Written by Jake Beecroft
In post-war Britain, the industrial towns and cities of northern England faced profound challenges. The devastation of the blitz, alongside economic stagnation and industrial decline left large swathes of once prosperous industrial cities like Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield in a poor state. Slums, thrown up in the nineteenth century to quickly house the burgeoning working classes during the height of industrialisation, were now considered by the government as ‘unfit’ – they were overcrowded, unsanitary, and in a deteriorating state. The British government launched a brutal program of slum clearance. In their place, a new wave of modernist architects and urban planners envisioned high-rise estates that would provide better living conditions and symbolise a new era of progress.
One of the most infamous of these experiments was Hulme Crescents—a vast housing complex capable of housing over thirteen thousand people. The complex was supposed to be the future of urban living, based on modern planning to facilitate the working class of Hulme. Instead, it became one of Britain’s greatest post-war planning disasters, being declared unfit by the council just two years later and demolished two decades later. With rushed planning, poor construction, leaking roofs, rampant crime, rodent infestations, and design flaws, just to name a few issues. Hulme Crescents became a case study for all future social housing projects in Britain, providing a lesson through its downfall.
Hulme, located just south of Manchester city centre, had long been home to a diverse, working-class community that had provided the backbone of the labour force for Manchester’s industry. By the 1960s, many of the district’s Victorian red-brick back-to-back houses were considered by the council to be in a state of severe disrepair, plagued by damp, poor sanitation, and overcrowding. Manchester City Council identified Hulme as a key area for slum clearance and redevelopment, seeking to create a new model for urban living.
The result was Hulme Crescents, part of a larger project known as the Hulme Redevelopment Plan (1965–1972). The council had initially shown reluctance to allow the construction of tall developments, fearing its obstruction to the local skyline; however, they faced pressure from the government to quickly begin construction. Inspired by Le Corbusier’s modernist vision of “streets in the sky,” the Crescents were designed to replace the old, terraced slums with a futuristic housing complex that prioritised high-density, elevated walkways to encourage communal living and maintain the sense of community that existed in the previous settlements.
The estate, completed in 1972, consisted of four massive, curving concrete blocks. The design utilised the newly popular brutalist style of exposed concrete that had emerged as a cheap and affordable material in the efforts to rebuild across Europe after the Second World War. Each of the four blocks had their own names, Charles Barry Crescent, Robert Adam Crescent, John Nash Crescent, and William Kent Crescent—after famous architects, intending to showcase the innovative design of the project. With over three thousand new homes, the development was one of the largest public housing projects in Europe, with the developers Wilson & Womersly behind the project, having already built other successful projects such as the Park Hill estate in Sheffield, completed in 1961. At first, Hulme Crescents was hailed as an innovative solution to Manchester’s housing crisis. But within a decade, it became a symbol of urban failure and social neglect.
Despite the grand ambitions behind its construction, Hulme Crescents quickly fell into decline. The problems were structural, social, and economic, turning what was meant to be a modern utopia into a dystopian nightmare. The project was almost doomed from development; poor planning which aimed at promoting social cohesion and a sense of community turned out to have the adverse effect of isolating residents behind thick concrete walls, while elevated walkways became hazardous and noisy wind tunnels that only further restricted a sense of community.
The planners, in a bid to finish the project, relied on untested materials that would prove disastrous, such as a poor form of insulation that left flats freezing in winter and boiling in the summer. While the use of exposed concrete in the design, once hailed as a refreshing modern look, began to spall, leaving ceilings leaking from the cracks and crumbling concrete falling from the raised walkways, rendering them unusable. The problems inside the flats were just as hazardous as outside, with poor ventilation turning into dampness, plumbing frequently leaking, and a vermin problem that seemed unstoppable spreading across the blocks.
With budget constraints, developers saved money on lifts by implementing the estates with maze-like designs of sky walkways, which were presented as the future of living, only further fostering social breakdown. Police struggled to navigate the walkways, so patrols became limited to the lower levels, combined with unintended dark corners that facilitated muggings, drug dealing, and various kinds of anti-social behaviour. Granda Studios reported that compared to the rest of the nation, you were thirty times more likely to be murdered or mugged than the national average. Greater Manchester Police would later cease patrols of the estate as the area became regarded as the ‘Hulme Wild West’ for its lawless activity.
Outside the development, the estate was set within a relatively isolated inner-city area of Manchester. With de-industrialisation sweeping Manchester in the 1970s, many families found themselves in near poverty, with limited means of employment in the surrounding area. Problems only got worse as flyover highways such as the Mancunian Way and Princess Parkway Road effectively sealed residents into the area, cutting them out of the city community and, with it, opportunities for employment.
By the early 1980s, Hulme Crescents had one of the highest crime rates in Britain. What was meant to be a beacon of modern housing had become one of the most notorious urban failures in the country. As it became apparent the project was a failure, the council stopped charging resident rent on the flats, while also effectively ending any efforts to maintain the rapidly crumbling project. With the council and police effectively abandoning the project, the site was swarmed with squatters as a thriving underground cultural and music scene emerged. Charles Barry Crescent became home to the legendary local Kitchen Club, formed out of flats that had been knocked in. The club was a hotspot for the Acid house scene, with many of Manchester’s greatest contemporary DJ’s frequenting the scene in the 1980s.
Recognising the catastrophic failure of Hulme Crescents, and with a resident’s survey in 1975 suggesting that ninety-six per cent of the residents wanted to be rehomed, Manchester City Council and the national government declared the estate unfit for habitation by the late 1980s. In 1991, after a decades-long campaign to have the properties torn down, demolition began, and by 1994, the Crescents were gone—lasting just over two decades before being torn down. In their place, a new regeneration project emerged, prioritising low-rise, mixed-income housing, better infrastructure, and a greater focus on community-led development. The new Hulme was designed with input from local residents, ensuring that past mistakes were not repeated as they had been with the crescent.
The failure of Hulme Crescents offers a haunting lesson about urban planning, social housing, and the dangers of top-down redevelopment. What was meant to be a radical improvement in housing turned into a social and architectural disaster, just as undesirable as the slum dwellings that had existed prior. Poor design, economic neglect, and the displacement of established communities all contributed to its rapid decline. While Hulme has since undergone successful regeneration, the lessons of the Crescents remain relevant. The story of Hulme Crescents is not just about failed housing—it is about the broader consequences of short-sighted urban renewal and the importance of people-centred planning in building thriving cities.
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Featured image credit: https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/the-hulme-crescents-manchester-bringing-a-touch-of-eighteenth-century-grace-and-dignity-to-municipal-building/
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