Inspiration

Like many other estates built by local authorities to meet an increased housing demand back in the heady 1960s, the design ethic of Ashfield Valley was heavily influenced by French architect Le Corbusier and his utopian notion of "Streets in the Sky" - where deck access blocks of tenancies, interconnected by walkways would substitute and mimic traditional terraced streets- the idea being that community spirit and identity would be maintained and embraced - an aspect of life that traditional tower blocks were starting to become criticised for lacking;

For its time Ashfield Valley was an ambitious project - 1014 flats divided into 26 alphabetically named blocks. The cost for the initial build by Cruden construction was £3,100,00: Cruden employed the Scandanavian industrialised building system known as "Skarne" utilising pre cast concrete slabs:
The estate became known locally as "The Valley"
I lot of my misspent youth was spent there
23 of the 26 blocks have been demolished