Archibald Cameron Corbett, a Scot, inherited his father’s property business during 1880.

He purchased 278 acres of land from the Earl of St Germans’s North Park Farm near to the new Hither Green railway station and then spent three years building over 3000 high quality homes for working class and middle class tenants between 1896 and 1911.

Many of the roads such as Glenfarg Road, Balloch Road and Muirkirk Road, are named after Scottish villages. He later became an MP and was elevated to the peerage as Lord Rowallan.

Originally called the St Germans Estate, the area become known as the Corbett Estate.

By 1910 there were six churches, four schools, six shopping parades, a railway station and a library.

After loaning the South Eastern Railway £3400 to build a more convenient entrance, the railway company agreed to sell cheap season tickets to Corbett tenants, a major selling point for prospective buyers.

Corbett as a Quaker was a committed temperance reformer and insisted on an embargo on the sale of alcohol on the estate.

Glenfarg Road was described as ’a working class street’. It was largely built, unlike much of the rest of the estate, to rent on a weekly basis.