Two groups of cottages – two different fates

During 1970s Canterbury, and in 1974 in particular, there was a new appreciation for the heritage value of old buildings.

This had a lot to do with the setting up of the City Council Conservation Department. But this gradual change of attitude was also felt across the entire nation. Post-war rebuilding was largely completed and people were beginning to miss the old structures that had been swept away in the name of a progress that few had questioned at the time. At the same time, the attitude of those many esoteric preservation societies, formed in the 1960s, began to filter down to the person in the street.

The two pictures featured here were taken in Canterbury during 1974, that vital transitional year, and show two groups of old cottages that ended up with entirely different fates.

The first one dates from March 1974 and shows a group of cheerful squatters about to be evicted from Station Cottages in Station Road West. A car park was about to be created. They had put up a banner saying “homes for people, not for profit”. Considering the otherwise good condition of these condemned cottages, they probably had a point.

By contrast, the derelict cottages at Nos. 53 and 54 Ivy Lane were in a very poor state.

Pictured in November of the same year, they had been empty for some time. However, by this time local people had found a voice and the conservation department were happy to back them up wherever possible. Old buildings still came down, but the option for conservation and the finding of a new use for them, was at least being actively considered on almost every occasion.

Today in Canterbury, it seems we are returning to more of a 1960s attitude.

Cheerful squatters in Station Road West before their eviction from the cottages

Local people fought to save the abandoned Ivy Lane cottages in 1974