A new postcard has been added to the Miscellaneous page, in the other places in Alton section of the website.

Chauntsingers Road c1930.

The photograph was taken by someone on Chauntsingers Road looking through the junction with St Lawrence Road towards Spitalfields Road.

Built during the 1920’s, planning for new homes in the area began with the passing of the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1919, which was intended to remove the slums and create a set minimum standard of dwelling that everyone should be entitled to live in. It is said that this is in part due to the lack of fitness amongst many of the recruits during the First World War.

The 1919 Act was not as successful as initially planned but it was developed becoming the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924, which ensured that the minimum standard of dwelling now included a fixed bath in a dedicated bathroom, rather than occupants using a bath in the kitchen or scullery!

Building an estate of similar houses was not without its problems though, as highlighted in this Sunday Mirror article from the 22nd February 1931:

‘Modern houses are so alike! The sound of a key turning in the front door, followed by footsteps on the stairs, startled Mr. and Mrs. Gates at midnight in their house at Chauntsingers, the new housing estate of the Alton (Hants) Urban Council.

Mr. Gates went out on the landing and closed with a strange man in the darkness.

After some moments of struggling the intruder managed to explain that his key had fitted the lock and that in the darkness he had mistaken Mr. Gates's house for his own. His profuse apologies were accepted.’

In the middle of the image, you can see a ‘roundabout,’ it is not something I can recall seeing but my father remembers it from his childhood, so I presume it was still there in the 1950s / 60s. This junction appears to be unnecessarily wide today, perhaps something could be installed there to break it up once again.

This is a view that will be familiar to many people, I am sure we all know someone that lives or has lived here or perhaps you walk or walked through Chauntsingers to go to work or school each day.