Celebrating Our Neighborhood’s 40th Anniversary

Forty years ago this month, the first eleven families moved into what was then a set of half-finished streets with no shop, no park, and no name anyone used. This autumn we mark four decades of the neighborhood, and it seemed right to look back at how it got here before we celebrate where it is.

How it started

The founding families inherited a plan and very little else. The park was a field the developer had not decided what to do with; the community hall was a portable cabin with a kettle in it. What existed instead was a habit of turning up — a rota for the field, a rota for the cabin, and a noticeboard that everyone actually read.

What changed, and what did not

The shop opened in the eighth year and closed in the twenty-second. The park was formally handed over in the eleventh. Two more streets were added in the nineties, and the hall finally got foundations in 2004. Through all of it the noticeboard stayed, first as cork and drawing pins and now as this website, doing the same job it always did.

Everything here that lasted was built by people who did not expect anyone to thank them for it.

The anniversary weekend

The celebration runs across the whole weekend, and everything on it is free:

• Friday evening — an exhibition of photographs in the hall, including the only known picture of the original cabin.
• Saturday afternoon — the anniversary picnic in the park, with the long table we put out once a year.
• Saturday evening — music, and the presentation to the four residents who have been here since the beginning.
• Sunday morning — a walk of the neighborhood led by people who watched it get built.

Bring something

We are collecting photographs, documents, and stories for a permanent record, and the gaps are mostly in the nineties. If you have a shoebox, we would like to scan it. Bring it to the hall on any of the three days, or get in touch and someone will come to you.