EPW041177 ENGLAND (1933). Housing off Burnthouse Lane and environs, Exeter, from the north-east, 1933

Milton Road

Laurel Road

Laburnum Road

Holly Road

Shakespeare Road

Hawthorn Road

Hawthorn Road

Briar Crescent

Chestnut Ave

It was as a result of the nationwide 1920's and 1930's urban sprawl that the post-war 1947 Town and Country Planning Act was passed.

Spenser Avenue

WG Rice General Store which served the whole area and must have been a profitable shop. A very bright summer's day the window blind is out.

The Dolphin Inn

Footings for new house construction.

Piles of paving slabs.

End of pavement being laid.

For some reason all over the estate the houses don't follow the same symmetrical frontal building line and jut out and back. Why is this I wonder?

None of these houses are occupied. The road and pavement is being put in and the pavement slabs are stacked ready to be laid.

Horse pulling a cart or buggy.

These houses are occupied whilst the ones below are still being built.

Hawthorn Road

Laburnam Road

Briar Crescent, known by locals as "The Briars".

Topsham Road

Burnthouse Lane, the main road through the estate and following the original lane.

This photo shows how the estate was built and how the construction moved through the area from Topsham Road and fanned out of the original lane that became Burnthouse Lane.

The field has horses in and stables and the adjoining field has jumps in it.

The lane in its undeveloped state before the estate road consumed it gives an idea of how the original lane looked.

The original lane being swallowed up by the road being laid through the estate.

Chestnut Avenue

Topsham Barracks. Home of the Devonshire Regiment.

The first house in Fernpark Close under construction.

New expensive detached houses being built in Ellards Close. This aspect raised by the photo is very interesting. Topsham Road separates what is a huge council estate (Burnthouse Lane) imposed on the area from the early thirties from expensive private housing. I had always, and obviously wrongly, assumed the private housing was there before the high density council housing was built and in effect the private homeowners had the council housing imposed on them. However it's clear to see the private side of Topsham Road was developed after Burnthouse Lane was built and probably as a result of BHL opening up Topsham Road and releasing surrounding land for development.

Children in two groups in the playground. My father would have been attending this school when this photo was taken in 1933.

Bradley Rowe school