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Sunshine Way

Houses in the London Borough of MertonHousing in LondonTuberculosis

Sunshine Way is the name of a crescent-shaped street in Mitcham, England, built in 1936 for families from overcrowded areas of inner London, and including specially-designed houses to suit the needs of tuberculosis (TB) patients. The houses date from a period of nationwide effort to build better accommodation for poorer people, and a growing awareness of the link between bad housing and health problems. The name Sunshine Way referred to the six special sunshine houses for people with a tendency to TB. Each house had a patio area in the roof where a patient could spend the night in the open air. Fresh air and sunlight were considered an important part of prevention and treatment before effective drugs were developed. The site for Sunshine Way was bought by Church Army Housing Ltd. and the total cost including building the houses and a community hall came to £31,000 (about £1,400,000 in 2005 money, allowing for inflation).The housing estate was officially opened on 20 November 1936 by Lord Horder, KVCO, and was blessed by the Bishop of Kingston. It consisted of 51 houses, 47 of which had three bedrooms and 4 had four bedrooms. Rents ranged from 8 shillings to 12 shillings and threepence a week, or the equivalent of £18 to £30 in 2005. Mr F.M. Elgood, chairman of the company, said that in the 51 houses were 277 children, 167 of them under 10 years old.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Sunshine Way (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Sunshine Way
Sunshine Way, London Mitcham (London Borough of Merton)

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N 51.409166666667 ° E -0.16444444444444 °
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Sunshine Way

Sunshine Way
CR4 3HQ London, Mitcham (London Borough of Merton)
England, United Kingdom
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St Barnabas' Church, Mitcham

St Barnabas' Church, Mitcham, is a church in the Graveney ward of the London borough of Merton, in SW London. It is located on Gorringe Park Avenue in Mitcham. The church is dedicated to Barnabas, one of the disciples. In his day, he carried out missionary journeys & had a great ability to encourage - Barnabas means "son of encouragement". The dedication was chosen, due to the missionary nature of the church set up on this site. The local area in the early 20th Century was a Mission District (specifically, from 1906), where the church aimed to establish & foster a local religious community. This was at the aegis of Christ Church in Colliers Wood, along with old boys from City of London School. The initial missionary building was a basic building, housing a single room; it was known as the "tin church". The current building that we know was designed by H. P. Burke Downing, the foundation stone being laid on 17 May 1913 & the church was completed on 14 November 1914. The church was Grade II listed by English Heritage on 2 September 1988.No images of this early "tin church" are available, but we can ascertain how it might have looked with images of other churches which shared a similar arc of development, starting in newly populated areas in the greatly expanding cities of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Possible examples being the "tin hut" church at Mile Oak or the tabernacles of the Methodist ChurchRecently, the church has been used as a polling station for elections; it was used as a polling office in UK General Election of 12 December 2019, with the polling booths and election officers being located near the main door.