An apartment in the Barbican for £780 a year?
It sounds like a pipe dream for 99.9% of us in 2025 — indeed, entire coffee table books have been published on the lucky few who get to call the brutalist City of London estate home.
But back in 1972, when the first Barbican residents were still being filtered in, £780 was a lot of dough, and tenants weren't altogether satisfied with the (lack of) facilities either.
A newly-released video from the ever-insightful BBC Archive follows Helen Geary and Mrs Tomlins as they lament the non-existence of a launderette anywhere on the 35-acre site, instead having to drive one-and-a-half miles on wash day. Other disgruntled residents include young mothers who resent that there's no playground, no playgroups, no supermarket, no nothing. ""What I think everybody would like to see is a really big supermarket, but I don't think it'll ever come," says one young mother.
The grass is always greener/concrete is always greyer on the other side, and the Barbican's residents are all the more bitter because their less-well-off financially neighbours on the Golden Lane Estate are, well, far better off when it comes to amenities. They wallow in the luxury of badminton and tennis courts, a youth club, a nursery school (fee: five pence a day!) and a heated indoor swimming pool. Oh, a private launderette too.
The Barbican never did get its large supermarket, although there's a decent sized Waitrose near *checks notes* Golden Lane these days. Still, as per the estate's housing manager's promise in the video, the Barbican did get its launderette not long after filming — a launderette which is still going strong over half a century later, and has recently featured in shows including Killing Eve and Slow Horses.
As for the cost of renting a one-bedroom flat in the Barbican now? That'll set you back in the region of £630. A week.
All images: BBC
