Eland Haugh: The Estate Bellway Waited

Bellway the builders bought a 12-acre site from Eland Hall Farm in 1975. They were initially refused planning permission to build on the land but held on to it in anticipation that the local greenbelt regulations would inevitably be breached with increasing demand for houses in the area. They were turned down again twice at the beginning of the 1980’s but eventually won an appeal against the decisions in March 1982. By April 1983, they were advertising for builders to work on the site.

By 1985 Bellway’s were advertising “The Last Bellway Home in Ponteland” in “prestigious” Eland Hall. The properties were mixed but those along the main roads of the new estate were predominantly the new style of “executive housing” in keeping with Ponteland’s rising social status at that time accompanying its evolution from a rural community into a prosperous dormitory village.

Building continued in phases throughout the 1980’s until all the open fields on the eastern side of the river, behind Bell Villas are now filled with houses. This has not been without problems. One of the reasons that this land was previously unoccupied was that it is subject to flooding, something that residents found to their cost in the year 2000.

Like most UK contemporary mass-housing, the buildings are designed with a retro look to appeal to buyers, with windows designed to appear sash-style and multi-paned with decorative stone work made to look like the stone quoins common amongst older buildings. Bellway marketed these houses as their “Edwardian Style” houses with period-style porches and front doors with glazed fanlights. The goal is to model late-Victorian and early-Edwardian domestic architecture that was common in Britain in garden suburbs and affluent town districts, on the outside whilst having a contemporary, modern home on the inside.