399, Wake Green Road

This is a post-war prefabricated bungalow constructed in 1945 under the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act by the Ministry of Works, with the city council providing the site and foundations. It is a "Phoenix" design, notable as one of the rarer types of temporary housing built to address the post-war housing shortage. The structure comprises a welded steel tube frame clad in cream-painted corrugated asbestos sheeting with timber lining and partitions. It features a shallow-pitched, felt-covered, corrugated asbestos roof with a central apex and a low chimney. It is one storey high and based on the dimensions of the 1944 Portal prototype bungalow (32 feet 4 inches by 21 feet 3 inches).

The bungalow incorporates two bedrooms (to the left of the hall), a living room (to the right), and a standard Portal kitchen and bathroom unit, delivered ready assembled to the site. The living room features distinctive double timber casement windows with a central mullion. A central, renewed door is sheltered by a curved metal porch, an idiosyncratic feature of the Phoenix design, and similar casement windows are present at the rear. A shed at the rear is of identical design, though it has been altered.

The interior was designed to be fully fitted given the scarcity of furniture and fixtures at the time. The principal bedroom has fitted cupboards, and the living room has fitted shelving. The kitchen, bathroom, and separate WC are a single fitted unit designed by the Ministry of Works, with some original features remaining.

Approximately 2,428 Phoenix prefabs were erected in the UK as part of the Temporary Housing Programme, which built around 156,623 temporary bungalows between 1944 and 1948. This program was devised by Lord Portal, Minister of Works, to address the housing shortage when conventional materials were unavailable and wartime industries needed new peacetime functions. These Phoenix prefabs are notable for their fully fitted interiors, which originally included fitted kitchens with washing machines and refrigerators; their careful layout; and the fact that they were detached dwellings.

The group of prefabs on Wake Green Road represents an unusual and well-preserved example of this rare Portal bungalow variant, distinguished by its exceptional state of preservation and minimal alterations.