Building Name

268 Cottages Sealand Garden City

Date
1910 - 1914
District/Town
Garden City, Queensferry
County/Country
Clwyd, Wales
Client
Sealand Tenants Ltd
Work
New Build

Due to the rapid expansion of the Steelworks in its early years, many people moved to Shotton, especially from Stalybridge, Staffordshire and South Wales, the traditional steel making areas. In 1903 a start was made on building houses in Shotton, for the workers. The first were built in terraces, at right angles to, and between, Shotton’s main road and the Chester to Holyhead railway line. Most of these houses were in Alexandra Street, King Edward Street and Salisbury Street. In order that people could buy property in the area, the "Summers Permanent Benefit Building Society" was established in 1901. The Society loaned money to employees, and repayments were deducted from their wages. In response to this policy, one worker scribed on one of the arches of Hawarden Bridge, "The wages of sin is death, but the wages of Summers is starvation."

The firm continued its policy of providing houses for the workers, and an organisation was set up, known as Sealand Tenants, so that government loans could benefit the house building. In July 1910, John Summers and Sons conveyed 10 acres of their land to the Sealand Tenants, a further 16 acres in 1911 and another 4 in 1913. From 1910 until the war halted the progress, 263 houses on the Garden City Housing Estate at Sealand, were built. The houses there were let to works employees. Originally its name was to be "Sealand Garden Suburb" and it was to have a club at one end of its central axis. Only the south-west half was laid out in accordance with the original plans.

Reference           Flintshire Building Control Records: RD/A/5/3/960, Plan No 1923/116