In 1915, the Aircraft Manufacturing Company occupied over 100,000 square feet of factory employing 600 people and was producing 20 machines per month. In 1916, the Office of Works commissioned its principal architect, Sir Francis Baines to design an estate of cottages for the aircraft workers. This was done along garden village lines at Roe Green.

The term garden village represented an important concept of estate design. British Town Planning was in its infancy and there were few controls on building form save the local bye-laws. In this regard, the work of Baines should be judged in the context of the Garden City movement inspired by Ebenezer Howard. Baines' concept of estate design was refined with practice. Roe Green itself was based on his office's design for Woolwich Garden Suburb (the Well Hall Estate) which was built for the Arsenal (the Ordnance factory not the football club) in 1915.

The buildings at Roe Green were deliberately designed in a combination of brick or rendered walls and slate roofs sweeping down to first floor level or a combination of similar materials with tiled roofs and vertical tile hanging.

A contemporary issue of 'The Builder' described the plan in detail:-

The site is almost level, its chief natural features being some fine trees in the two main hedges which run parallel to the sides of the site. These have determined the main line of the roads which follow the hedges, and it has been found possible to preserve every tree with one exception, and that one which could only have lasted for a time. A clump of trees with hedges cutting it at right angles has been made the nucleus of the village green, where the inn will be built. With the exception of this inn the six shops placed in Stag Lane and a doctor's house, the whole of the accommodation provided is residential, consisting of 250 houses the tenements, divided into different classes of accommodation.

There were five classes altogether. In classes 1 and 2, of which there were 110, the accommodation on the ground floor consisted of a living room, parlour, scullery and offices/coal cupboard. Three bedrooms and a combined bathroom and WC were provided on the first floor of class 1 cottages with one less bedroom on the first floor of cottage type No-2. Of class 3, there were 40 cottages built containing a large living room, scullery with bath under the kitchen table, coal cupboard and WC and on the first floor three bedrooms. Classes 4 and 5, of which about 100 were built, were two-bedroom flats with living room, scullery with bath under the kitchen table, WC and coal cupboard. Nowadays the old scullery, copper and coal cupboard are less familiar features and a variety of internal alterations have occurred in many of the properties to improve the living and bathroom arrangements.

Of the external environment 'The Builder' commented:- Houses are generally arranged in groups of four, an economical division enabling access to the back gardens to be obtained with a minimum amount of inconvenience. To obtain direct access to all gardens it would have been necessary to provide a passage in the centre of each block, or a system of pathways between the ends of the gardens. In the first case, land and also walling would be wasted; in the second, land and fencing and in this and other points of this careful and wisely considered scheme a reasonable means has been attained. Vistas have been carefully considered, and small practical points, such as the arrangement of dustbins for convenient collection, have been attended to.


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