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Comber Grove, LONDON, SE5 0UJ

This is one wing of a particularly fine U-shaped block of former London County Council flats, built between the wars in a style that has as its origin large town houses of the early eighteenth century Queen Anne period. As a later example of social housing behind can be seen one of the five tower blocks on the Wyndham Estate, this one being Coniston House. The road is Comber Grove, although from early Ordnance Survey maps, certainly up to 1938, it was Leipzig Road, the name presumably falling out of favour in the light of subsequent events.

This block is planned to have 56 1, 2, and 3-bedroom flats together with retail/office space on the ground floor. The land was previously occupied by an unsightly pile of car parts known as Wyndham Garage.

These four tower blocks are, from left to right, Otterburn House, Crossmount House, Coniston House and Kevan House. There is a fifth in the group, Laird House, which is off the picture to the right. They are grouped around Wyndham Road (in the photo). The photo was taken from outside the entrance to St Michael's Academy which explains the traffic calming and the barriers on the pavement in the foreground.

Since the School is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1896 but not on the 1882 edition, its date of origin can be placed at around 1890. A curious change of circumstances has come about here. When the school was built at that time it was a latecomer to an already well-established residential community of terraced houses. Now it is the survivor amongst a sea of much more modern buildings such as the adjacent Image The road in front is Comber Grove but the old Ordnance Survey maps show it as Leipzig Road, certainly up to 1938, so presumably the school was not originally called Comber Grove.