Prefabs

 

Last week I wrote about an article in the current Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society’s Journal - London’s Industrial Archaeology No. 22.  That was about international telecommunications. This week is about another article in the same edition of the Journal but it is something much nearer home. It’s about the now on-line prefab museum.

Prefabricated housing.

I’m sure many older people will remember prefabs – but I suspect that the under 50s may not do so. They were everywhere after the Second World War as quick and cheap housing for the many homeless people bombed out and unable to find anywhere decent to live and bring up their families.  The Prefab Museum project began in nearby Lewisham but now it’s on line and covers the whole of the country.

Prefabs were everywhere in the late 1940s- early 1950s and were gradually replaced by council housing in the succeeding years until very few remained.  They are easy to spot on OS maps of town centres and urban areas – there were undoubtedly some near you!  Looking at the map I can see that where I live in Blackheath there was some just along the road from me where there are now some 1960s council flats. When I moved to Greenwich in the 1960s I think there were some prefabs in their last days just off Trafalgar Road where the London County Council were infilling bomb sites with what we would now call a ‘low traffic neighbourhood’ – Earlswood, Tyler and Colomb Streets. 

This was quickly built temporary housing from the 1940s and 50s.  However it means that in Woolwich the biggest scheme of temporary housing built - the hutments - don’t count. They were wooden huts built in the Great War to house munitions workers moving into the area to work in the Arsenal.  They were in the Well Hall area of Eltham and also Wickham Lane in Plumstead. In some ways they were predecessors of the later prefabs but they probably had very little in the way of modern design features but they did provide family housing for an unstable workforce.  There is a very interesting book about them by John Kennett –‘The Eltham Hutments’.

The point about prefabs is that they were built to official specifications and although there were a number of different types of structure each of them was regulated. It had been realised quite early on in the Second World War, in 1941 and by Government in 1942, that a great deal of temporary housing was going to be needed to house those bombed out, as well as for new families and servicemen returning home. There was at the same time a shortage of labour since men were in the armed forces but also work would have to be available for them when they had been demobbed. 

Work on these buildings was directed centrally, because in war time it is accepted that initiatives had to be properly documented, regularised and organised from a centralised command.  In this case the Civil Service had clear lines of communication to local authorities as to what they could do and then saw that it was done properly.  There was no question of developers making slippery excuses about their profits. 

Designs for prefabs were exhibited at the Tate Gallery  showing a steel two-bedroom bungalow. All prefabs were designed with fitted kitchens cupboards and wardrobes, an indoor toilet and bathroom with heated towel rail, constant hot water, a vented heating system and a fridge.  This was a much higher standard of housing than  a majority of people could expect in the ordinary housing market.

These standards were to raise aspirations.  They went to  people who had probably expected to spend much of their life in a couple of rooms at the back of somebody else’s house. They suddenly found that they were in a detached house with a garden and all sorts of space inside and internal facilities. On the net are family history stories of families in poor housing with frequent marital breakups - if the couple concerned were married at all - where relationships were fleeting and children neglected, were sometimes dumped on relatives, and sometimes died. Most people were frequently ill, disabled, drank too much, and ate a ‘cook shop’ diet. Ofte this changed once the family had access to a  decent standard of housing. It was if they had found themselves catapulted into the house owning respectable working class.

 Major construction companies, materials suppliers and manufacturers received detailed instructions as to what was wanted. In 1944 local authorities were given powers to compulsory purchase vacant land for prefabs and were told to submit details apply to the Ministry of Works with the numbers of units they would need. They also had to undertake submit detailed plans for local amenities; roads, drainage, etc. Only when they were  ready would the Ministry organise delivery and erection of the structures.

Later, local authorities were given permission to put prefabs in parks and open spaces – except in the Royal parks, like Greenwich.  These spaces were to be returned back to being parks by 1968- I wonder how often that actually happened or if permanent buildings ended up in what was supposed to be public park space. 

Detailed instructions were provided on building the prefabs and they were largely erected by local building firms and sometimes by prisoners of war. By 1945 the London County Council had found sites for over 10,000 prefabs of which 8000 were actually within the then County of London (much smaller than it is now)  and 2000 outside it.  They were designed for a life of 60 years but after 1948 some were sold but most were transferred to local authorities. 

Gradually through the 1960s prefabs were mainly replaced  by local authority housing. If I look at the map I can see places where this happened. Prefabs appear in old films in location shots – for example in ‘Dodging the Column’ there is a shot of prefabs opposite the Harvey factory site in Woolwich Road -  they were on the site of what is now Phipps House at the bottom of Victoria Way.

However there were some large areas of prefabs which were never cleared.  Hence the prefab museum project which began in Lewisham at what was called the Excalibur Estate . This is quite near Greenwich - tucked away to the west of Hither Green cemetery.  Somehow it was still there in 2020.

This was a large estate with a settled community and now,  after around seventy years, Lewisham Council decided it wanted to pull that down and build proper houses - but many  people liked their prefabs.  Some had lived in the estate since it was built or were brought up there or spent their entire married lives there.  Several units had been bought by the occupants through the Right to Buy scheme. Six of them had been listed. Residents were also aware that rehousing would be in a modern flat that would have less amenities - it wouldn’t have a garden or the amount of space that the prefab offered

In 2012 there was a formal notice from Lewisham 'Initial Demolition Notice. Suspension of the Right to Buy'. It said it was 'intended' that all properties, bar the six 'listed' in 2009  would be demolished by 2017.  ‘While some residents welcomed it, others objected.

Now I am not going to pretend to know what went on as far as the museum is concerned.  I’m just a Greenwich resident who went over to Lewisham a couple of times to see the Museum.  It began when Elizabeth Blanchet, a French photographer, began to interview residents and collect photographs. Eventually with some friends she designated one of the prefabs as a museum and they had an exhibition there which you could visit. Eventually Elizabeth went back to France. The museum went online and is now curated by Jean Hearn, very effectively.

There seems to be an enormous amount written about it on the net - I think every blogger in London visited at some point.

I don’t know what has happened to the estate now. Many websites say it has been totally demolished in the last few years.  I’ve been unable to get over there to see for myself - but the latest Google Street View is dated August 2023, just over a year ago, most of the prefabs appear to be lived in and well kept although maybe not as neat and tidy as in the past. There is an area of demolition but its quite small. So what’s going on?

I’m just going to sum up and say that prefabs were a successful venture in emergency housing by centralised authority and provided a high standard of living accommodation.

One final thing – I was looking for a site near my home but it’s not in the list of Greenwich prefabs or on the map which shows them. But I remember some on the site of the John Roan School in Westcombe Park Road. One resident told me she had moved there after being bombed out in Stepney. She had moved with some misgivings but her cat was quite clear and a week after coming to Greenwich it was back in Stepney.

Read the article in the GLIAS Journal. http://www.glias.org.uk/gliasjournals.html.