Britain’s history of squatting

Squatting, or the unilateral occupation of at least temporarily vacant property, has been a rite of passage for Britain’s young, down at heel and artistically inclined since at least the psychedelic 1960s.

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A group of young people sitting outside their squat on Piccadilly in London. A poster reading ”London Policemen are Wonderful” has been put up by the window they are using as an entrance.

/ Evening Standard via Getty Images

March 18, 1974

A family of squatters settled down in a block of seven empty flats on Dover Street in London.

Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Circa 1975

A squatter looking out of the balcony window into Regents Park, in a house in London’s Cornwall Gardens. In the 1970s, high-profile locales in central London became home to squatter hives linked to punk and radical labor movements.

Frank Tewkesbury / Getty Images

Sept. 15, 1969

Squatters occupy a building on Piccadilly in London.

/ Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

March 15, 1977

A meeting being held by squatters at the Squatters Action Council headquarters in London. The squatters’ code here has almost always carried an anti-capitalist message, with empty property portrayed as the moral equivalent of wasting food.

/ Evening Standard via Getty Images

Jan. 28, 2009

A squatter stands on the roof of one of the two Mayfair mansions, estimated to have a combined value of £23 million, that were taken over on London’s Park Lane. Armed with legal codes that bound the hands of police and forced landlords into cumbersome civil suits to evict unwanted dwellers, squatters became the bane of the British homeowner.

Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

July 11, 2009

Squatters clean up broken glass outside the West London home of married parliamentarians Ann and Alan Keen, which was taken over by squatters who claimed the house is left unoccupied.

Geoff Caddick / AFP/Getty Images

January 28, 2009

Squatters dance in the street as they leave one of the two mansions, estimated at £15 million, that they had taken over on central London’s Park Lane.

Ben Stansall / AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 11, 2011

A squatter prepares a meal at the house where she and others reside in London. Five people live in the brick and stucco 19th-century rowhouse on a street of $950,000 homes. While the government does not keep hard numbers, it cites an estimate of 20,000 squatters nationwide. A new law criminalizing the practice came into effect this month that is upending the rebellious and politically charged British subculture.

Lefteris Pitarakis / AP

Oct. 11, 2011

Rueben Taylor, a 25-year-old squatter, is seen at the house where she resides in London. For the first time since the 1970s, squatters at residential properties are facing forcible evictions without court orders, as well as penalties of up to $8,000 and six months in jail.

Lefteris Pitarakis / AP

Sept. 17, 2012

Richard Broadbury, a 34-year-old fashion photographer in London is interviewed by a Washington Post reporter in a commercial property taken over by squatter friends in North London. Broadbury entered life as a squatter last year as his economic situation worsened. He now fears eviction as a result of Britain’s new anti-squatting laws.

Karla Adam / Washington Post

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