yours Sincerely Hilda and Peter Fruin - see photos sent in by Hilda and Peter