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Prefabs

Charlie

Charlie

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Do the prefabs still exist in Perry Barr (Aldridge Road or Walsall Road area) and if so, are there any still occupied?.
I remember visiting one in the late fifties and, for temporary buildings, they were very comfortable. The height of luxury for me (indoor lavvies!!!!).
 
I think the only prefabs left in Birmingham are located in Cole Valley Road Hall Green.

cheers

pmc1947
 
There is quite a little eatate of them off Gressel lane, Kitts Green, quite a few have been bought therefore have had a brick shell built around them and very smart they look too.
 
Pre-fabrication is coming back into fashion in Canada. Still using wood which is traditional here, the houses are constructed in sections, including windows, which are then shipped to the site foundation on large flatbed truck trailers and bolted together. This method results in better quality control and dimensional accuracy also speed of constructin. Insulation, wiring and piping can be included in the pre-construction. I was in a couple of the old prefabs just after the war and as already stated they were OK. Hmmm indoor lavs.
 
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.
 
We drove past a row of them a few weeks ago, they had brick cladding, I think we were driving from Witton around the back of Brookvale Road towards Stockland Green.
 
I beg you pardon Charlie, I stand corrected it was Wake Green Rd that I meant, not Cole Valley Road. Well I was close!

cheers

pmc1947
 
None around the Perry Barr area anymore though? I know they were built to temporarily ease the housing shortage - but I thought they would last forever, and everyone I knew that lived in one always liked them. That's maybe because of the housing they moved from, of course!
 
Prefabs in Hollywood?

Here is a picture of Prefabs in Druids Lane Hollywood.

image.jpeg
(Replacement image 23/3/16)
Where is Hollywood? (apart from the obvious!)
Anne

Tongue Twister
Peggy Babcock's knapsack straps
Freshly fried fresh flesh
 
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Anne
Hollywood Is Near To Wythall. Close To Kings Norton.maypole .warstock.
 
Anne,Druids Lane is part of Druids Heath estate at the Maypole.The lane forms the southern border of the city

Colin
 
My earliest childhood memories are when we lived in a prefab in Lenton Croft, South Yardley, off Clay Lane, in the very early 1950s. Not only did they have indoor toilets, they had fridges too.
For some reason we moved to the Hobmoor Road area, (Yew Tree end) before the coronation, but the opposite side of Hobmoor Road, bordering the park, had a lot of prefabs and some of my playmates lived there.
Our house, in a 'grove' off Hobmoor Road had an outside toilet, and boy, did the seat get cold in the winter!

Spooner :)
 
That photo has triggered some memories my friend lived in a prefab at the top of Four Oaks Common Road in the 60's. I remember it was so neat and clean and very cosy.
 
There were 3 main construction types of small houses built during the 1944-48 period under the Temporary Housing Programme, these are the ones most of us would have called prefabs.
1. Constructed of aluminium metal, separate units were welded together
2. All timber
3. Pre-cast concrete on a wooden frame.

Asbestos would certainly have been used,both as a fibre and as a board for its sound deafening and fire resistant characteristics.
Many prefabs were demolished before the laws regarding asbestos disposal were brought in and most of the buried asbestos that turns up in old refuse tips are the result of this demolition rubble.
Churchill promised 500,000 homes built to a Government standard, when the programme ended after 4 years in 1948, 156,623 had been built; they stopped building them as they were considered too expensive at an average of £1,324 each.

Colin
 
thanks for the info Colin, only the ones I knew on the Chester road, (front of Pype Hayes park) looked to be made from asbestos. just goes to show how little I know:redface:
 
I remember semi detached prefabricated houses in Langdale Road. Hamstead.
Checking on Google maps it looks as though they are still there. The Smaller prefabs on the other side of the canal have gone.
Where I live in 'T' north there are still both types.:)
 
Those prefabs on Langdale Road were pulled down yeas ago Apollo, of all the old miners houses at that end of the village only one is left standing, and that is next to the old outdoor on Old Walsall Road, and the old outdoor was until recently a Victoria Wine Shop, it's now empty. I was born at 96 Old Wlasall Road.:)
 
i remember my dad taking me and my sister to a park somewhere in south (east?) birmingham 20 years ago, saying that he was brought up in a pre-fab that had long since gone, although the road running up the middle of the open space in the park remained....i remember there were a few slides and swings at the bottom of the park, which slopped uphill away from the road, with the access road down the middle...does this sound familiar to anyone? and if so has it been redeveloped?
 
Langstraat said:
I remember semi detached prefabricated houses in Langdale Road. Hamstead.
Checking on Google maps it looks as though they are still there. The Smaller prefabs on the other side of the canal have gone.
Where I live in 'T' north there are still both types.:)
Click to expand...
Further to the above I can confirm that there are still some semi detached Pre fabs in Hamstead
 
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David, those aren't the conventional prefabs. The ones I recall were all single story, nowhere near as flash as the ones in your photo's.We have similar houses in our village, they had to have a refurb about 10 years ago.

Did you go to Hamstead just to take a photo!!!!!!!! ;)
 
Di,
I went a couple of weeks ago to the commemorative service at St. Pauls. I intended to check out Langdale and see whether the semi detached pre-fads were still there but some how got waylaid taking pictures of Red House Park, Perry Hall park, Handsworth Park and the old Taylor & Chalin Building and missed them. Today I returned to Sutton Coldfield for my daughters Nan's 85th Birthday and made a detour to Hamstead for the photos.
Driving back to Sutton from the Scotts I also detoured in to St. Margaret's Hospital grounds where building works has started turning it in a huge housing project
 
Hi Slatertim.
On Billesley Common the prefabs were beside the Common with an access road to them, also a service road runs beside Yardley Wood Rd. Entrance from Haunch Lane B13.The land from there rises up to end at what is now the home of Moseley Rugby Club and the indoor Tennis Centre. Could this be your Park?
See Pic of Prefab that was on Haunch Lane.
Pete


image.jpeg
(Replacement image
23/3/16)
 
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spooner said:
My earliest childhood memories are when we lived in a prefab in Lenton Croft, South Yardley, off Clay Lane, in the very early 1950s. Not only did they have indoor toilets, they had fridges too.
For some reason we moved to the Hobmoor Road area, (Yew Tree end) before the coronation, but the opposite side of Hobmoor Road, bordering the park, had a lot of prefabs and some of my playmates lived there.
Our house, in a 'grove' off Hobmoor Road had an outside toilet, and boy, did the seat get cold in the winter!

Spooner :)
Click to expand...

I lived just down the road from these prefabs. There were some on Hobmoor road, next to the park, and some along Wash Lane/Holder Road, again running along the edge of the park. My mum's friend lived in one. I can remember going in and being surprised at how big they were inside. They looked so small on the outside.
 
Re prefabs,

There is a prefab at the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, just outside Bromsgrove, that used to stand in Moat Lane, Yardley. The whole place is well worth a look.
 
Bilsat, those are the sort of prefabs I remember in Walsall Road. They were lovely inside and people had made an effort with the gardens as well. I thought they were the 'bees knees' at the time and used to dream of living in one.
 
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