421, Wake Green Road

This is a 1945 Phoenix prefab with a shed and timber fence, built under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act by the Ministry of Works. The City Council provided the site and foundations. It’s constructed with a welded steel tube frame clad in cream-painted corrugated asbestos sheeting and internal timber lining and partitions. The building features a shallow-pitched corrugated asbestos roof, felt-covered, with a central apex and a low chimney. It is a single storey and based on the dimensions of the 1944 Portal house prototype (32 feet 4 inches by 21 feet 3 inches), including a layout with two bedrooms to the left of a hall, a living room to the right, and a standard Portal kitchen and bathroom unit delivered ready assembled. The windows are timber with metal opening casements and toplights, with distinctive double casements with a central mullion in the living rooms. A central glazed door sits under a curved metal porch, an idiosyncratic feature of the Phoenix design. The rear has similar casement windows. A shed of identical date and construction is located at the rear, and a timber fence fronts the garden.

The interior was designed to be fully fitted, reflecting the furniture and kitchen fixture shortages of the time. The living room includes fitted shelving, and the principal bedroom (at the rear) features fitted cupboards. The kitchen, bathroom, and separate WC are combined as a single Ministry of Works designed unit, some original features of which remain.

Approximately 2,438 Phoenix prefabs were built in the UK as part of the Temporary Housing Programme, intended to alleviate the post-war housing shortage. The scheme, devised by Lord Portal, Minister of Works, utilized wartime industries for peacetime purposes when conventional materials were scarce. This prefab is one of the rarest of the eleven approved types, and is notable for its fully fitted interiors, including early examples of kitchens with washing machines and refrigerators. Erected under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act, these bungalows are distinguished by their planned design, internal fixtures, detached nature, and historical significance.

The prefabs in Wake Green Road represent an unusual surviving example of this rare Portal bungalow variant, notable for their exceptional preservation and lack of alterations.