(a) Type of Dwelling

A brief review of the architectural aspect of Willesden's housing shows at once that the varying social character of the Borough, and the several phases of its development, are clearly reflected in the distribution of architectural types. Looking at the Borough as a whole, for example, it seems that the majority (56%) of Willesden's households were living in terraced houses. Only 6% were found to be in detached houses, while semi-detached houses were occupied by a further 17%. A surprisingly high proportion (21%) were occupying self-contained flats in the Borough. (5) But it is in the distribution by ward of housing types (6) that something of the real character of the area is revealed. Thus, the detached house was most frequently in evidence in Brondesbury and Mapesbury wards, where it was occupied by 21% and 26% respectively, of all households, compared with its complete absence in all but a few of the other wards. The semi-detached house was found widely distributed throughout the Borough (except in some wards, such as Kensal Rise and Willesden Green, where it appeared rather infrequently); but its greatest incidence occurred in the more recently built northern wards, including Neasden, where 42% of all households were in semi-detached houses, Church End (38%) and Cricklewood (33%). Most remarkable, however, was the distribution of terraced houses - a type of housing development which has declined in popularity since the early years of this century.

These were occupied by 97% of all households in Kensal Rise, and 80% of all those in Harlesden. (1) The other older wards in the Borough each contained more than 60% of households in terraced houses, while even in the north they usually formed between 30% and 40% of all homes. (2)

It is the terraced housing of the Borough which appears to symbolise many of Willesden's problems, for the poorest and most overcrowded population, and the most decayed property, are found largely in those areas where the terraced house is most common. Thus, an analysis showed that slightly more than three-quarters of the terraced houses were occupied in the form of rooms, and contained more than one household. Moreover, as may be seen from Map 11, it is in the southern half of the Borough (particularly Carlton, Kilburn, Kensal Rise and Harlesden) that dwellings were most frequently sub-divided. (3) The more recently developed wards in the north had not suffered so severely. If Map 11 is now compared with Map 7, it will be noticed that areas most subject to subdivision were also those containing the highest proportion of terraced houses. Further comparison with Map 6 indicates that most of the areas described by the Borough Council as “in process of decay” are included within the areas having the highest incidence of dwelling sub-division.

The occupants of self-contained flats were the most fortunate group in Willesden in the matter of sharing, for these flats were almost entirely (91%) occupied by only one household. In contrast, between 40% and 50% of households in detached and semi-detached houses were sharing these dwellings with other households. (4)

It appeared likely that dwelling sub-division might also be closely related to population density. When an analysis was made, it was found that, although rather more than half the Willesden population (56%) were living in areas having less than 125 persons to the acre, (5) there was also conclusive evidence that, the more densely populated the area, the more frequently were structurally separate dwellings occupied by more than one household. This is made abundantly clear by the following table:

It will be noticed from this table that 55% of all structurally separate dwellings in Willesden contained more than one household. The table which follows shows the exact distribution of households in the whole sample, compared with other figures for the London region, and for England and Wales:

(A) Figures from Social Survey Report, “Population and Housing in England and Wales, Mid-1945, “N.S.60, by Geoffrey Thomas.

It will be seen that Willesden had a very considerably larger proportion of sub-divided dwellings (55%) than had London as a whole (25%) or England and Wales (7%). The two latter figures refer to the position in mid-1945; but is unlikely that increased subdivision of dwellings within the sixteen months separating the two surveys would have succeeded in bridging this immense gap, although it may have been reduced.

As might have been expected, the majority (80%) of Willesden householders were tenants. The remainder were either owner-occupiers (17%) or were buying their homes (3%).

(b) Habitable Rooms and Bedrooms

The high proportion, in Willesden, of sub-divided dwellings and of self-contained flats, suggests the possibility that the number of habitable rooms (1) occupied by each household would, generally speaking, be small. The results of this inquiry show this to be the case. For example, as many as 53% of all households were occupying not more than three habitable rooms. The “standard” set by private enterprise housing between the wars, of five habitable rooms (two living and three bedrooms) was satisfied or exceeded only by 27% of households in Willesden. 4% were living in a single habitable room.

Comparison with similar figures for the London Civil Defence Region, and for England and Wales (in 1945), shows that Willesden differs significantly in the amount of accommodation available for each household. The whole London Region, for instance, and a considerably larger proportion of households occupying only one or two rooms (25%, compared with 15%). Willesden, on the other hand, had a larger proportion occupying three or four rooms (58%, compared with 43% for the London region). Households occupying five or more rooms formed 27% of all Willesden households, compared with 32% for the Region. In short, therefore, it may be said that Willesden was rather better off than the London region in some respects, notably in that households tended to occupy three or four rooms, rather than one or two. In the London Region, households were more evenly distributed over the range one to four rooms. The Region, however, had a larger proportion of households occupying five rooms or more.

At the same time, Willesden had decidedly fewer rooms, on the average, than the general population of England and Wales, where only 11% of households had only one or two rooms, compared with 15% in the Borough. Moreover, Willesden had more than twice the proportion (38%) occupying three rooms than had England and Wales (16%); and households having four rooms or more were a consistently smaller proportion of Willesden households than of all households in the country.

Analysis of housing data by ward has already shown itself to be fruitful; and a similar analysis in this case also revealed some interesting variations between them. Two aspects have been shown in Maps 9 and 10.

While 4% of all Willesden households were occupying only a single room, ward analysis showed that some areas (such as Mapesbury) contained as many as 10% such households. Map 9, showing the distribution of single-room households, makes clear their concentration in Carlton and Kilburn, and in the other wards whose eastern boundary lies upon the Edgware Road, (although there was a secondary concentration in Harlesden and Manor wards). Contrary to expectation, these concentrations were by no means always coincidental with the areas of highest housing sub-division. (1) Moreover, although several of the wards with a high proportion of single-room households contained areas of decaying property, others of these wards contained none; while some wards with decaying property areas had a low incidence of these households. (2)

A possible explanation of this primary concentration on the eastern boundary of the Borough may lie in its proximity to the Edgware Road. A main artery from the centre of London, carrying adequate public transport, the Edgware Road would facilitate the outward movement of seekers of accommodation who had not found rooms nearer the centre, or had found them too expensive. In addition, of course, this part of Willesden may have taken population overflowing from the adjacent “roaming” districts of Hampstead, Swiss Cottage, Belsize Park and, to some extent, St. John's Wood. In the case of the Kilburn and Carlton wards - the southern end of the concentration - their rather disreputable character and mobile population would be consistent with a widespread letting of single rooms.

Map 10 shows the distribution, by ward, of households at the other end of the scale: those occupying five or more habitable rooms. The picture presented by this map is more simple of interpretation, since the main

concentration of these households occurs in the north and north-west of Willesden. This is consistent with expectation, for the northern wards were largely developed between the wars on the private enterprise “standard”, already mentioned, of two living and three bedrooms. The older wards in the south, particularly Kilburn and Carlton, are shown to be on this count, as upon others already discussed, the least satisfactory.

Bedrooms . Only a very small proportion of Willesden households (5%) had more than three bedrooms. The majority (70%) had two bedrooms or less:

(c) Amenitie s

The preceding pages have shown that, in the matter of the number of rooms occupied by each household, and of subdivision of dwellings, the standard of Willesden housing was not high. Modern standards also demand a minimum provision of “amenities” - summarised in this inquiry by the collection of data on the kitchen, the bathroom the W.C. and the garden. It is important that at least the first three of these should be available for the undivided use of every household; and it may be argued, too, that every household should be entitled to the private enjoyment of its own garden. Conditions in Willesden fall short of such a standard.

The Kitchen. Of the amenities on which data was collected, the distribution of the kitchen was (apart from the W.C.) the most satisfactory. (1) Of all Willesden households, 93% had their own kitchen, 5% shared (2) a kitchen with one or more other households, and 2% had none. Households living in dwellings which were sub-divided, on the other hand, were less well equipped. That is to say, whilst all those households which were not sharing a dwelling possessed kitchen accommodation, many living with one other household (and, even more, those with two or more) either had a kitchen which was shared, or had none at all.

The Bathroom. The nineteenth century, no doubt, thinking the bath a refinement for the well-to-do, would not have been disturbed at its absence from the homes

of the poor. Today, however, the bath is regarded (as its provision in the small prefabricated house indicates) as a necessity for all. It is all the more disturbing, therefore, to find that 33% of all Willesden households had no bathroom, with a further 26% sharing it with other households in the same dwelling. Only 41% had their own bathroom. Nor was this absence confined (as was the case with the kitchen) to sub - divided dwellings, for 21% of households occupying the whole of their dwelling had no bathroom. Nevertheless, the following table makes it clear that, the more sub - divided the dwelling, the less often had the occupants a bathroom:

The W. C . There were no households in Willesden without a W. C., although 22% shared this with other households. It will be noticed in the table below that the proportion of households sharing a W. C. was closely related to dwelling sub - division. Thus, only 2% of households occupying the whole of a dwelling shared; but where a dwelling was occupied by three households or more, the W. C. was shared in 68% of cases. In view of the possibility that such arrangements result in the increased exposure of the population to infection, a further investigation of the prevalence of intestinal and other disorders in areas of high dwelling sub - division would no doubt be illuminating.

The Garden. It has already been shown (1) that, in the matter of public open space, Willesden is only poorly equipped. It is consequently of even greater importance than usual that every household should at least have access to a private garden, even if it is not possible that all should have exclusive rights to one. In view of this, it is disturbing to find that 25% of households in the Borough had no garden (2) at all. Once again this was closely related to housing sub - division, in that the greater the degree of sub - division, the more often was there no garden. It is noteworthy, too, that where dwellings contained no more than two households, a larger proportion (57%) shared a garden than had none. In those cases where a dwelling contained three or more households, on the other hand, these more often (56%) had no garden than shared one (37%).

(a) Dissatisfaction

(ii) Housing Improvement

From the preceding pages it in possible to obtain a general picture of housing conditions in Willesden at the time of this inquiry. The position in many parts of the Borough appears to be unsatisfactory; but the opinions of the people living in these houses might, nevertheless, have shown some variation from their expected response. All informants, therefore, both men and woman, were asked if they were satisfied or dissatisfied with their present housing. In addition, those who said that they were dissatisfied were asked their reasons for this. (1)

There were same special factors which operated in the direction of, if anything, an underestimate of the real extent of dissatisfaction. In view of this, the amount of dissatisfaction with housing, as revealed by the questionnaire is remarkable:

Those proportions do not differ significantly as between men and women. But analysis showed that, with both sexes, the incidence of dissatisfaction fell consistently with increasing, age. Thus, 76% of all women, aged 20 - 29, were dissatisfied, compared with 36% of those whose age was 60 or more. (2) Men differed little from the women on this analysis. A further analysis, on the other hand, showed that younger housewives (20 - 29 years) were more often dissatisfied than were all women of the same age (81% compared with 76%) In addition, as might be expected, housewives at all ages were more often dissatisfied than were other adults in similar age groups. (3) But, in brief, the main conclusion to be drawn from this data is the undoubted fact that it was the younger people who were most frequently dissatisfied with their housing; and it is reasonable to assume that there is same relation between this and the greater popularity of moving to a new town amongst younger people. (4)

Results of similar decisiveness emerged from an analysis of the incidence of dissatisfaction by the economic group of the household's chief wage carner. (5) Dissatisfaction was expressed least frequently in the lowest and the highest economic groups. Maximum dissatisfaction appeared in the middle groups, (6) There was little significant variation here as between housewives and other adults. It may be that, since old people form a larger proportion of the lowest economic group than of any other (7) , this may account (at least in part) for the smaller incidence of dissatisfaction in this group that older people were more often satisfied with their present homes has already been shown. In the case of the highest economic group, it is not surprising to find that satisfaction was widespread, since the well - to - do might be expected to enjoy better housing than the poor.

In addition to the foregoing variations related to the status of the individual, there were others which were related to more general environmental factors. Thus, dissatisfaction occurred very considerably more frequently in the more densely populated areas of the Borough. Indeed, the incidence of dissatisfaction increased more or less regularly as density increased. (1) No doubt this phenomenon was due to the concentration of the worst housing in the areas of highest population density. (2) These areas, too, contain a large amount of dwelling sub - division. A certain internal consistency in the data becomes clear, therefore, when analysis shows that dissatisfaction was more frequent in sub - divided dwellings, than amongst households who did not share:

It will be noticed that there is a slight increase in the incidence of dissatisfaction as between households sharing with one, and those sharing with two or more other households. But the difference is only slight (3%), and it appears clear that dissatisfaction is related to the single fact of sharing, without reference to the number of households involved.

Finally, there is the question of the relation between dissatisfaction and the provision of amenities. It might be expected that a housewife who shared a kitchen or a bathroom, for example, or had none, would be more likely to feel dissatisfaction with her home. Indeed, amongst the specific factors mentioned by the dissatisfied, these were the most important (3) An analysis of provision of amenities by dissatisfaction, showed there to be a consistent relation between them, except in the case of the kitchen. (4) Here, the proportion of the dissatisfied who were sharing a kitchen was only slightly larger than the proportion of the satisfied. It must be remembered, however, that most (93%) households in fact had their own kitchen, and that those without would probably be those occupying, from choice, a single room.

It was clear that those who shared, or had no bathroom, W. C. or garden were a consistently larger proportion of the dissatisfied than of the satisfied. These factors appeared to influence housewives rather more often than the other adults in the household. In both cases, however, the absence of a bathroom appears to have been the most potent factor.

In conclusion, it is interesting to note that there was some relationship between the year of the informant's coming to Willesden and dissatisfaction with housing. The following table shows that the proportion expressing dissatisfaction increased consistently as the date (5) of first coming to the Borough became more recent. However, while this is true, it appears, further, that the major difference occurs between those coming to Willesden before 1900, and those coming after that year:

It is probably the case that the most recent immigrants have been sharing, dwellings with other families - which in itself leads to dissatisfaction, as will be shown later. Moreover, older residents are more likely to be better housed (having selected their house before the war when accommodation was more easy to find); and, it may be, long experience may have accustomed them to any shortcomings of their homes.

(b) Reasons for Dissatisfaction

Some of the factors related to dissatisfaction with housing have already emerged from the preceding pages. In what follows, the reasons for dissatisfaction which were specifically mentioned by informants are analysed.

The housing complaints which were mentioned were fairly detailed in character; but it will be useful at first to examine these in summary form. The table below shows the complaints grouped under inclusive headings; and of those the most serious are undoubtedly those concerning overcrowding and lack of privacy, and those concerning structural defects. It is true that a group of considerable size (52% of all answers) mentioned various inadequacies of amenity, but the former complaints merit first consideration. Other small groups dealt with such matters as lack of garden, badly planned rooms, etc.

(Informants gave more than one answer to this question. The total answers are therefore more than 1858; and the total of percentages greater than 100).

Except upon one count, the complaints of housewives varied only slightly (by about 5%) from those of the whole population. The exception, however, is interesting, in that it shows that housewives were less concerned with overcrowding (47% of housewives answers spoke of this, compared with 63% of those who were not housewives). This difference can he traced to two possible factors. On the one hand the housewife is necessarily more intimately concerned with a lack of amenity and bad architectural planning in 39 the dwelling which she has to organise. On the other, the full effect of overcrowding is not apparent to the housewife throughout the day, when many members of the family are not at home, but at work. In addition, a well - filled house in the evening may seem desirable to some housewives who spend their days alone, but less desirable to workers who spend most of their days with other people.

Moreover, when reasons for complaint were analysed by the age of the informant, (1) it became clear that overcrowding was complained of twice as frequently by the young (20 - 29 years) as by the old (60 years and over), and that the incidence of this complaint fell consistently with increasing age. The reverse was true of structural defects - namely, that complaints on this score became more frequent with increasing age, presumably because the housing of older persons tends to be worse than the general average. (2)

Analysis by economic group, however, contrary to expectation, did not show, on every count, a significant variation. But it was found (3) that complaints of structural defect decreased steadily as economic group rose, from 37% in the lowest economic group, to 18% in the highest. The trend was reversed in the case of other types of complaint, such as the badly planned house, and miscellaneous complaints. In these cases, incidence increased as economic group rose. Apart from these points, however, analysis by economic group showed little variation, except in so far as the highest group made other complaints slightly less frequently. It cannot be said, therefore, that the less well - to - do exclusively saw reason to complain of their housing; and, although it is true that the complaints of the better - off were more often concerned with more superficial matters, the proportion of these who complained of fundamental defects, such as overcrowding, inadequate amenities and structural faults, was not much smaller than the proportion of the poorer groups. It may be, of course that the defects complained of by the wealthier, although of the same character, were less serious than those of the poor.

Results of similar interest emerged from an analysis by population density. It will be seen from the table below (4) that the incidence of complaints on the grounds of inadequate amenities was smallest in those areas having less than 125 persons to the acre, and greatest where there were 175 persons or more. At densities between these extremes, the proportion varied. On the other hand, perhaps surprisingly, the incidence of complaints on the grounds of overcrowding was smallest in the most densely populated areas. The explanation may lie in different conceptions of housing comfort. Areas of high population density in Willesden are largely those (such as Carlton, Kilburn, etc.) having a large proportion of single - person households, largely made up, it may be assumed, of those who prefer or are accustomed to, such accommodation. To these, therefore, overcrowding may be a matter of less importance than a lack of amenities (although in some cases it may be that complaints on the latter ground may conceal dissatisfaction on the former). On the other hand, contemporary housing shortage has meant much sharing of dwellings by persons (such as those living in the northern wards) who were formerly accustomed to the exclusive occupation of their house. Thus a degree of overcrowding acceptable in the south might be a source of profound irritation in the north.

At this point it is appropriate to note the relationship between dissatisfaction and the number of bedrooms available to the household. This is made

clear by the following Table:

It will be seen that while 54% of the satisfied had 2 bedrooms or less, as many as 81% of the dissatisfied had as few bedrooms as this. Conversely, only a small proportion of the dissatisfied had four or more bedrooms available.

The analysis by ward showed that structural defects, for instance, were mentioned more frequently in the most densely populated areas; and the reverse was true of complaints of badly planned dwellings. While the absence of a garden was complained of in all areas, this was four times as common in areas having 150 - 174 persons to the acre.

(Informants gave more than one answer to this question. The total answers are therefore more than 884; and the total of percentages greater than 100).

Finally, before leaving this section it may be of interest to examine briefly the nature of the detailed complaints of those who were dissatisfied with their housing. (1) Of those who mentioned inadequate amenities, most

complained that they had no bathroom (22% of all the dissatisfied) or that their home lacked unspecified “modern conveniences” (21%). Others were rather more specific, and mentioned bad plumbing, poor sanitation, absence of hot water, insufficient heating, and inadequate electrical equipment (9% in all). The complaints which have been grouped above as “overcrowding” may be subdivided into those who said “overcrowded; house not big enough” (28%); “I would like a place of my own: I don't like sharing” (20%); and “I don't like the neighbourhood; it is noisy; overcrowded, it has deteriorated” (7%).

Complaints of structural defects fell into two sub - groups: there were those who said that the house needed repair, either because of war damage, or from other causes (16%); and there was the large group (13%) who complained that their house was damp. The remaining complaints concerned the garden, or bad planning.