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Prefabs

Andrew Hope said:
Here is the pictures of the prefabs on Desford Avenue]
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Hi Andrew
Thanks for the photo - nice open spaces I remember - a field with a brook with Hawthone Bushes and white blossom.
Shown below is a picture from Google Earth 1945 ca. The letter A in the aerial shot is where I watched those prefabs being assembled. The brought the prefabricated sections in along rails and they already had all the internal fittings in them.
Also a photo of our gang standing in the field about where the letter A is before the prefabs were built is the first one in the post Here
oldmohawk
Prefabs.jpg
 
I remeber the field well, the brook and the woods to the sand quary, we used love to play in those woods and some sort of pumping station we used to hang around by Bowman Road. I have paddled many times in that brook and ventured under the bridge on Beeches Road.
Thanks for the picture. This is picture of me on the right just where 1 Desford once stood, now the M6, I am here with my cousins Alex and Val, taken in 2003.

View attachment 45769
 
There were about twenty Pre-Fabs in Grange Lane, Sutton Coldfield. My aunt lived in one of them. Next door was a lad who about twenty years later became a good friend of mine.
Also there were a small group of them built in Wolcot Drive off Moor Lane, Witton where a couple of my schoolmates lived. If anyone could give me a copy of a voters list from 1952/3 it would be appreciated. George
 
Kevkonk said:
View attachment 45690
Quick sketch of where prefabs were in Hurstwood Rd and surrounding.
Thornby Rd Hurstwood Rd, Chalford Rd and Maxted Rd were roads with prefabs. There was also a path to the left of the brook which led to more prefabs at the back. Numerous other openings from this path led out to a large green about halfway up Maxted Rd.
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These roads were my paper round when I was about 12 (1971) we lived in Watney Grove just up the College Road. It was lovely and peacefull around the Prefabs, they were full of mainly nice older tennents. My Mom and Dad lived in Hurstwood Road in a Prefab, Dad said they were great places to live and he loved it there, but he heard they were to be knocked down in the late 50's and he did not want to be put into a high rise flat so he took the house in Watney Grove. He was quite sad about as the prefaps were still there 20 years later !!!!.

I remember them being knocked down and the new estate being built, it was about 1977/78. Both of my brothers were born in the Prefab in Hurstwood Road and they remember them as nice spacious places to live.
 
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Charlie Watts of The Stones was brought up in a prefab and I was. Ours was in West Heath in Redhill Rd and there was a farm behind it. Prefabs were only supposed to last five years as emergency housing after the second world war but nearly 70yrs later there are still many around. I live in wolverhampton now and there is a big colony of them just down the road!
 
think there are still some at the top of Slade road and will do a detour next time we are over that way. Jean.
 
Andrew Hope said:
I remeber the field well, the brook and the woods to the sand quary
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Memories ..... the woods - frog spawn and tadpoles - tunneling in sand pits, and the quarries filled with deep pools and quicksand, floating on ice floes in the quarries, sledging down Sandy Lane and Brushfield Rd in the dark straight across the Beeches Rd dual carriageway - how did we survive ? I paddled under both the Beeches Rd and Hassop Rd bridges.
I mentioned in #33 Here how I watched prefabs being assembled, with fridges and sink units.....made our local houses look quite old fashioned !
 
That is on our must visit list Sylvia. Thanks Astonite those are the ones I was on about. Are they still there?. The times we have driven past. I think I must have had my eyes closed. Jean.
 
Thanks Jean i,ve got it ,i know where we are just in front Al Saints.i often click on those type off attachments and get "unable to open file" Dek
 
This is a prefab built just after the war and it took 24hrs approx to build. Jeff Hibbard kindly sent it for me to post on the forum. It was in Shady lane just up the road from where I live and is not there now.

image.jpeg
(Replacement image
23/3/16)
 
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A Sparks/Andrew Hope
Al is fine Paul not seen him since Alan Devey's funeral. Al left before demolition of prefabs.
DJRVST
Just remembered that there is (was about 10 years ago) a prefab as an exhibit at Duxford Aerodrome. Part of post war exhibits. It was the same as the one I lived in.
 
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Re: Pics and Park

Paul Higgins said:
I seem to remember more than six prefabs though. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought they ran all along the side of the park adjacent to Chester Road? Could there have been as many as 12 or 15, or am I exaggerating again!
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They also ran down the other side of the park.. Eachelhurst Rd, from the Bagot to the 'terminus' (by the Saab garage) which was the start of Sutton Coldfield... not part of Birmingham at that time..
 
I was born in a prefab, I really liked that house and was quite sad when it was knocked down in about 1986.
 
Does any one have photos of the Prefabs that were in Mackadown Lane, Sheldon?, they would be much appreciated. Len
 
Hi Len

The title on this photo says it is Macadown Lane, but I have no idea how true that is or when it was taken as its not one of the areas where I lived.

Phil

TileCrossMacadownLane.jpg
 
Mackadown Lane if I remember right there was a scrap yard just under the bridge I think the fields in Phils photo are now football pitches and if I remember right the Prefabs went all along The Radleys too. Dek
 
Phil said:
Hi Len

The title on this photo says it is Macadown Lane, but I have no idea how true that is or when it was taken as its not one of the areas where I lived.

Phil
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Morning Phil, Thanks for the photos they are just what i am looking for, Mackadown Lane runs from the The Radleys, Sheldon to Kitts Green Rd, Kitts Green, the photo seems to have been taken from the railway embankment, (New St to Euston line). Thanks Again Len.
 
dek carr said:
Mackadown Lane if I remember right there was a scrap yard just under the bridge I think the fields in Phils photo are now football pitches and if I remember right the Prefabs went all along The Radleys too. Dek
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Morning Dek, Yes there were prefabs along The Radleys towards Sheldon Heath Rd ordinary houses have replaced the prefabs, and the scrapyard is still open there are no houses in the Lane, the same side of the Lane as the scrapyard is used by new & secondhand car sales companies. Len.
 
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Dek

The scrap yard in Macadown Lane belonged to a mate of mine John, for someone who couldn't read or write he did well for himself. You should have seen his house out at Wythall, I haven't seen him for years. I heard that he had given the business to his sons and retired and sold the house at Wythall for round about a million pounds. Not bad for an illiterate.

Phil
 
I remember Mackadown Lane in the early 1940s - I was just a few years old and lived in Tile Cross Lane, at one end of Mackadown Lane. The other end was Kitts Green and the buses from Birmingham stopped there, so my parents and I had to walk from one end to the other.

Halfway along there was a pig farm on the right hand side and the smell from it was awful. I used to walk past it with my fingers over my nose, trying to not let the smell into my nostrils. I seem to remember very few houses along it in those days, just hedges and fields on either side.
 
phil.john was a friend of mine too.he let us have the bangers to race at henesford.also i knew the sons
there was a tip belonging to the parks dept.were we dumped the grass.at the back of the prefabs.i remember them well.
 
I lived in a prefab together with my two sisters and our Mom & Dad, you wouldn't have that today. Ours was on Vicarage Road, KingsHeath I would love to get a photo of on one understand that they were made in the USA they had flat roofs. There were some of the same sort in Cartland Road.
 
Hi Michael,

Here is a photo of some prefabs taken in Vicarage Rd in 1950, these prefabs don't appear to have flat roofs.

Phil

KingsHeathVicarageRd1950sPrefabs.jpg
 
Hi
Thanks for the reply, I can,t place the location of these, they were definatly not from Cartland Rd. up to Kings Heath. I know that the area ours stood there are now tennis courts for the grammar school.
 
The prefabs in Phil's photo were opposite Hazelwell Church looking toward Kings Heath from Pineapple bridge, you can just see the church railings on the left hand side.

Colin
 
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