399, WAKE GREEN ROAD

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1022566
Date first listed:: 05-Jan-1998
List Entry Name:: 399, WAKE GREEN ROAD
Statutory Address:: 399, WAKE GREEN ROAD

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Date:: 2001-08-28
Reference:: IOE01/04351/26
Rights:: © Mr Geoff Dowling. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1022566
Date first listed:: 05-Jan-1998
List Entry Name:: 399, WAKE GREEN ROAD
Statutory Address 1:: 399, WAKE GREEN ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 399, WAKE GREEN ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Birmingham (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SP 09819 81459

Details

SP 27 NE BIRMINGHAM WAKE GREEN ROAD (east side)

997/12/10143 Number 399 (odd)

GV II

DESCRIPTION Prefab with shed. Erected in 1945 under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act by the Ministry of Works, the City Council supplying the site and foundations. Phoenix design, a welded steel tube frame clad in cream-painted corrugated asbestos .sheeting with internal timber lining and partitions. Shallow-pitched corrugated asbestos roof, felt-covered, with central apex and low chimney. One storey. The dimensions of the prototype Portal bungalow of 1944 were adopted (32' 4" by 21' 3"), as were its provision of two bedrooms (to left of hall), living room (to right) and the standard Portal kitchen and bathroom unit, which was delivered ready assembled to site. Timber windows with metal opening casements and toplights, the living room to right with distinctive double casements mirrored round central mullion. Central door (renewed) under curved metal porch that is an idiosyncratic feature of the Phoenix design. Similar casement windows to rear. Shed at rear of identical design but altered. The interior was designed to be fully fitted at a time when furniture and kitchen fixtures were unobtainable. Living room with fitted shelving, principal bedrooom (at rear) with fitted cupboards. Kitchen, bathroom and separate WC fitted as a single unit, designed by the Ministry of Works, and some features remain.

HISTORY Some 2,428 Phoenix prefabs were erected in the United Kingdom as part of the Temporary Housing Programme, which erected about 156,623 temporary bungalows across Britain between 1944 and 1948. This was a scheme devised by Lord Portal, Minister of Works, to relieve the post-war housing shortage at a time when conventional materials were unavailable and wartime industries needed a new peacetime function. The Phoenix is one of the rarest of the eleven approved types, though one of the most substantially constructed. Modelled on the Portal prototype bungalow exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1944 they are notable for their fully fitted interiors, which from the first included fitted kitchens with washing machines and refridgerators (then still novelties), and a careful layout. The bungalows erected under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act stand out from other prefabricated housing of the period because of their more carefully planned design, internal fixtures, their great historical interest and by being detached.

ASSESSMENT The group of prefabs in Wake Green Road is an unusual surviving example of a rare variant of the Portal bungalow, and one which is still more remarkable for its exceptional state of preservation with few alterations. (The Builder: 7 September 1945: 195; Brenda Vale: Prefabs, a History of the UK Temporary Housing Programme: 1995-).

Listing NGR: SP0981981459

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 466936
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Vale, B, Prefabs A History of the UK Temporary Housing Programme, (1995)
'The Builder' in 7 September, (1945), 195

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.