Inspired by the US 1970’s New Topographics movement I attempt to show ‘the beauty in the banal’. St. Ann’s housing estate was one on many vast sprawling estates emerging in the 1970’s across the country. The original Victorian slum streets were were replaced with a modern housing stock built by Wimpey using prefabricated techniques and designed in confusing pattern of facing houses with differing street names and the maze of undistinguishable walk-ways to make the new estate impenetrable to outsiders.
Having lived on the estate for a short time in the 70’s I found vast warren of repetitive house and road design both claustrophobic and isolating.
Nottingham film-maker Shane Meadows filmed in St Ann's for some scenes in the award winning 2006 drama 'This is England .