31-37, FARM ROAD

Group of four attached bungalows, formerly workers' housing, erected around 1921 for C & J Clark of Street.

The bungalows are single-storey structures built on timber frames clad in prefabricated horizontal tongue and groove weatherboarding. The roofs are gabled, covered with 'zig zag' tiles, probably asbestos, with two gable stacks and two ridge stacks constructed in red brick. Timber casement windows are fitted throughout.

Each dwelling has a mirror-image roughly square plan with a projecting single bay at right angles to the rear that contains the bathroom and a former coal shed. The principal elevation faces north-east onto Farm Road. Each bungalow has a central entrance door beneath a sloping porch canopy with tiled roof supported on timber struts. Most doors are original with small glazed windows in the upper part. Either side of the entrance, each bungalow has a two-light casement window. The end gables, aligned north-west and south-east, each contain two-light casement windows. The rear garden elevation of each bungalow has a pair of similar casement windows. The projecting single bay is built in matching materials but with a slightly lower roof height. From right to left it contains a doorway providing access into the bungalow, a timber window, and a further doorway leading into the coal shed, with a small window in the end wall.

Each bungalow retains its original plan form and room layout with many original features. Number 37 retains historic joinery, including doors, architraves and windows, and fireplaces with tiled surrounds to the kitchen and sitting rooms. Numbers 31-35 were not inspected internally. Each plot retains a low timber fence and gate to the front gardens.

The Clark brothers, Cyrus and James, founded C & J Clark, the shoe manufacturers, in Street in 1825, and the business expanded rapidly. The first factory building appeared in 1829. Much of the firm's profits were devoted to the development of the town. The Quaker background of the company ensured concern for the welfare and moral standards of workers and their families, leading to the construction of worker housing and buildings to cater for their spiritual, moral and educational needs. Clarks created a company town, building houses from the mid-19th century onwards.

Prohibitive costs in the immediate post-First World War period restricted large-scale building by those not eligible for government subsidies, with work largely limited to factory extensions and community projects financed by the Clark family. Shortly after the War, two rows of prefabricated bungalows, including these properties, were erected in Farm Road. Dated plans from January 1921 survive and describe these three properties as 'cottages converted from army huts'. A local authority valuation list of 1922 lists the tenants at that time.