Yorkshire Road, CR4
Pollard tree
Credit: User unknown/public domain
Yorkshire Road is part of Pollards Hill.

Pollards Hill is a residential district crossing the border of the south London boroughs of Croydon and Merton between Mitcham and Norbury. It is the name of a council ward in Merton. The district is bisected by the Croydon/Merton boundary along Recreation Way. With no road connections between the Croydon and Merton portions of the district, they retain very different characteristics.

Mitcham Borough Council’s solution to the post-war housing shortage was to build prefabricated ‘Arcon’ bungalows at Pollards Hill. The first bungalows were ready as early as January 1946, and were meant to last about 10 years; in fact, many were still in use in the mid-1960s.

The four maisonette blocks were built by the Council in the 1950s on Yorkshire Road, beginning with Westmorland Square in 1950 and the final block, Bovingdon Square, in 1956; the other two were Hertford Square and Berkshire Square. The pre-fabs were mostly demolished in the 1960s, to make way for a new, high density, low-rise scheme that was constructed by the Merton London Borough Council and Wimpey between 1967 and 1971. A new branch library and community centre was included in the estate, which at the time received a design award.

A section of the estate was put under the authority of MOAT housing association in 1998, which has since demolished four maisonette blocks dating from the 1950s.

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