The Humble Prefab..BBC Archive

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we had 3 doors to the outside. The front door in the picture.. the side door ... and the door which led off the livingroom at the back. ( 1960's)... all the doors were made of dark green metal . The side door led off the kitchen..
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the fridge ..far right was integrated and held a metal icebox . The first fridge my mother ever owned..

ETA this was 1962 for anyone whose wondering. My baby sister was born there..
 

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For those wandering what a prefab is, it was a prefabricated structure that housed many a bombed out family after the hostilities of WW2 ended. Some people still live in prefabs, more than 70 years after they were built. They had an assumed lifetime of just ten years, yet more than 100 still stand on the Excalibur Estate in Catford, South East London.
 
horseless carriage said:
For those wandering what a prefab is, it was a prefabricated structure that housed many a bombed out family after the hostilities of WW2 ended. Some people still live in prefabs, more than 70 years after they were built. They had an assumed lifetime of just ten years, yet more than 100 still stand on the Excalibur Estate in Catford, South East London.
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there are some in Abbots Langley, near Watford ... and very recently a village near me saw the last 4 demolished to make way for modern housing..
 
In the Open air museum in Bucks.. they have a fully built preserved 1940's model Prefab as one would look back 80 years ago.. the rooms sizes are correct (very small) .. altho' ours was a little larger ( built in the 50's) than this one I'm about to show.. the majority were just like this which were built in 46-47 as temporary homes for those who lost their home during the war. 156,000 were built in total. For the most part the furniture and fittings were those of the period

Bear in mind these prefabs were built very quickly out of metal , timber and asbestos cladding.. and were only supposed to last for 10 years, but of course councils took full advantage of now spending money on new homes , and many people were still living in the up to 60 or more years later..

This is some of the rooms in the Model at the open air museum near me...

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the kitchen shows a Boiler in the Model prefab.. but we didn't have one in ours, but they would have bbeen popuar at the time and indeed we had a gas fired boiler at our next house..

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When I stepped into this double bedroom I was stunned at the size of it. The double bed was as small as a single today... I don't remember my parents room being that small.. and in there they had a tiny wardrobe which you can see... and the other side was a childs' cot..taking up the whole space of the room.

When we lived in the prefab my baby sister slept in a big drawer..

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The bathroom ( and again ours was quite a bit larger and with bigger windows to let the light in )...was extremely tiny.. claustrophobically so.. and with only drab Utility paint available during those post war times doubtless anyone would have been able to brighten it up with some nice bright colours.. ..The bath was tiny. A grown man would only be able to sit with his knees drawn up.. and the bathroom sink tiny like a vanity sink today . In this picture are the items you'd expect to see in the bathroom 80 years ago..

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The dining table was in a corner of the tiny livingroom.

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Most ordinary working people would not have owned a Bureau as in the picture.. The walls are covered in only lining paper.. and the floor with Oil cloth or Lino..
 

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