Pair of Council Houses, Stow Road, Ixworth, Suffolk
This pair of council houses was designed in 1892 and built in 1893-4 by Mr Whitmore, the Suffolk County Surveyor, for Thingoe Rural District Council. It is one of four pairs of houses understood to be the first rural council housing built in England, under the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890. They have not been altered much at all since they were built. The 1890 Act was the first to permit local authorities to acquire and develop land for housing. It was adopted by only eight rural authorities, despite increasing recognition that agricultural labourers endured housing conditions every bit as bad as those of the inner cities.
