There are also foxes, gulls, magpies, wagtails, crows, doves, starlings, and very occasionally, jays. The foxes occupy a little substation behind the flats and have recently burrowed underneath an old elm stump in front of the block in the photo with the Irises, to the great delight of passing children. If you focus on the lovely irises which are so helpfully obscuring the bins in the foreground of the photo in the header of this page, it looks quite attractive.

The blocks were built in 1958, on the site of an 1870 Victorian building (see photo) that started as a Home for Penitent Females (penitent? – those poor girls, they were as young as 11). See this Evening Argus Article for more info. The Home was pulled down and buried by the builders under the grass, to the consternation of anyone who tries to do any planting. The first residents of the new estate were from the clearance of the back-to-backs in the William Street area.