Major Sir Herbert Henry Raphael, was a barrister and politician. In the 1890s he was living at Havering Court, in Havering-atte-Bower, about 3 miles north of Romford, Essex. From 1897, he owned Gidea Hall, a sizeable estate of 480 acres.

Raphael planned a ‘Garden Suburb’ around the town of Romford, leading to Gidea Hall.  Raphael knew that Philanthropy was good business. In 1904 he gave part of the Gidea Hall grounds to the community where the Romford Council would pay to run the Park, adding an amenity for his new estate.

When the Great Eastern Railway opened its station there the station was renamed as Gidea Park to promote the scheme.  Raphael asked famous people to advise on house design and he was flattered when many celebrities responded and his marketing exhibition to sell houses featured those replies, passed off as endorsements:

Novelists Thomas Hardy and HG Wells disliked open fireplaces.

Jerome K. Jerome author of ‘Three men in a Boat’, disagreed.

The Headmaster of Eaton recommended glass-panel sliding doors.

Arthur Benson, who’d written the words for Land of Hope and Glory, favoured “Anything that tends to diminish unnecessary labour for servants.”

The evolutionary theorist Alfred Russel Wallace politely refused to comment.

Possibly the most influential was Women’s Activist, Millicent Fawcett who thought deeply and consulted with other women activists for ideas, before responding:

“Inattention to aspect, was the worst fault in modern houses,” she insisted.

“The best rooms are usually situated closet to the road. They should face south, no matter the street frontage.” She strongly approved of indoor bathrooms and insisted that “Cupboard accommodation in most modern houses was inadequate.”

Winning the vote for women was a step towards creating a better world – one in which women would insist on their homes having cupboards and sunny living rooms.

But the grandest of all these homes and the best of the modern and innovative ideas from that day and now, do not compare with what God has in store for those who trust Him!

But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

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