The Secret History of Our Streets

In Booth's time, Deptford High Street was 'the Oxford Street of South London'. Today, marooned amid 70s housing blocks, it is one of the poorest shopping streets in London. Featuring compelling accounts from residents, including one family which has been trading on the high street for 250 years, the film tells the story of transformation and endurance as the people themselves tell the history of their own past and the street they lived in. Through these deeply personal accounts of huge extended families living together in a single street, the bigger story of slum clearance and the unraveling of the old ways of life emerge - a change which shaped the lives of tens of millions of British families all over the country.

Today, Camberwell Grove is an elegant oddity - a broad, leafy street of fine Georgian houses set in the seething inner city. The street has come full circle, from middle-class prosperity to tight-knit working-class community and back to middle-class affluence again. Through the lively, often passionate accounts of residents past and present the film tells the story of the changing faces of this remarkable street and the people who have lived in and loved its beautiful houses. These stories also reveal how the fate of the Grove was intimately bound up with the monstrous growth of the Victorian city of London and the birth of the modern conservation movement.

This episode features Caledonian Road, which starts next to King's Cross station and heads north for over a mile. From its beginning, the street has been resolutely working class and when Charles Booth visited he found it a depressing district. But the people of 'the Cally', as it is affectionately known to residents, have held their community together despite being challenged by powerful outside forces as well as a reputation for being a bit rough around the edges. Featuring fascinating and often passionate accounts from residents both past and present, the film tells the story of the changing faces of this remarkable street.

This episode features Portland Road in Notting Hill, the archetypal London banker street, dominated by homes worth as much as £6,000,000. Yet when Booth visited in 1899, it was the worst slum in London and even today, the bottom 5% by income in Britain are living on the same street as the top 1%. Told through the personal stories of Portland road's diverse range of residents both past and present, including Lords, bankers and slum dwellers, this film tells the story of one of the most divided streets in Britain.

The fifth episode features Reverdy Road, Bermondsey, which has endured as an enclave of working-class respectability. When Booth visited in 1900, he was impressed by the houses, gardens, and by the broad and clean streets. Older residents recall life on the street during the war, when three houses were bombed, and trips to the hop fields of Kent. They also remember the work of a pioneer of public health, Dr Alfred Salter, who lived in the house on the corner of the street, a house that has been occupied by a doctor since 1880.

The sixth episode features Arnold Circus, in the East End and the story of a Victorian social experiment that changed Britain. Arnold Circus is home to the first council estate which opened in 1896. The planning of the estate, from its lack of pubs to the pattern of the brickwork, was deliberate in order to make its residents respectable, as previously the land had played host to a notorious crime-ridden slum. Featuring compelling accounts from residents both past and present, this is the story of how Arnold Circus made the difficult journey from feared underclass to a self-respecting community; of how it became and still is a haven in heart of the City.