Prefab House Preserved

From the collection of

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Prefab House Preserved (Central News)

Media Archive for Central England
Bromsgrove
1983-03-16
Sound

Memories of the days of rationing as a mini design marvel is rescued from destruction.

Everybody remembers their first home, but not many people have the chance to revisit it in a museum. For Betty and Austin Stokes, memories of the postwar years come flooding back when they take a tour of their former home, now on display at the Avoncroft Museum near Bromsgrove.

Theirs was an example of prefabricated housing, buildings universally known as 'prefabs' - mass produced homes designed to ease the post Second World War housing shortage. They might appear basic to modern eyes but, with their inside toilets and fitted kitchens, they were seen as the height of low-budget modernity in 1946, many going on to outlive their initial ten to fifteen year expected lifespan.

The prefab Betty and Austin lived in is an 'Arcon', made by Taylor Woodrow from steel and asbestos cement sheeting. It serves as a wonderful reminder of those now far-off days of rationing and a nation being rebuilt.

An original prefab house goes on show at the Avoncroft Museum near Bromsgrove.

Happy at Home: Living in the Midlands

A peek behind the front doors of the spaces we call 'Home'.

Famous Midlander Samuel Johnson wrote in 1750: ""To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution." Housing in the Midlands in the 1980s was in a state of flux. The tower blocks of the 1960s and 1970s were in disrepair and would start to come down by the end of the decade. The Housing Act 1980 gave council tenants the 'Right to Buy' their houses from local authorities. By 1990, 1.5 million council houses had been sold, and more people than ever owned their own homes - aspiration was in the air. This collection invites you into the living rooms of the 1980s home, to be a guest in a series of distinctive spaces, from simple prefab to luxury villa. The people you'll meet have one thing in common: their homes are places where they can be at ease and be themselves - be happy.

16 videos in this collection

At Home with May Dowd

Nechells
1983-04-22

Tudor Style Council House

New Parks
1984-01-05