THE map of Pinehurst on this page was created before Swindon’s first council housing estate was even named, let alone built.

Whitworth Road and its cemetery are readily identifiable at the top of the drawing, and so are Cricklade Road to the right and The Circle in the upper middle.

When we first printed the image in 1920, though, The Circle didn’t exist and the bulk of the land around it was occupied by the old Hurst Farm.

“Swindon’s Garden City in the Making,” ran the headline above our front page story.

The impulse to build Pinehurst and many other estates across the country had its origins in World War One.

The service personnel who fought in the 1914-18 conflict were infamously promised a land fit for heroes in exchange for their sacrifice. For millions of those heroes and their families, reality turned out to involve the same old unsanitary slums, decrepit hovels and greedy landlords.

It was far from unknown for several families to be obliged to share a single lavatory, increasing the spread of diseases, many of which were potentially lethal on those pre-antibiotics days.

The old Swindon borough’s housing committee, led by Alderman AW Haynes, was determined to make amends.

“The money has got to be found,” he told us in an interview. “It is no good fencing with the question.

“If we are going to stamp out tuberculosis the first thing, and the most important thing, is to devote our attention to housing.

“The man at the bottom of the ladder has the same right to live in a healthy home as the man at the top; he has a right to demand that his surroundings shall be congenial and comfortable.”

We revealed: “The Swindon municipal housing scheme aims at the creation of a thousand dwellings. It is estimated that the cost will be in the neighbourhood of £1,000,000.

“The cost would suggest heavy rentals, but Mr Haynes expresses the view that the houses will be let at from 9s to 14s a week.”

Nine shillings equates to 45p in decimal currency and 14 shillings to 70p.

We added: “A great effort is being made to complete 50 houses by September, and 300 by May of next year. It is expected that at the outset preference will be given to ex-Servicemen in the selection of tenants.”

Building continued throughout the ensuing years, although it was interrupted by World War Two.