Grim images of the last days at an English public housing estate

Looking at photographs of Lion Farm Estate—a 1960s-era crop of tower blocks outside Birmingham—some might see a “dystopia.” To others it just looks like suburban England in the 1990s. A palette defined by grayness, the ambience of emptiness. In Rob Clayton’s Estate (Stay Free, 2015), the specifics of the public housing project in question take a back seat to its historic symbolism.

Public housing in England at the time was in the process of being gutted. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy legislation had privatized much of the state’s housing stock while restricting local governments from using the proceeds to build replacement units. The result was a reduction in available housing and a “decanting” of the neediest families from estates like Lion Farm and other second-tier projects. Consolidation created a hierarchy of estates—even internally, specific blocks were designated for employed or unemployed residents. This neoliberalized segregation would have ripple effects for years to come.

Yet as Jonathan Meades articulates in the book’s forward, “There was nothing special about Lion Farm Estate. It could have existed in more or less any British conurbation which was on the cusp of losing its raison d’être….This was how it was for millions of people in the early 1990s.”

And this is how it was when photographer Rob Clayton made his pictures there in 1990 and 1991. Residents were in the process of moving out—six of nine towers had already been emptied ahead of demolition—and those who remained found themselves in limbo.

Clayton’s work delivers an unnerving portrait of life in this liminal zone. There is no redemption in this story—only the stoic vulnerability of those left behind once the tap has been shut off.

Images Courtesy L A Noble Gallery and Robert Clayton. Estate is available from Stay Free Publishing.