Homes for heroines

It’s that time of year again: for a week or so this blog is given over to some reviews of new and recent books – for your friends’ Christmas stockings, perhaps, or your own...

Elisabeth Blanchet and Sonia Zhuravlyova, Prefabs: A Social and Architectural History 
Published by Historic England

In the late-1940s, Britain had to build more houses than ever. A huge chunk had been taken out of the housing stock by bombing – and there were pre-war slums to clear. The call went up again, as it had after World War I, for ‘homes for heroes’. One solution was the prefab – the prefabricated bungalow, mass produced and able to be quickly erected; a way, it was hoped both of filling the housing need and providing work for factories that had made the fighters or bombers that were, mercifully, no longer required in such numbers.

The story of Britain’s postwar prefab has been told before,* but there is room for another book, and especially at this time, when so few prefabs are left and residents of those that do remain are having to fight for the survival of their much loved homes. This new book by Elisabeth Blanchet and Sonia Zhuravlyova tells their story in the light of new research,† a fresh emphasis on their social history, and the sense of the urgency and relevance that’s needed if some of these modest but important buildings – and their histories – are to be preserved.

The book looks at the historical background to prefabrication in building (everything from Paxton’s Crystal Palace to Nissen huts), the modernist architectural context of thinking about prefabrication in the 20th century, and the setting up and implementation of the governments Temporary Housing Programme that brought the prefabs into existence. It deals with the various different designs of prefab (Tarrant, Uni-Secos, AIROHs, and so on), but much of the fine detail here (production figures, costs, number off each type made, etc) is hived off into an appendix, which makes it easy to find and allows the authors’ main narrative to stick more to cultural and social history.

So we learn quite a bit about the people who lived in the prefabs – who they were and, especially, what they thought of their new homes. The reaction, on the whole, was very positive. Many early residents found the prefabs futuristic: not just because of their rapid construction and unusual materials (asbestos, aluminium), or because they had electricity when many houses outside cities did not, but also and especially because of their fitted kitchens and bathrooms, features very rare in British homes of the 1940s and 1950s.§ Women especially liked these, and also praised the fact that prefabs came with gardens – somewhere to grow plants and a place for children to play safely. The interiors were uncluttered and easy to clean too.

Postwar prefabs were greatly loved by their occupants, and the narrative is well supported by residents’ comments and anecdotes, and by historical and recent photographs. But Blanchet and Zhuravlyova don’t gloss over the bungalows’ faults. For example, the heating was not very effective in many of the first prefabs. People complained of the houses getting stuffy in winter and freezing cold in winter. But this was put right later.

The authors extend their survey to look at other kinds of prefabricated housing built after the initial postwar programme, ranging across concrete Airey houses, wooden Swedish houses, and other types. Most of these, unlike the postwar prefabs, were intended to be permanent, and some have lasted well. But to the surprise of many, a few of the postwar prefabs, meant to last a decade, are still going strong, 70 years after construction. Some of the best preserved – those in Moseley, Birmingham, for example, and a small group of what used to be a crowd on the Excalibur Estate in Catford, London – have been listed. If only there were more. Blanchet and Zhuravlyova have done them proud.

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* I have learned much in particular from Brenda Vale’s Prefabs: A History of the UK Temporary Housing Programme and G Stevenson, Palaces for the People. But Vale’s is an academic book focusing on the technical and architectural history and Stevenson’s is most valuable for its excellent pictures – and neither are that easy to obtain. This new book gives a more rounded picture. 

† The authors draw, particularly, on Elisabeth Blanchet’s work with the Moving Prefab Museum and Archive, which has researched, documented, and archived much material (oral as well as physical) relating to the history of prefabs and their occupants.

§ Some of those moving to prefabs in the 1940s had been used to a lack of: electricity, a fitted kitchen, hot running water, and even, in some places, mains sewers. I remember my own maternal grandparents, living in rural Lincolnshire in the early 1960s: they survived without any of these facilities.

Irreplaceable at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

History and places

On Tuesday evening I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum for a dual celebration: to celebrate Historic England’s campaign Irreplaceable and to mark the publication of my new accompanying book, Irreplaceable: A History of England in 100 Places.* The idea of the campaign was to highlight and celebrate one hundred remarkable places that have in some way shaped the history of England. The public were asked to nominate their favourite historic places and a panel of ten expert judges¶ then took the thousands of nominations and reduced them to a list of one hundred, equally allocated over ten different thematic categories, from “Music and Literature” to “Power, Protest and Progress”. The result is a fascinating and diverse list of places, from obvious and internationally famous buildings such as Canterbury Cathedral and Windsor Castle to less well known sites, such as a rainy Jewish cemetery in Falmouth and some allotments in Wiltshire.

My job was to write something about each place and so create a book, illustrated with Historic England’s excellent photographs. It has been fascinating. Half the time I have been writing about places I know well, half the time about places and buildings that were new to me. The book we have produced is not a continuous history of England but a patchwork, reflecting not just the variety of the choices but also the many different ways of looking at history and at England in particular – cultural, social, military, industrial, technological, political, and so on and on.

The gathering at the V&A was well attended and convivial. We were honoured to have several distinguished speakers – Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A; Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England; Mark Hews, Chief Executive of Ecclesiastical;† and Rosie Ryder, Media Manager, Historic England. Among the many filling the main domed hall of the V&A were a good number of representatives of the one hundred places, including people who’d come to London from Durham, Rochdale, and Birkenhead. It was a great pleasure to meet many of these people and hear about their enthusiasm for ‘their’ places and the hard work that goes into maintaining and running all kinds of places, from museums to open-air swimming pools, from Bletchley Park to the Dreamland Theme Park in Margate. Everyone seemed pleased with the book, and I hope it plays its part in celebrating these wonderful sites, in telling their stories, and in highlighting in general the extraordinary diversity and richness of England’s historic places. 

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* Irreplaceable: A History of England in 100 Places is published by Historic England. It is available from bookshops, the usual online sources, and from Historic England themselves. For more information, click on the book cover in the right-hand column.

¶ The expert judges (and their categories) were: Monica Ali (Music & Literature), Mary Beard (Loss & Destruction), George Clarke (Homes & Gardens), Will Gompertz (Art, Architecture & Sculpture), Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson (Sport & Leisure), Bettany Hughes (Travel & Tourism), Tristram Hunt (Industry, Trade & Commerce), David Ison (Faith & Belief), David Olusoga (Power, Protest & Progress), and Lord Robert Winston (Science & Discovery).

† This whole project – campaign, book, and the celebration at the V&A itself – could not have happened without the support of in the insurance company Ecclesiastical. This company insures the majority of the Grade I listed buildings in England and donates its profits to charitable causes, including many heritage-related projects.

The mosque in the spotlight

For the next week or so, English Buildings becomes a book blog, and I'll post a handful of recent books that have caught my eye. First, an important addition to the architectural library from Historic England.

Shahed Saleem, The British Mosque: An Architectural and Social History
Published by Historic England

This book is a major contribution to architectural history and to wider cultural understanding. It is the first full-length study of mosque architecture in Britain, and starts with the very beginnings: the first mosques in Britain, such as the outstanding Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking (1889), designed by William Isaac Chambers and complete with onion domes and ogee arches: an early example of a style that would become associated with Islam in England. However, as the book shows, mosques can be much plainer buildings, often adaptations of existing houses or chapels. As the book makes clear at the outset, the main basic architectural requirements for a mosque are few: a prayer hall in which worshippers can stand facing the Ka’ba in Mecca; a place for ritual ablutions.

The story of the adapted structures is told alongside the many purpose-built mosques that were put up in the wake of increased migration to this country after World War II. By the 1970s and 1980s a repertoire of architectural symbols – domes, minarets, certain types of arches, decoration using geometrical abstract patterns, and so on – had become established as a way of expressing Muslim identities through building. This identity was expressed in major buildings such as the London Central Mosque (Regent’s Park Mosque) and the East London Mosque, both landmarks in the capital. A revelation, though, is the architectural quality of a range of major mosques, from Gloucester to Bradford. This is already a rich artistic tradition.

The book’s many case studies discuss and illustrate these major structures in some depth. They do so against a background of the social history of Islam in Britain, and with a clear eye on the various ways in which these buildings are used. The British Mosque is a fascinating book, and fills a major gap in the architectural history of these islands.

Notable towns

John Minnis, Katie Carmichael, et al, Boston, Lincolnshire: Historic North Sea Port and Market Town
Jeremy and Caroline Gould, Coventry: The Making of a Modern City 1939–73
Published by Historic England

These are the latest two volumes in Historic England’s Informed Conservation series, which zooms in on areas of historic interest, highlighting their particular value and the pressures of change and development that they face. The current books focus on places that aren’t high in the public consciousness when it comes to historic buildings – Boston, out on a limb in south Lincolnshire, and Coventry, famously bombed during World War II and rebuilt afterwards. But both contain much that is valuable, not just in terms of particular buildings, but in townscape, planning, and local character.



Coventry: The Making of a Modern City 1939–73 first. Apart from a brief opening chapter, the whole book is concerned with the developments after the city was comprehensively and devastatingly bombed on 14 November 1940. The authors describe the pivotal role of city architect Donald Gibson, who was already replanning the city before the bombs fell, the various adaptations of his plans to create a striking modern city centre with zoning and a serious-minded kind of modernist architecture, influenced by contemporary developments in countries such as Sweden.* Gibson’s successor, Arthur Ling (and his successor Terence Gregory), continued this work through the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, coping with Coventry’s expansion on the back of an economic boom. The boom produced demands not just for factories and commercial buildings, but also for houses, schools, hospitals, and old people’s homes – and for better roads, as car ownership shot up.

The story of the replanning, rebuilding, and expansion of Coventry is a complex one, involving varying needs, adapting visions, and changing plans. The book does a good job of describing this development and showing its lasting impact. This impact is important in more than one way. Firstly, it transformed Coventry’s centre, creating buildings and townscapes that are increasingly seen as valuable. Broadgate House, City Market, the Belgrade Theatre, and of course the cathedral – all these are widely recognised as important and central to any kind of informed conservation of the city; so too are some of the outstanding pieces of public art such as William Mitchell’s relief panels and Gorden Cullen’s tile mural. Second, the suburbs deserve attention. As the author’s say, their consistent architecture, local shops, and generous greenery could be a formula for sustainable communities elsewhere. What’s more, the authors recognise that it is possible to upgrade houses to modern standard without compromising the architecture; possible too to extend buildings such as the Belgrade Theatre without destroying it – as Stanton Williams have indeed done. Coventry was once seen as a beacon and it could shine again. This book lends it some light.

Boston Lincolnshire has a rather different focus, with a longer historical view, reflecting the rich heritage of the town. Trade has always been at its heart. The book describes its importance as a medieval wool town, hence the large and famous church of St Botolph and its medieval Guildhall in locally made brick – a strikingly early use of this material; its expansion as a port after the improvements in drainage and navigation in the 18th century; and its further growth in the 19th century, with docks and industrial buildings – of which grain warehouses and the former feather works are among the survivors. The 20th century reveals a less upbeat story, with regrettable demolitions and a population surviving in a low-wage economy, but the book also highlights some of the architectural upsides, from the Edwardian baroque Post Office to some memorable 1930s shops. The final chapter, on ‘The Present Day’ shows how regeneration has already had a beneficial impact on the town and looks forward to a positive vision for Boston’s future, ‘tantalisingly within reach’.

The book does an excellent job of describing and illustrating Boston’s built environment – guildhall, houses, warehouses, pumping station, and more: the pages glow with red brick and pantiles. Joys in other materials – the Egyptian-style masonic hall, a stuccoed hotel, chapels and Session House faced in stone – fill out the picture. There’s also a good sense of how the place fits together as a whole, helped by some very clear maps, including one of the Market Place area and one of South Street and South Square. Boston, Lincolnshire should attract visitors, inform locals, and inspire conservationists to preserve the best of this fascinating place. Hats off to that.

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*More serious indeed (some would say less frivolous) than the style that developed around the Festival of Britain in 1951 and that has come to seem the essence of British mid-century modernism. Swedish modernism, incidentally, was widely covered in the British architectural press during the war.