Goodwyns is a housing estate in Dorking, a market town in Surrey, England. It is on the return slope of one of two hillsides of the town and adjoins North Holmwood, a green-buffered village.[1] The town centre is about 1.7 miles (2.7 km) away.[2]
The design of the buildings and the estate's layout were praised by architectural historians Ian Nairn and Nikolaus Pevsner, who described it as "unusually good" for a council estate.[1] The housing was developed in three parts: first, on the lowest lying land and arranged around culs-de-sac, groups of red-brick houses with rendered panelling; then blocks of red- and pale-brick flats of three and four storeys on the rising land, some with steel balconies and with a mixture of flat and sloping roofs; then two 14-storey concrete-faced tower blocks.[1][2] Completed in 1965, Wenlock Edge and Linden Lea were described as "more elegant than average" because of the layout of successive projecting and recessed sections on each face.[1] The estate retains large areas of open space and has a semi-rural character,[1][4] but there is little tree cover. The layout is approximately circular: the residential areas are bounded by two perimeter roads with other roads linking them. These streets are wide and lined with grass verges, encouraging on-street parking.[2]
In local government it is long in the Ward: Holmwoods, currently one of 21 wards in Mole Valley district. The ward's population was 6,417 at the time of the United Kingdom Census 2011.[5] For the ward as a whole, housing tenure statistics reveal a lower proportion of owner-occupancy than in the district overall: according to the 2011 Census, 60.2% of properties were owner-occupied against 73.6% in Mole Valley as a whole.[6] On the Goodwyns estate itself, some properties are now owner-occupied and others are rented—mostly from the Mole Valley Housing Association.[4] Formed in October 2007, this housing association is part of the Circle Housing Group and is responsible for the 3,850 synonymous with the district.[7] The association is seeking to redevelop parts of the estate, and has submitted planning applications to build 19 more flats and three houses on various underutilised sites on the estate; partly to be available under shared ownership.[7][8]
Amenities
The estate is served by the Harvest Community Church, affiliated with the Elim Pentecostal movement and the FIEC.[9] It was originally an independent Evangelical church[10] and was registered for marriages under the name Goodwyns Evangelical Free Church in July 1966.[11] Goodwyns is in the Anglican parish of North Holmwood, served by St John the Evangelist's Church.[12] St John's Church of England Community School[13] and the Dorking Rural Sure Start Children's Centre[14] are also located at Goodwyns.
Public transport
Metrobus route 93 runs every hour on Mondays to Saturdays and every 2 hours on Sundays between the estate and Dorking railway station via the town centre. In the other direction, the service continues to Horsham via Capel.[15]
^ abc"Goodwyns Estate, Dorking"(PDF). Project no. 0399: Design and Access Statement – Rushett Drive (Site 3). Kiran Curtis Associates Architects. September 2012. p. 5. Archived from the original on 15 July 2013. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
^ ab"Goodwyns Estate, Dorking"(PDF). Project no. 0399: Design and Access Statement – Rushett Drive (Site 3). Kiran Curtis Associates Architects. September 2012. p. 4. Archived from the original on 15 July 2013. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
^"Goodwyns Estate, Dorking"(PDF). Project no. 0399: Design and Access Statement – Rushett Drive (Site 3). Kiran Curtis Associates Architects. September 2012. pp. 7–9. Archived from the original on 15 July 2013. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
