Our history

Exterior photograph of Snowfields

With over 60,000 homes and 120,000 residents, The Guinness Partnership is proud to be one of the largest affordable housing and care providers in the country. But our story starts a long time ago…

In 1890 Edward Cecil Guinness, the great grandson of the founder of the Guinness Brewery, gave £200,000 to set up the Guinness Trust. This is the equivalent of £15 million in today’s money. He wanted to help improve the lives of ordinary people, many of whom couldn’t afford decent homes.

We built our first homes in the 1890’s, in London. They offered communal clubrooms with heated baths and bathing attendants!

Today, the Guinness Trust is part of a strong, national group of housing associations, known as The Guinness Partnership. Our four main operating companies are known as Guinness Care & Support, Guinness Hermitage, Guinness Northern Counties and Guinness South.

We are proud that the original philosophy, defined by Edward Cecil Guinness all those years ago, is still relevant today: To provide good quality homes in communities that are stable and supportive.

All links with the Guinness Brewery disappeared a long time ago.

Down Memory Lane

Conditions of a typical tenancy agreement from 1949 included:

  • On no account were the bedroom walls to be papered
  • The stairs and passages were swept daily and on Saturdays they were always washed before 10am
  • Carpets and mats were not to be cleaned or shaken on the landings, stairs or passages but only in the yards, on weekdays, before 10am
  • Tenants were not allowed to chop wood in the yards or in the flats!
  • The bath was to be used for bathing only and not for any other purpose (it was common for people to keep coal in the baths!)
  • Noise caused by the wireless, or even singing had to stop at 10.30pm