427, Wake Green Road

This is a prefabricated bungalow with a shed, built in 1945 under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act by the Ministry of Works. The City Council provided the site and foundations. It's a "Phoenix" design, featuring a welded steel tube frame clad in cream-painted corrugated asbestos sheeting with internal timber lining and partitions.

The bungalow has a shallow-pitched corrugated asbestos roof 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). It was designed with two bedrooms to the left of the hall, a living room to the right, a standard Portal kitchen, and a bathroom unit delivered ready assembled to the site. The timber windows incorporate metal opening casements and toplights; the living room has distinctive double casements mirroring around a central mullion. A centrally positioned, renewed door is sheltered by a curved metal porch, a distinctive feature of the Phoenix design. Similar casement windows are present at the rear. A shed of identical date and construction is located at the rear. The kitchen was designed to be fully fitted, reflecting the post-war scarcity of furniture and kitchen fixtures. The principal bedroom (at the rear) has fitted cupboards, and the living room has fitted shelving. The kitchen, bathroom, and separate WC were originally a single, Ministry of Works-designed unit, some features of which remain.

Approximately 2,428 Phoenix prefabs were erected across the United Kingdom as part of the Temporary Housing Programme, which built around 156,623 temporary bungalows between 1944 and 1948. This was a scheme devised by Lord Portal, Minister of Works, to alleviate the post-war housing shortage and repurpose wartime industries. These bungalows are among the rarest of the eleven approved types, but are particularly substantial in their construction. They were modelled on the Portal prototype bungalow exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1944 and were notable for their fully fitted interiors, including original fixtures such as washing machines and refrigerators. The bungalows constructed under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act are distinguished from other prefabricated housing of the era due to their well-planned design, internal fixtures, historical interest, and detached nature.

This bungalow is an unusual, well-preserved example of a rare variant of the Portal bungalow, notable for its excellent condition and limited alterations.