 The original concept was to combine new housing of various classes with social facilities such as meeting rooms, school rooms, a wash house and baths, and to provide integral open space (3 acres of the bought).One facility certainly not to be provided on the estate was a public house, which was an attempt by the reformers behind the scheme to avoid the social problems of cheap alcohol.At the same time as the conception of the estate, the social reformer and peer Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury was pushing legislation through parliament to improve the living and employment conditions of working people and sponsoring philanthropic efforts to provide schooling for their children.