Golden Lane Estate *, including The Golden Baggers

Site on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens, for Register Entry see https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list. The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was established in 1984 and was commonly called English Heritage. In April 2015 it split into 2 separate entities, Historic England (HE), which continues to champion and protect the historic environment, and the English Heritage Trust, whose role is to look after the 400+ historic sites and monuments owned by the state. HE manages the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) that includes over 400,000 items ranging from prehistoric monuments to office blocks, battlefields and parks, which benefit from legal protection.

The area was badly bombed in World War II and the Golden Lane Estate was built in 1953-62 for the Corporation of London, designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon following a public competition won by Geoffry Powell in 1952; they subsequently designed the Barbican Estate (q.v.) from 1956. Powell's original scheme was for a more symmetrical layout of formal courtyards with a central axis that remains between the estate office under Great Arthur House and the community centre, terminating in a raised circular bastion with trees. The final scheme for Golden Lane had blocks of different sizes massed around a number of landscaped courtyards, and with social facilities; the use of colour throughout the estate was seen as important. The first part was completed by 1957 and represented the first phase of the replanning / rebuilding of the Barbican/London Wall area. The estate was designed to be traffic-free and the aim was to provide accommodation for people working in the City, with 10 blocks around 4 courts, which were largely hard landscaped, the architects regarding 'the whole scheme as urban. We have no desire to make the project look like a garden suburb' (Powell, quoted in the Architectural Association Journal, 1957). Consequently the landscaping is formal and geometric, like the buildings, with strong patterns created throughout. This included the roofs, the tallest block having an elaborate roof garden designed by Peter Chamberlin with a pool, pergola and stepping stones, and trees in circular beds. This was later closed following a suicide and vandalism. The centrepiece was Great Arthur House, which when it was built was the highest block of flats in London.

Social facilities included a swimming pool, bowling green that is now tennis courts, a nursery school and community centre. A later phase was completed by 1962 along Goswell Road. Until borough boundaries changed in 1994 the estate was part of LB Islington. There are numerous courtyards and some areas of communal gardens, largely grass with some trees including a fine catalpa; a fountain in one courtyard.

In 2010, a group of residents set up a food-growing project that they called The Golden Baggers, so-named because they began with 20 one-tonne bags for growing. Their site was the former nursery playground in the middle of the estate, next to the Ralph Perring Centre. By 2011 the number of bags had increased to 40, such was the popularity of the project, and in early 2016 the bags were replaced by boxes in order to provide a more permanent as well as accessible solution. By 2018 there were 42 individual boxes growing fruit, vegetables and flowers as well as a communal herb garden, soft fruit and apple trees grown in pots, a grapevine and a wildlife area where children were encouraged to participate, with their own shed and digging box. 

In 2018, as part of a ‘Compiling the Record’ campaign, HE in partnership with the Gardens Trust (TGT) invited nominations from members of TGT and the general public for post-war landscapes that might be added to the NHLE in order to widen the knowledge base and seek protection for a category of landscape hitherto deemed to be under-represented on the Register. A shortlist of 25 cases was selected by an expert panel comprised of external and internal partners to go forward to full assessment for registration. This shortlist included the designed landscape of the Golden Lane Estate, which has now been registered at Grade II.

The reasons for this NHLE designation include the site's design interest, which 'makes clever use of complex levels left by buildings previously on the site, to create a series of intimate courtyards linked by pedestrian thoroughfares and features such as pools, the rotunda, and roof gardens. The planning is meticulous but varied, creating an intense urban setting, providing amenity and facilities for the residents; the complex landscaping anticipates the use of levels, green space and hard features at Chamberlin Powell and Bon’s later landscape design at The Barbican.' The designed landscape has historic interest: 'as an integral part of the estate’s design with the listed buildings and structures, also by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, arguably one of the country’s most important early 1950s housing estates.' The survival of the lanscaping is also cited: despite some minor alterations the overall form and character of the landscape survives well.'