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Prefabs

Vivienne14 said:
Although prefabs were meant to be a quick fix to the 1940s housing need, there were problems in getting prefab sites ready. Birmingham Mail reported on the problems faced by contractors in finding labourers.

Didn't know prefabs were built on slabs - these were the only foundations ! Viv.

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Viv a slab is a type of foundation. Slabs as we know them are flagstones. A slab foundation is basically a sold slab of concreter laid down after the ground has been stripped of to the formation layer, or the top soil have been removed. Slabs were normally reinforced and there would have been some method of tying down the prefab to the slab that had to be positioned as the slab was cast. Also the service pipes, soil, waste, water and gas would have to come up through the slab in the correct place. A 'formworker' would have to build the shuttering around the edge of the slab prior to pouring the concrete.
 
jukebox said:
The ones I have marked in Blue were certainly still there in the early 60's (a friend lived in one for a while) although I have a feeling many of the others were demolished earlier. The buildings marked in Red were prefab shops fronting Lode Lane, Castle Lane & Faulkner Road. They were as far as I remember Nissen Huts with the front wall converted to a shop front. There was a chemist (Donnai), a hardware store, a greengrocers and several others. They were demolished long before the prefab houses when the Hobs Moat shops were built.

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Have wonderful memories of the prefab shops at Hobs Moat, "Hall Green Hardware" had tin baths hanging outside, Chadwicks (not sure what they were now!), a sweet shop/tobacconist (Dillons?) a little post office. Had a friend who lived at 2 Candytuft Rd/Lane off Rodney Road - a blast from the past!
 
My grandparents lived in a prefab at 235.Reservoir Rd,Erdington.In the rear garden you could see the old Highcroft Hospital.They were there until they moved to a new property in Castle Vale in a complex for the elderly.
 
I don't know why they don't think up a similar idea to solve the housing shortage especially for young couples just starting out. (Is it me or does anybody else get grumpy when they see these property programmes and people have built up a 'large portfolio' of reasonably priced property, I quite like to watch them but don't like to see youngsters outbidded - back to the topic now).
 
Lady Penelope said:
I don't know why they don't think up a similar idea to solve the housing shortage especially for young couples just starting out. (Is it me or does anybody else get grumpy when they see these property programmes and people have built up a 'large portfolio' of reasonably priced property, I quite like to watch them but don't like to see youngsters outbidded - back to the topic now).
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https://totallymodular.co.uk/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/propert...od-revolution-design-your-own-space-age-fact/
 
Lady Penelope said:
I don't know why they don't think up a similar idea to solve the housing shortage especially for young couples just starting out. (Is it me or does anybody else get grumpy when they see these property programmes and people have built up a 'large portfolio' of reasonably priced property, I quite like to watch them but don't like to see youngsters outbidded - back to the topic now).
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Unfortunately ten house developers build most of the new houses in the UK, why should they build affordable homes when they can make vast profits and pay out shareholder dividends. Recently on CEO was going to be paid £110million as a bonus. John Prescott did try to get developers to build some affordable housing in Milton Keynes. The developers did build some houses for less than £100k, but then sold on for a vast profit. Perhaps we should look at building social housing again, just to get people going.
 
Lady Penelope said:
I don't know why they don't think up a similar idea to solve the housing shortage especially for young couples just starting out. (Is it me or does anybody else get grumpy when they see these property programmes and people have built up a 'large portfolio' of reasonably priced property, I quite like to watch them but don't like to see youngsters outbidded - back to the topic now).
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I think houses these days are status symbols and not really homes
 
Rita Hawkins said:
On the topic of prefabs, I lived in one of the Valley prefabs on Billesley Common for 12 years. We loved living there, even though they were very cold in the winter.
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Rita did you live at number 845 or 849 Yardley Wood Road? For a brief period around 1959/51 I lived at no 847 with my Mom and Dad and Grandma. Shortly after, mom and dad and I moved to a brand new house in Sheldon but my Gran lived there for many years until her death in 1966. My Aunt and cousin lived there for as long as I can remember and I was a very frequent visitor there at weekends and holidays. I seem to recall the name Hawkins as living next door to them and also the surname Halfpenny seems to ring a bell.
The picture shows my late mom and I at the front door of the prefab.
 

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jmadone said:
Rita did you live at number 845 or 849 Yardley Wood Road? For a brief period around 1959/51 I lived at no 847 with my Mom and Dad and Grandma. Shortly after, mom and dad and I moved to a brand new house in Sheldon but my Gran lived there for many years until her death in 1966. My Aunt and cousin lived there for as long as I can remember and I was a very frequent visitor there at weekends and holidays. I seem to recall the name Hawkins as living next door to them and also the surname Halfpenny seems to ring a bell.
The picture shows my late mom and I at the front door of the prefab.
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smashing photo:)

lyn
 
When I bought my business here in the Forest in 1965 it had only a small lean-to workshop, I was offered one of those prefabs as in the Moat Lane link for £40 if I could dismantle it and transport it away, I bought it and myself and my brother went over to Cheltenham took it down and shipped it back home.

I then got in touch with the council to get permission to set it up as a workshop behind my main building, the planning officer came from Gloucester to have a look and his words were "You won't get permission to put that up here in a hundred years."

It stood in a pile on my site for a few weeks then a farmer from across the road asked if he could buy it, I told him about the planning problems and he said "No bother, I'm a farmer, don't need permission."

He bought it and erected it in his field and it's there to this day.
 
Kitchen interior of one of the Slade Road, Erdington prefabs. This looks very modern to me for the times these were erected. Viv.

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There is a wealth of information here:
https://www.prefabmuseum.uk/
Inspired by a mid 1920's German idea and further based - hence the modernity in appearance - on American prefabricated buildings it was realized in mid WW2 that there would be a severe housing shortage once the war was over. There must have been some inspired thinking in the UK design, particularly given the shortage of raw materials after the war. I get the impression that few English towns never had any, just the quantity being commensurate with the population.
 
I remember people saying they boiled Christmas pud in the boiler Grea. Makes complete sense. Viv.
 
jmadone said:
Rita did you live at number 845 or 849 Yardley Wood Road? For a brief period around 1959/51 I lived at no 847 with my Mom and Dad and Grandma. Shortly after, mom and dad and I moved to a brand new house in Sheldon but my Gran lived there for many years until her death in 1966. My Aunt and cousin lived there for as long as I can remember and I was a very frequent visitor there at weekends and holidays. I seem to recall the name Hawkins as living next door to them and also the surname Halfpenny seems to ring a bell.
The picture shows my late mom and I at the front door of the prefab.
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Hello
Yes, we lived at 845. I remember your Gran, Aunt and cousin very well. Mr & Mrs Halfpenny lived at 841 I think and the Witheys at 843
 
Hello
I'm not a Brummie but my Auntie Nellie and Uncle Tom Smith were and Mum used to take me to visit them regularly in the late 40s early 50s. They lived in Selly Oak. I was about four or five then and it was only recently, after I'd written my books set in an imaginary Prefab Village in the 50s, that a family member told me Auntie Nellie and Uncle Tom lived in a prefab for a few years. I think that must have been where my inspiration for my "Broome Park Prefab Village" came from!
Those of you who lived in a prefab or know someone who did might be interested in the books.
 

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For many years the transport museum at Wythall had a prefab that was used for storage the prefab belong to a small factory? just of the Walsall road we (BaMMOT members ) had to strip the prefab then rebuilt the prefab at Wythall it served its purpose for many years, here you can see the 1685 Group rebuilding the prefab it was take either late 1970,s or early 1980,s the prefab was dismantled some time back I suspect it may have been scrapped ?
https://flic.kr/p/dRrZMd
 
Horsencart, judging by what I can see the pre-fab looks like ours did. It was an Arcon Mk V and had the same windows and wiggly walls. Oh how I miss it.
 
sylviasayers said:
My sister-in-law and her husband moved to a prefab in Shady Lane, Great Barr in the 1950s, we all envied them at the time. If anyone wants to see how the prefabs looked in their original state there are a couple at the Avoncroft Museum site.
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sylviasayers said:
My sister-in-law and her husband moved to a prefab in Shady Lane, Great Barr in the 1950s, we all envied them at the time. If anyone wants to see how the prefabs looked in their original state there are a couple at the Avoncroft Museum site.
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I’m sure my Aunt used to live in a Prefab in Shady Lane back in the 50’s I used to think it was so posh when we visited her except when the metal doors banged shut ,
 
Anne Jessel said:
Prefabs in Hollywood?

Here is a picture of Prefabs in Druids Lane Hollywood.

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Where is Hollywood? (apart from the obvious!)
Anne

Tongue Twister
Peggy Babcock's knapsack straps
Freshly fried fresh flesh
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They look just like the one my husband lived in while growing up in Bickley Grove Sheldon , they were eventually pulled down and replaced by new houses. There were quite a few round there, at the time ...Merlin Grove, Haydyn Grove etc.
 
An 1948 aerial view of Capon Heaton and Co Ltd, Hazelwell Rubber Mill, Stirchley.
Near the top of the image are the large number of prefabs on Brandwood Park Road. In the bottom right corner are just four prefabs very close to the Rubber Mill.
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View of the four prefabs off Hazellwell Rd, gardens established, washing hung out drying.
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A close-up view of the Brandwood Park Rd prefabs, probably not occupied yet.
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A view of the Brandwood Park Rd prefabs from over the Lifford Resovoir.
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The area today.
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These prefabs in Riverside Avenue off Cartland Road were not too far away in the opposite direction.
PrefabsRiversideAve.jpg
 
I had a girlfriend in the early 60's, (Pauline Musker) who also lived in a Prefab in Partons road, not far from Brandwood Park Road. I was most impressed with them.
 
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