An Aunt and Uncle had one before buying a new, to them, house, they were cold and damp in winter and roasting in summer as had no insulation, the 3/8" asbestos had zero insulation ability.
My grandma, reaching 99 years next month lived in the German equivalent of this after the war (somewhere between 1946 to about 1955). She has very fond memories of her "Behelfsheimchen" (Roughly translates to "substitute homey" or something similar.) This is where she met my grandfather, whom she married in 59. Even tho hers didn't have a water tap or a toilet, there was a community tap and toilet house down the alley. It was surrounded by a tiny stretch of land, where she grew potatoes and cabbage. That's how my grandpa won her over, as she once told him if she only had beans. So grandpa got her some beans, as in, dug out the plants somewhere else at night. A true post war romance...
To make way for more solid structure? Yet, 80 years later these temporary houses are still going strong and providing a comfortable life for those who live in them. Great episode, as always.
I have one. it was the family home until 1972 when a new house on the property was built. It was never demolished. It was renovated in 1997 and I moved in to it as my own home. My own family lived in it until 6 years ago. This year its back in use and my Inlaws now live in it. It Looks like a Tarral type, but has a flat roof. There are many of them in my town, all modernised and with pitched roofs now fitted. It was way warmer than my current house.
Thank you for this video. I am a building surveyor and did a post graduate diploma in building conservation. My dissertation was "Prefabs - The Dichotomy of Listing a Temporary Building, or, a 'Permanent Temporary'". A fascinating subject. A large number are 'Listed'. The residents loved them. The local authorities hated them. The local authorities had to maintain a Listed prefab which was designed and built to last ten or so years using techniques and materials which were not suitable (poor insulation, poor reinforcing and of course asbestos cement sheet). Also, the prefab estates had a low density with large gardens. The local authorities wanted to demolish the prefabs and build houses in a higher density and weren't able to. I think the remaining prefabs are a fitting memorial to what the people of teh country went through during and after the war and the ingenuity of the designers in providing housing that was so well considered and designed in such difficult times.
Asbestos-cement was, aside from the hazards, a great material. I've read about fires in the old closely-spaced wooden neighborhoods we have here in New England that spread from house to house until one that still had asbestos shingles under its UPVC siding put a stop to it. The shingles were probably still in good shape under the plastic; they were considered slummy looking 50 years ago so some owners covered them up just to "update" the property.
As long as asbestos is in a concrete sheet and is painted, it's perfectly safe. Any asbestos in any building that is covered with any kind of sealant, paint, insulation sheathing, wood, metal or any other sealing surfaces is totally safe. It's when you start tearing things up that the problems begin. All of those houses could be easily insulated from the inside. People should be encouraged to raise gardens and keep chickens. They would be healthier from the fresh food and eggs. The chickens would benefit from the garden leftovers. It's a win win situation.
@genespell4340 they NEVER shoulda used that shite when they knew exactly how deadly it was at least 70 years ago! At least it was banned in the UK and Europe back in the 90s. Its STILL used in the US and in places like India, Pakistan, China etc today!
@@genespell4340 Your statements are a bit sweeping . 'Any asbestos' NO. Blue asbestos (crocidolite) is very dangerous and is illegal since the 70's. The asbestos used in sheeting, artex etc is required to be recorded in an ''asbestos register'' and should be inspected and maintained. Any drilling or activity likely to release fibres should be avoided. The death toll from asbestos used in pipelagging and other industries, shipbuilding etc. is horrendous and the effects of asbestos usually takes decades to become apparent , meaning liability/compensation is difficult to determine .
Impeccable timing Dr Felton, i was just talking to my Nan about her time in prefabs shortly after the war, she said she found them very inhabitable and cozy. Thanks for the video.
As a policeman in Bristol in the 70's, we had many pre-fabs and they were warm and comfortable and much loved. We also had lots of bomb sites still which were used as city centre cars parks, fascinating as they were often in the old cellars from the High Street. We could learn a lot from the pre-fabs in a time where they say we need thousands of houses. Cheap and cheerful but effective and homely.
Yes I remember the bomb site car parks especially around the M32 in Bristol and yes the government should be building them again. There were prefabs in most areas of Bristol,
2 месяца назад
There is a huge number of these multi story box type structures being built in places like Cardiff! Huge developments and who are they going to MIGRANTS!!! 🥴
American here, and yes there are still PreFabs in the US built at the end of the War and the years that follow. Of course here, it wasn't due to bombing, but the Housing Shortage in the years following the War. We call them Cracker Boxes. A single story 2 bedroom, 1 bath home, set usually on a concrete slab or concrete footer. Here in the US, there's still whole neighborhoods of these homes made in the 40s and 50s. A childhood friend, helped his Dad dig a basement under their PreFab. Finished it off with additional bedrooms for his brother' and him. That was in the late 60s.
Same here in Canada, quite a few war & post-war era houses around. The federal gov't here is actually talking about bringing back some war-era housing ideas, i.e. having a set of house designs that were "pre-approved" in the building code to get things moving faster on construction.
American here. There were temporary houses built in my town (suburb of Buffalo) for the aerospace workers. They were supposed to be knocked down after the war. The walls were made from 2” X 2” lumber. They were two stories. The bottom floor had a living room and a kitchen. The upstairs had the bathroom/shower and two bedrooms. My buddy lived there and you could push the walls and make them flex. Instead of knocking them down, they were used for low income people. “Projects” or estates as they say in GB.
How is it the UK can just decide to tear peoples houses down and build something else? Not so easy here in the US. Maybe I’m missing something? It does feel like in the UK that you don’t really own your property - its subject to many rules by the government. I see in clarksons farm he can’t move dirt without filling a form out for the volgons.
I live in the eastern part of the Netherlands. After ww2 the British prefab houses came to our town too. Part of the city was bombed because we have an important railway network with connecting to Germany. These houses still exist and have recently been renovated, same as overseas, people like them because of the bungalow layout and very big gardens. You find them in Hengelo and also in the nearby town of Enschede.
When I was in junior school in the 1950s, my best friend lived in a Prefab. I remember being intensely jealous that she lived in a warm and cosy house. My parents, aspiring to be middle class, had bought a large run down 500 year old farm house, and warmth & comfort was something I didn't know about until my visits to my friend's prefab house. I've often wondered if we could build the same for Ukraine, for the poor people who've lost all they own in missile & drone raids. The munitions change, but the effects of war still remain.
I grew up ten years before Mark, and WW2 was even bigger in our lives and culture, my dad was a WW2 vet as were all my uncles and my aunts all worked in war industry in one way or the other. It was generation to be admired in so many ways.
@moltderenou, the boomers destroyed the nation with sex, drug's, and rock n roll. My parent's had no appreciation for my grandparents, religion, or raising their children to the standard they were raised. If it weren't for my grandparents, i would not have the morals i have today. G-d bless.
We still have WW2 housing in my town here in the US. During the war, the government set up houses for workers who moved to the Pittsburgh area to work in war production industries. One such neighborhood is called Mooncrest, in Moon Township, PA, which is minutes away from Pittsburgh, Ambridge and other major Steel & war production plants. This neighborhood was completed in 1943. There is another such neighborhood in Leetsdale, PA, right next door to Ambridge, PA.
Yep, near any military installation of that era, and around key industrial towns they put up a lot of housing. Most are gone, but if you know what they look like there are a surprising amount left and still in use. Like England, these were supposed to be 5-10 year building - but they built a lot better back then!
There's a lot out here in SoCal as well. In fact, that picture at Ipswich at the end looks a lot like some of the old neighborhoods that I've seen out by where I live. In omse of these neighborhoods you'll blocks of Victorian looking houses which then makes way to these post-war prefabs.
I’m from the midwestern USA- the Ipswich neighborhood looks like a typical small town neighborhood here. It’s very interesting hearing the little known details of wartime Britain. Thanks so much Dr. Felton!
I just came here to say exactly this. Those homes would literally fit in to any mid-50's in many areas of the US. While you'd see a lot more creative gardening her in the US with more trees, shrubs and flowerbeds, the basic layout of yard (Garden, if you prefer) driveway (Car park) and home is the spitting image of many late 40's to mid 1960's areas here. I have to admit being startled by how "normal" this looked to me compared to most unmistakably UK style communities. ( I will say that those homes are so neat and orderly as too seem sterile a bit, I presume because compared to the usual crime and drug-ridden council housing we hear about these residents likely go to sleep at night thanking their lucky stars for the opportunity to live there and make sure they are following every rule to the letter so as to keep their residency.)
I'm in San Diego, California, and there's pockets of WW II prefabs and beach bungalows here in Ocean Beach and Point Loma... and as of today are not selling or renting for cheap
@@cammobunkeryes, we're glad to always lived in the suburbs, gradually moving outwards over the years and now a cottage in a Village. Especially after all the recent rioting here in the UK.
I live in Michigan and was raised in the 50's. We still have many prefab houses that were built after WWII, for returning soldier's and their growing families. They were all single story, low pitched roofs, and built with either a 2 bed/1 bath, or 3 bed/1 bath layout, with a livingroom and small kitchen (there was a wall furnace, and no duct work). They were built in our (at that time) rural area, which is now part of the city. The inside wall's of these homes look like plywood and are only about 2 inches thick (30 year old mobile homes have thicker wall's), and all were placed on cement slab's. None had a garage. I went to school with classmates who grew up in these houses, and was in and out of many of them as a kid. Almost all of them are still standing, most have been renovated, and are in use today. We also had a couple quonset hut's in the neighborhood, that people purchased from the Army/Navy surplus store, and turned into homes.
I live in the northeast. We still have "war houses" neighborhoods. I've also seen quonset huts in different towns. My friend won't let me inside hers. She says it's haunted and refuses to go anywhere near it. Sadly I have to take her word for it.
I had friends in Liverpool who lived in a prefab, and I remember visiting in the 1979s, and being really impressed by how warm, comfortable and well laid out the house was.
My family moved into a prefab that had been built in 1965. There were several city blocks of the prefabs. They were built because a missile base was being built on the west side of town and the houses would be for families of the workers. The 1972 SALT treaty closed the missile base and the prefabs were bought by families (like ours). The kitchen was tiny, but the rest of the house was roomy.
Long live Ipswich prefabs! As an ex Sidegate Lane resident I have affection for these prefabs, the large gardens , the wide leafy streets and the well kept modest buildings, that don’t pretend to be Tudor, Georgian or some other pastiche!
Living in a three bed end terrace former council house, I can see that these would be a completely different picture from the point of view of upkeep and maintenance. I'm jealous, even.
I grew up near a WW2 airfield and I was fascinated by the history of it and would ride on the former runways on my bike. I would listen to endless stories from the elder people in my village who were there when the airfield was operating. Sadly built over now but some of the hangers are still there
^ Having read your story with some interest, I've gotta ask = Where was it ???? I've had loads by where I was born & also where I live now (Hurricane, Spitfire, B.24, Stirling etc) Ironically just like Mark , I was born in same county as him (earlier) & moved to same as him (by coincidence)
There was a base, a training facility or something, built in my hometown (Framingham, MA) with the barracks designed to look like a generic suburban neighborhood so it wouldn't be spotted and targeted if Germany ever invaded. The "suburban" houses are still standing, with each serving as a 2 family house and the field was filled in with veteran's housing after the war. It's still a "project" (ie. "council estate") today, but it's well maintained and just looks like any other housing complex.
There are Sears mail order houses that are basically prefabs from before WW2 that exist in many parts of the USA. New "tiny homes" that are similar in construction have been developing some popularity as low cost options that people are finding to be well built, comfortable and low maintenance.
We lived in a post-war Prefab in Lewisham (the Excalibur Estate). We had moved from Camberwell in 1968 and stayed there until 1970. Dad got the back boiler working and it was a cosy home for mum, dad and me and my brother. Our prefab is still there in 2024, although I think it’s due for demolition soon? Happy days!
@@fastestdino2many were privately owned on the Excalibur Estate. But, it was impossible to get a mortgage as they were not permanent structures. So, for those who owned them, they probably paid for them outright.
I live in one. A small estate in Peterborough of around 80 3 bedroom bungalows all semi detached. We only moved in about 12 years ago from a much more modern built house and would never go back. They were re roofed over the original roof which still can be seen from the loft space. They have a single fireplace in the living room and we re clad over the original metal outside a few years ago with excellent insulation. Apart from the original built in bedroom cupboards/wardrobes no other original fittings can be seen. They were all owned by Peterborough Council until all social housing was passed over to Housing Associations. Quite a few of these houses have been bought by the people who live in them however, it is not possible to get a mortgage now. These homes are very roomy, comfortable cheap to heat and have big gardens (a bit too big for me now), I love where I live.
I used to Date a woman that grew up on that estate, used to go for Sunday dinner at her mums prefab just off St. Pauls rd. God that takes me back, Thanks for the memory mate 😀
@@Graham_Thompson cheap to heat - what kind of heating do they have? Havnt heard of semi detached prefabs, are you sure they're not "non standard construction" homes rather than actual prefab? Timber frame, BISF, no-fines, airey etc?
@@funwitholdconcretethings8721 back in the day, just a fireplace in the living room. I don’t know what else was in them when they were built. Now they have full modern gas central heating, triple glazing and full loft insulation. That combined with the new insulated outer cladding keeps the heat in nicely. The original parts of the outer walls are metal cladding over what appears to be a compressed insulation material, not very thick at all. All the rest of the construction is timber framed. As far as I know, they were built between 1944 and 1948 under Winston Churchill’s Temporary Housing Program.
Might not be the same. But my dear mother who was stuck in occupied Poland, was targeted by the Gestapo and suffered greatly under them, avoiding death, has just turned 100. After all that went on, she made it. Maybe a bit late, but I'm starting to get her story down and that of her family during those dark times. Bless you mum and Happy Birthday... "Sto Lat". ❤
Malaysian here. A lot of the trauma and terror parents and grandparents live though never make themsleves known to you, until you are an adult. As a kid I merely had hints of my mum's dark past - it was only during parties (when I was an adult) that I started piecinng together the terrors my mother had to endure, along with her family, when she was a teenager.
I can remember them in Finchley (N. London) and as a child was always impressed with how clean, tidy and with lovely gardens. There was an Arcon I passed every school day which I thought was pressed iron sheeting. I think people who went through the privations of the war were more grateful for what the government of the day was able to provide. Not like today where many expect to be given everything and still complain AND THEN leave the property in 3rd rate order. Lovely video which returned memories long forgotten. Thank you.
When I was an ATC cadet in the early 1980s, our Squadron demolished the old hut which was auxiliary to the main building, and rebuilt a relocated prefab of the Aeroh type (without its service unit) in its place. It was done by us cadets being used as labourers (digging foundations, mixing and pouring concrete, assembling the components, tarring the roof etc) with the squadron's adult staff doing the skilled trades work. The squadron moved to a new build cadet centre it shares with the ACF several years ago, and the main building (built in the 1950s, I believe) was demolished in order to build a block of flats. However, the prefab had been renovated and had cladding built over it whilst still in service with the 402 (Gravesend) Sqn ATC, and is now a private dwelling house. So that's around 40 years in each of its locations as a home, a set of classrooms and a home again.
A living example of there is "nothing so permanent as a temporary government program" - Milton Friedman. I remember around 1973 attending a week long Soaring (flying) Camp at Fort Indiantown Gap in Southeastern Pennsylvania USA, which still had a lot of WW2 era buildings. The program was sponsored and run by a Military Reserve unit - this was what they did for their mandatory annual service. The barracks we youngsters stayed in were also WW2 vintage. Maintenance makes all the difference in the longevity of facilities. The fact they used real wood versus the many types of cheap particle board/plywood used today in construction also helps tremendously.
I was a WW2 reenactor in the early to mid '80s, and I was at "the Gap" for two such reenactments. We were bunked in those WW2 era barracks. To my eyes, the place looked little different from the wartime pictures of the base that I had seen.
Milton's comment failed to make its point regarding these homes. They were built to last 10 to 15 years, and are in excellent condition 75 years later. Why would we want that temporary program to have been ended?
@@brianarbenz1329 It applies better to programs like farm-price-supports and the cold-war-era intelligence and war machines than to these buildings. I assume that land utilization was a big reason for the "temporary" designation. I've read that some of them had pre-tensioned-concrete spalling problems, but that they they were sometimes stabilized by replacing or reinforcing the exterior walls. There is something satisfying about a building meant to last 10 years doing well at 75.
My Gran’s lived in prefab and due to family circumstance my brother and I lived with her in that house for a few months. They were all well spaced out with plenty of outside space for us kids to play without bothering people. Whilst we were there in 1971 we were moved out by the Council and certainly by the mid 70’s all the prefabs in Corby had sadly been demolished 🇬🇧
I grew up in the 60s and 70's. I remember them well in the Birmingham area. They were lovely and cosy. I remember thinking then, gosh they're still around!
Felton always comes up with interesting stories. He mentioned that in his youth, many of the older generation had direct ties to the war because they had either simply lived though it, or had participated. I am 63, so I also experienced this. Nearly all middle aged, or older, men I knew as a boy had served during the war. My uncles and father served. One uncle flew the P-38 Lightning in combat in the MTO. Dad was in US Navy basic training when VE Day was announced. He only served for a year after that, since much of the military demobilized during those days right after the war ended. He was trained as a radar technician. In hindsight, I wish I had talked to more veterans than I had. The stories they told me always had me in rapt attention. It's hard to believe that most of them are gone now. As Felton mentioned, WW2 was so much a part of the culture for the decades that immediately followed the end of hostilities.
I spent the first 9 years of my life (from 1945 to 1963) in the type shown at 1:46. They were comfortable and well-equipped with a small fridge, a good bathroom and two bedrooms. We then moved into a brand-new brick council house as shown in this film.
I remember these on the Isle of Sheppey as a kid as well as the 'Airey' houses which are made with concrete slabs. All have long since been replaced with new housing. There is still one concrete prefab left in the village of Newington, Kent. It's in Playstool Road surrounded by new builds, the owner refused to sell it.
I grew up in a two-storey post-war prefab. The exterior was metal clad (initially painted, then pebble dashed), and the interior walls made of flimsy hardboard (so flimsy I once accidentally kicked a hole in it!). It was very spacious inside, though my bedroom was pretty small. It had a large lounge, separate dining room and a reasonably sized kitchen. The windows were metal framed and single paned. There was no heating apart from a coal fire in the lounge, with a back boiler for hot water, and an electric immersion heater. They were absolutely freezing in the winter, with the windows being covered in the beautiful feathered frost patterns in the morning. You had to go bed almost fully clothed to stay warm. It had a decent sized front garden (big enough for a driveway) and a huge back garden with a concrete shed with an outside toilet (Though there was an inside toilet in the bathroom, maybe that had been added later), along with two large coal bunkers. I can remember going out to the garden in the snow to get a bucket of coal for the fire The house is still there, along with all others of the same type in the street, though I'd be interested to see how they have been upgraded to modern standards, especially with regard to heating and insulation.
You have just discribed the house I'm living in. A metal pre fab with a metal roof. We have a gas fire now as when they modernised it around 40 years ago the took away the lovely coal fire. Yes there's 2 toilets, 1 up and 1 down. It's put together by nuts and bolts that were a nightmare to remove when they demolished my grandparents home, along with next doors, to make way for a road leading to new houses at the back. Yes you described our 3 bedroom metal house perfectly 😃
During WWII, the town of Ajax in Ontario, Canada was a large munitions factory called Defence Industries Limited (DIL). The employees were housed in prefab homes north of the plant. The mostly women employees were called "bomb girls." Hundreds of these prefab homes are still occupied today with many barely unchanged.
In my city, Milwaukee Wisconsin, many WW2 pre-fabs still exist. There were several tracts built for factory workers and more built for returning veterans. My aunt and uncle owned one for years. They are nice little places very simple in build and layout, and today considered "starter home" for new families.
I’m so lucky. My house was built in 1936. It’s solid. The walls are 2ft thick stone and concrete. Gives the Atlantic wall a run for its money. But it’s the massive garden I have that makes all the difference. I live in a mining town in Fife. The thought of living in a cramped hole in London would make me beg for the Luftwaffe to return.
@@PeteGibbons1 net legal migration was around 675,000 last year alone, plus of course the ones we don't know about. Our population had grown 10 million plus since 1990, again added to this are illegals. More students than ever and divorcees etc. The amount of houses that need to be built is staggering. See the latest Skill Builder post for an estimate on the construction rates estimates calculated, that's not allowing for any renewed Luftwaffe rainds!
They are terrible I lived in one in the south of England! Damp in winter is a nightmare no cavity in the wall plus concrete is notorious for storing heat/cold
Thank you Dr. Felton! I am German and when I toured Great Britain in the 1970's I immediately fell in love with those 'tiny houses' as we called them. ... and now I finally know their history. Thank you.
I live in Tempe, AZ. It's a suburb of Phoenix. Buddy of mine is still living in a house that was made from two of the Japanese Camp pre-fabs from WWII. Meaning there was a U-Boat POW camp in Papago Park, and a Japanese internmnet camp nearby. After the war, they were moved and became a stand-in, mid-sized home when two of them were put in side-by-side. It's still there and still occupied.
I am a retired U.S. Marine who lives in military base housing with my girlfriend. The housing I live in is on the Little Rock Air Force base in Arkansas. I was shocked to see how similar those pre-fabs are compared to what we live in now. Granted, the housing we live in was originally built in the 1950s. I really enjoy living here, because the house is quite comfortable and we are in a gated community as an Air Force base. I enjoyed this video. Thank you.😊
Mark I live in a central Victorian city of Bendigo, Australia. During WW2 we had the Ordnance Factory, which from 1942 made heavy artillery guns for the navy & army. Prefabricated housing of cement sheet were built within arms reach of the facility to accomodate workers. These also are still here after more than 80 years! I drive passed several times a week & still marvel at their historical significance. I actually did my trade there in the 1980’s with the Australian Defence Industries. Today it’s owned by Thales & make the Bushmaster & Hawkei.
thanks mark, a lovely film. I had a magical childhood in an Arcon prefab in hainault, No 14 Rookwood gardens. Our estate was totally self contained, and it was like living in a village. No one had more than anyone else, and we were unaware of a class divide because all the families were working class, In fact I was unaware of the middle classes until I went to university. I will be forever grateful for my upbringing in the prefabs.
There's a furnished example open to the public at the Welsh National Folk Museum at St. Ffagans near Cardiff. Very glad to see so many still exist, and are still popular. We probably need a modern day equivalent. In another village I lived in there were timber-framed and timber-clad buildings they called the Swedish Houses; donated in kit form by the Swedish government to UK rural communities to cope with the post-war housing shortages. They are still rather cosy, attractive and in demand. Great post, Mark!
I haven't visited the Imperial War Museum Duxford, Cambridgeshire for a few years but the last time I did it had a wartime prefab furnished as it would originally have been. It was not possible to go inside but the large windows made it easy to see the interiors.
I recall that when the prefab was moved to the IWM the residents of a nearby group of prefabs were not pleased. They did not wish to be thought of as living in a museum piece.
German Historian of the IFZ here. This is a Topic i actually never ever heard about, so kudos to Mark for making me aware of it. That said on a similar Topic, i definitely know WW2 Veterans and Civilians here in Germany still alive who still are affected by WW2. Like my Paternal Grandfather who is now 104 years old and turns 105 on 1st of September (his Wife died in 2006) still is affected by WW2 so much, he has 12 ! big Freezers in his Cellar in which he freezes Meats, Bread, Potatoes, Veggies etc. just because he grew up in the Weimar Republic with Starvation and then again after WW2. So it affected him. His Wife/My Grandmother was the same. Whenever i came home from School to their House she literally forced me to finish at least 3 full Dishes of Food. If i didn't do that, she told me i'll end up starving because World War 3 can happen anytime. To this day i feel obliged to finished every Dish i get served anywhere even if i'm full and about to throw up. But yeah, my 104 Year Old Grandpa basically has frozen Food in his Cellar that would easily last for 11-12 Months Prost & Cheers from Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps
Another person who was a child during WWII and retained the habit of hoarding was the late Margaret Thatcher, who told the voters in the 1970's of the vast stock of tinned food she kept at home.
@@MarkFeltonProductions I think you asked me many Months ago to contact you, i ended up in the USA for some Months. Next time you come here, def let me (or the Community know) and i'll def help you out and introduce you to some Veterans if you want! Really love your Channel. Prost & Cheers
@@chartreux1532 it's the same here in rural France, everything sterilised and kept in the cellar, I cleared out a friend's cellar and it was full of jars of veg from that era. I ate the honey that never goes off
A distant relation lived in a prefab. She had kept it in such good that when the time came for it to be demolished it was taken up to the Imperail War Museum at Duxford and is on display there to this day as far as I know.
It’s still there but you can only look through the windows and not go inside it. There is furniture in all the rooms from the era, even toys in one of the bedrooms. It looks like the family that may have lived there just got up and walked out
Having at one time lived in one with my then gf, it was a semi detached type. It was warm roomy and comfortable. I truly believe we should build more!!
I was born in 1956, whenever my family got together they talked about the war. It was like I remembered it too. And my auntie lived in a prefab. She loved it.
Mt mum was born in a one room emergency prefab in the spring of 1946. She described it as a corrugated iron Nnssen hut! My grandparents then moved to a 'proper' prefab looking out onto a communal green, which they loved. In the late 1950's they were rehoused in a nearby second floor council flat; my grandfather really missed his little vegetable patch.
These videos are ALWAYS interesting and informative. I've never left one of Dr. Felton's videos feeling bored or cheated. As someone who loves to learn Dr. Mark Felton is a fantastic source of informative entertainment.
There is a place by the old Rover works called Austin village, that was built of prefabs in the first world war and are still there today, unlike the Rover itself. There is quite a few tunnel systems around the old works, I never got to go in them but they was used during WW2 when they built the Short Stirling and the Hawker Hurricanes, built around Cofton Hackett which was the east works of Austin, it is are now a housing estate.
I think the affection held for pre-fabs is testament to the fact these were very much 'real' homes. I've always thought there is something very American about the single-storey, large plot concept and your video confirmed the American link. My aunt and uncle were rehoused in one when their previous home was destroyed in the 1941 Liverpool blitz, and having two boys qualified them with these properties being two bedroomed. I have incredibly happy memories of visiting the pre-fab - it was always called by name by the family. I remember the 'stone' small semi-circular(?) hearth and the lovely large rear garden. Their row lasted until well into the 60s. My cousin - one of the two boys - remembers that the exterior walls of his bedroom were very cold (from the inside) in winter but I remember the fire on in the sitting room, and the kitchen/diner with its table. Thanks for a lovely and illuminating video Mark.
@@forresthodge1024 It's all relative - I think my relation's pre-fab was at the end of a row so had a larger garden with an additional large double gate at the side. For most the prefab home was replacing a home with just a back yard as by definition it was cities that were blitzed rather than suburban locations. But yes, not large if you are used to larger gardens.
I live in Ipswich and was told about these homes as I was growing up and drive past them Regularly when I go To my mums home in westerfield village they’re in a great location next to the countryside and I’m glad the council still owns most if them Nice to see you cover this mark 👌
I cared for a wonderful lady who lived in one of them in Ipswich. It was a lovely home. My lady had no kids in the area. She got lonely at times but there was a wonderful community within those homes.
Oh wow, those prefab homes looked so close to those near my old house that I had to do a double-take. Right near Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio, there is a small community of homes that look exactly like the homes at 0:09 in the video. I honestly expected to see an Ohio license plate on that car. They are old base housing that was constructed right after WW2 and built on the cheap.
I currently live in permanent Barracks that were built to house Returning Military Veterans front WW2. I dont know if my building was Pre Fab, but this was Government Housing after WW2 and it's still liveable.
We still have that housing here in Greensboro NC in an area that grew up around ORD which was one of the largest Overseas Recruitment Depot, along with mill houses built by Cone Mills for their employees. Many have been renovated and work well for new families and older people.
There were certain lots of those around through my childhood and youth. Born in 1946 into a very poor family, my father was an Italian prisoner of War, sent over here to UK, to work as a farm labourer in very rural and prejudiced Wales. We still had ration books for my early years and many basic commodities were not not easy to get. We lived in a tiny, almost tumble down stone cottage that came with his job, afted demobed. It had a tin roof, in inside walls were all wonky, bare grey stone that was painted with whitewash, and stone floors, The dampness was so bad that it ran down incessantly during winter. There was no running water indoors, just a cold tap outside in the front yard, no bathroom, the dry toilet was housed in a very rickety tin shack situated quite some yards away across what was a muddy patch of ground whenever rain fell. It had a small living room in which was an ancient black iron stove, which was our only warmth and the front door opened directly into the room itself. Two small bedrooms, the second one of which was accessed by going through the first one, which led directly off the living room, and off the back wall a third door led into a tiny kitchen. It was a tough life, I was the eldest of 6 children and mother was so often pregnant and otherwise I'll with severe asthma, and we were hated in the local community, for our Italian connection, for our poverty and because there was jealousy over our being in that property when we were seen as rrank outsiders. There was a small amount of land which came with the cottage and it was really our saviour, our father grew vegetables, kept a cow and a couple of pigs, and mother had goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits, so we were well fed. It was an extremely rich experience in so many ways and I count it as really priceless. We had the beautiful countryside all around us, such a blessing. Times have changed so much since then and now it seems that another war is looming, those prefab style homes could have been reimimented in order to house homeless people and may have to be again yet. Thank you for the video Mark. God Bless 🙏🏻💖
Oh, such memories of my childhood in the 1960s. We lived in a new house built in the late 1950s, but at the bottom of the garden was a large pre-fab estate. We may have backed onto each other, but by car you had to drive right through the entire town to get to it, so in a sense it was the other side of town. Our new houses were the "posh" ones and the pre-fabs were inhabited by the "rough people". In reality, we used to climb through the fence at the end of our garden and all we kids would spend the school holidays playing with each other; some of them are my friends to this day. But then the pre-fabs were scheduled for demolition and we suddenly had a building site for a playground (no fencing or keep out signs in those days); we used to get into the pre-fabs before they were knocked down and were often able to boost our pocket money rather handsomely with the small change found down the back of abandoned sofas and chairs. What stands there today is a soulless late 1960s estate.
My English mother and American met and married in England during WW2. In the 1960's, myself and my younger brother visited England with my mother, to visit her family. She took us to see where my uncles' work place I saw a bunch of seemingly discarded bricks. What I didn't realize until later was this was rubble from WW2. Infrastructure rebuilding took a long time in England. It was like going back in time.
I visited Germany for the first time in 1983 and saw some of both East and West Germany. I was surprised by how FEW signs of the war I saw. I saw some bullet scars on a single building in East Berlin and the remains of Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in West Berlin, which was deliberately kept as a ruin to remind people of the consequences of war. Aside from that, I saw no other overt damage, although I was struck by how some of the buildings in East Germany looked untouched from WWII while West Germany was very new and modern-looking for the most part.
A related parallel from the US. I live in Virginia, and in WWII the government built a rehab hospital for the wounded returning from Europe. This hospital was built from a type of prefab structure and linked with prefab corridors. There were many identical prefab buildings, single story with three adjoining large rooms, and at the end connected to the corridor was a fourth room that was subdivided into small offices along with lavatory facilities. Many of the three large rooms would be patient wards but they could also be operating rooms or whatever was needed. Parallel buildings were connected by the adjoining prefab corridors. North/South corridors each led to more buildings. There was a central main corridor going East/West that linked the four North/South corridors so that you could reach any room without going outside. The east most set of buildings contained machine shops and other areas where trades could be taught to those physically able to aid in post-war employment. At the Northern end of the west most corridor was a gym and an outdoor swimming pool with changing rooms. The facility offered both physical and mental rehab services. There were 5 large boiler buildings supplying steam to the facility. The buildings were not designed for heat efficiency so the facility was fairly expensive to heat. After the war was over the government no longer needed the facility and the government sold it to the county for conversion into a high school which opened in 1948. The school took up less than half of the facility, the rest housed county and government offices and part of it still operated as a rehab facility. I attended this school from 1968 until 1970 when it was replaced with a modern school. Due to the size of the campus it could take some time to get from one class to the next. In good weather you could take short cuts outdoors but in bad weather this was discouraged to prevent tracking in mud and dirt. In bad weather the bells allowed eight minutes to get from one class to the next. Shop classes were held in the old shops and there were tons of magazines there from the 1940s. There were some mechanical parts from a torpedo as learning examples such as the gyroscopes and some linkages. Sadly the housings and motors were not there. Attached to one section of the school were buildings that had been converted to apartments for teachers. One of my teachers lived in one of these apartments and it had been part of the mental ward. The controls for the shower were outside of the room to prevent patients from harming themselves but it didn't prevent children from having fun with Mom or Dad in the shower by changing them. It's almost completely gone now. I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience this living glimpse into the past.
What a fabulous documentary! I grew up in an Arcon, but it was demolished in 1970. This was on the St Helier estate in South London. They were so far ahead of their time.
My parents home purchased after the war near Cleveland, Ohio looked very much like these. They weren’t prefab but they were one story, no basement and were built with amenities that were high end(radiant heat in the floors, dishwashers, French doors to a flagstone patio). Whole neighborhoods were built of these homes. My family was there 70 years, adding on bedrooms, a second bathroom and a huge family room. There is barely 1/10 houses in their old neighborhood that have not been expanded. As my children approach the housing market I wish there were more houses like this.
These wartime prefab homes make me think of another very tangible memory of WW2 for many people, a type of train that used to trundle under the streets of London, but spent their retirement trundling along the north east coast if the Isle of Wight until 2021. A frequent sight of tube lines line the Northern, Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Central and for a while the East London Line, the 1938 Tube Stock, with its distinctive burgundy red livery was a stable of London Underground from 1938 until 1988. However, such was the quality of their construction that after withdrawal from London, they were refurbished and shipped to Isle of Wight where they ran on the eponymous Island Line between 1989 and 2021. My late Grandfather told me, when on one of his last visits to this Island that those trains, later given the TOPS (for Network Rail purposes) classification Class 483, were exactly the sorts of trains he used to see when he and his family were sheltering during the Blitz, both in passenger service and the Tube Refreshment Specials that stopped at different stations to provide refreshments for people sheltering at tube stations. That being said, unlike the units that worked on the Isle of Wight, the London Transport Museum owns a preserved original Unit that occasionally runs heritage runs on various lines, run by the museum staff.
Dr Felton - like you I am a Cold War Child and Survivor - but now a Surveyor - prefabs like these are often now Listed as Historic Buildings or on display like the Airoh you featured (Cardiff) at Outdoor Building Museums ❤
It would have been nice to see a tour of one of the prefabs today. Size and space, really depends on how much one feels they need. For childless couples & seniors, it looks ideal. Today, I live in a senior community in the unit. Our home is 900 sq ft, more than enough for two, and our imperious cats(!). 😸😸😸
I was born in 1950 - in Canada yet, and I started my life as a baby in the pulled out lower drawer of my parents’ dresser. That was quite common then as people didn’t have a lot of money in those years. The drawer was padded with bedding and made a cosy first bed for a baby.
Parts of our primary school were made like this ,I attended 68-74. I remember the hollow sound of the rooms and the gritty texture of the external wall facing. There were also some prefab bungalows in the village ...still there last time I looked. These houses were /are quite prevalent in North Wales.
I had a neighbor who was deeply passionate about the 1700s-his life was like a constant re-enactment. He dressed in period clothing, lived without electricity, and avoided anything modern in his apartment. There was even a TV show with him and other people who live as though they're in past centuries. It's interesting to think about whether this is simply a unique lifestyle choice or if it might reflect a deeper psychological aspect. People express their interests and identities in different ways, and what seems unconventional to some might be fulfilling and meaningful to others
I remember these into the 1980’s in Birmingham. They got very cold if winter. Had large & beautiful gardens and vegetable plots. Lots of trees & lovely people. They were kept very clean. Lots of issues with needing repairs. Much missed as the residents were friendly & lots of people were out in their gardens & many grew their own veg. Billsley Lane in King’s Health/ Moseley boundary in Birmingham.
I love these little houses. They remind me of the house I was raised in. It was a 3 BR, 1 Bath home for a family of five. Very small, but we didn't notice and we had a big back yard and kids mostly played outside in those days (the 1960's). Today, I'm an empty nester living in a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath house alone. How times have changed. I'd sell it and down size, but I guess I'm too lazy. And I have too much stuff. Ha!
In my hometown of Topeka, Kansas there are 2 very large neighborhoods made up of these types of houses. They can still commonly be purchased today for less than $100,000. Forbes Air Force Base (built in 1942 as Topeka Army Air Field). After WWII it was transferred to Strategic Air Command and has remained important for refueling missions. It was also one of the emergency landing sites for the Space Shuttle. Today it is operated by the Kansas Air National Guard and also serves as a municipal airport.
You and I are of the same vintage Mark, and it was interesting to listen to your opening remarks regarding the relative recency and impact of WWII on culture during the 70's & 80's. Having had grandparents on both sides of my family involved in the fighting, I grew up with certain views against the axis countries which were purely formed based on my grandparents involvement in the war. My children, thankfully, have absolutely no reason to have grown up with a similar mentality as the war is now considered a historical fact, rather than something that they have directly heard about from their grandparents. Oh, and you triggered some lovely childhood memories in me when you mentioned playing "war" (or armies as well called it). Not something I hear children of today's generation doing, which is probably a good thing. Thanks for another great video.
My son criticizes when I speak of WW2. I was born 1946 and 5 of 6 uncles were in services. It was most talked about when they all got together. We moved further apart after 5 or so yrs. But I remember the stories.
I would prefer the old prefab compared with the modern day houses. You have more room and privacy The new ones will have people all around you even on top etc.
My father went to Puerto Rico about 1944 to build houses. They built thousands that looked similar to these prefabs. They used forms to pour concrete walls around, I think cinder block frames. I saw many when I visited a couple of decades ago. Perfect housing in Hurricane prone regions. Now, here on the mainland US we have stick built, wood framed, houses in Hurricane zones. Dumb idea...building codes have made them stronger over the years, still, masonry construction will be around when roaches rule the earth. Wood framed homes don't last fifty years if not well cared for.
I was born in one and lived there till I was 6 or so. It was in South Ockendon. I remember two of my uncles also had theirs nearby. We then moved into a brick council house in Dagenham. Thanks for the reminder.
They weren't all WW2 air-raid sirens. We were still making new ones to enlarge the network during the 1960s. New towns needed sirens for the "four minute warning!"
