B (183)

44

B+W

and redevelopers – to new homes flung far

across the city and beyond. Maintenance

of the gardens ceased, the estate became

dormant, and its nature was resurgent.

At around the same time Matthew

Coleman began photographically

documenting the estate’s final years, and

found his attention drawn to the semi-wild

state of its fauna. In particular he began to

focus on the many trees which date from

the Heygate’s construction when they were

installed as small saplings. They have since

grown to maturity – over 400 false acacias,

goat willows, London planes, Norway maples

and cherry trees, at least half of which are

expected to be destroyed in the process of

constructing the new development.

Coleman’s decision to focus specifically on

the natural history of the estate as a means to

comment on the wider changes taking place

is not an injudicious one. Trees are primordial

symbols with deep meaning. Most obviously

they are a place of shelter, an essential of

life and the primary source of contention

on the estate and across a city where a

growing number of people struggle to find

an affordable place to live. Trees are rooted

in one place, immobile and immovable, but

as well as fixity the root symbolises unity

in diversity, the many strands rising into

the strong trunk, an apt metaphor for the

heterogeneous former population of the

estate. Lastly, deciduous trees, which almost

all of those on the estate are, also echo the

circle of life, death and renewal which all

living things are subject to, and which even

the architectural fabric of the city appears to

pay homage to through its unending rhythm

of demolition and reconstruction.

T

he emphasis on trees is also apt given

the Heygate’s origins and its ultimate

fate. Like much post-war social

housing, it appeared from the ruins

of the Blitz, constructed as it was on the

site of Victorian tenement buildings heavily

damaged by enemy action. The bomb sites

of the war proved to be fertile ground for

a resurgent nature. In the aftermath of the

Blitz, the English travel writer HV Morton

noted the little flowers Saxifraga × urbium,

better known as London pride, which were

reputed to appear almost magically in the

fire-blackened remains of the city’s buildings.





‘Trees are primordial symbols with deep meaning. Most obviously they are a place of shelter,

an essential of life and the primary source of contention on the estate and across a city

where a growing number of people struggle to fi nd an aff ordable place to live.’

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