Andrew Barrow

Why prefabs really were fab

A review of Prefab Homes, by Elisabeth Blanchet. In 1946 you had to be very posh to have a house with an inside toilet

Grade II-listed Phoenix prefabs in Moseley, Birmingham. [Getty Images] 
issue 18 October 2014

Sir Winston Churchill did not invent the prefab, but on 26 March 1944 he made an important broadcast promising to manufacture half a million of them to ease the new housing emergency caused by enemy bombs and the continued growth of inner-city slums.

He went on to claim that these easy-to-assemble, factory-made bungalows would be ‘far superior to the ordinary cottage’.

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