Herbert Collins

Herbert Collins (1885-1975) designed houses in Southampton from 1922, and co-founded the Swaythling Housing Society in 1925.

Collins, along with his co-founders, accountant and civic leader Fred Woolley (the society’s first chairman) and Bursledon brickworks director Claude Ashby, put up £200 worth of shares.

Collins lived at 38 Brookvale Road, Highfield from 1930 to 1973, and a commemorative Blue Plaque was installed there in 2004. During his time living there, Collins was responsible for the design of Swaythling Methodist church in Burgess Road, built in 1932.

In 1957, his professional partnership with J. Norman Calton was dissolved by mutual consent; the pair had been trading as Collins & Calton.

Collins’ housing estates have a distinctive style, typified by rows of terraced houses set around wide areas of greenery. Two of the more notable Collins estates in Southampton (the Oakmount estate in Highfield and the Englemount estate in Bassett Green) have been designated as conservation areas by the city council and the Orchards Way estate in West End was designated a conservation area by Eastleigh Council in 1999. Collins was responsible for the 1928 design of Glebe Court, Highfield.

Collins also made plans for a garden city around Marchwood, but these proposals were unrealised.