The Roundhouse Frinton Park Estate, Frinton-on-Sea designed by Architect Oliver Hill C1935. Formerly the estate and sales office
The partially completed Frinton Park Estate, at Frinton-on-sea, is an example of a modernist development. In 1934 a 200 acre site at Frinton was bought by the South Coast Property Investment Company Ltd., who planned to build a whole new small town. A company, Frinton Park Estate Ltd., was formed. A member of the board of the company introduced the board to the architect Oliver Hill. Hill ensured that the tone of the estate would do nothing to attract day-trippers from London, whilst making it a showcase for modern British design. The Estate company provided plans for the estate; the layout of curved roads called ‘ways’, together with the other main services, and sold plots individually at prices from £150. 1100 houses were planned. The best 40 acres nearest the sea were set aside for the houses of the most modern design. These houses were designed to have windows to catch the sun, spacious balconies and wide flat roofs for sunbathing. Also planned was a town hall, college, churches, a railway station, a shopping complex and, a luxury hotel, to be situated at the foot of the cliffs right on the sea’s edge. Many architects were invited to design houses for the estate. Hill allocated sites on Easton Way to ‘the cream of our younger designers in the contemporary style’. The first building erected was the circular Frinton Park Estate Information Bureau in Cliff Way, now The Round House. This would exhibit products approved by Hill as well as photographs of modern houses from the Royal Institute of British Architects; it also acted as sales office. The company borrowed money to build 36 houses. Unfortunately the building society that had advanced the funds insisted that none of the houses should be built of concrete, the material preferred by most of the architects. This caused many of the designers to back out. Today, all that stands of Oliver Hill’s impressive estate are little more than 30 modern houses, the Estate Information Bureau and part of the shopping mall.
Size: 3536px × 5315px
Location: The Roundhouse, 7 Cliff Way, Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, UK
Photo credit: © Martyn Annetts / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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