Council houses

[russ p]

Is there any kits available for 40s-60s council houses in 4mm?

These are hugely popular along side railways in real life so if there isn't any it would be a great addition to any kit or ready to plant range

[The Johnster]

Airfix/Dapol plastic construction kit, shop and house.  Suitable for anywhere in the country and not a bad model.

[edcayton]

Superquick terrace of four.

 

Ed

[Kelly]

The various types of high rise have been done by Bachmann as half relief iirc, perfect for suburban London in the 50s and 60s.

 

Otherwise, some of the digital print your own suppliers offer some possibly.

[wombatofludham]

Peedie models do a nice OO scale concrete finish 1960s semi which would be ideal for a 1960s Council estate at http://www.peediemodels.com/proddetail.php?prod=PMM80014

 

I think it's the old Muswell Models kit, and mixed with some Dapol semis representing older 1950s built houses could give a convincing representation of local authority housing.

[sub39h]

Maybe something like Auhagen 11402? It's H0 though

[chrisf]

I believe Bilteezi sheets are still available.

 

Chris

[Shroomy]

Peedie models do a nice OO scale concrete finish 1960s semi which would be ideal for a 1960s Council estate at http://www.peediemodels.com/proddetail.php?prod=PMM80014

 

I think it's the old Muswell Models kit, and mixed with some Dapol semis representing older 1950s built houses could give a convincing representation of local authority housing.

great site

[Andy W]

As you probably know, there isn't one standard design for council housing that was used everywhere, local authority architects departments designed their own, though there are only so many ways you can arrange bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen etc. In addition, for the modeller, the exterior finish is what matters rather than the interior layout. There are brick built ones, in varying colours of brick; roughcast ones; rendered ones; precast modular ones; and even a few stone ones. Roofs may be tiled (in various colours and various shapes of tile) or slated. So if your model needs to be set in a recognisable area, you need council houses that look at least vaguely like the ones built in that area.

For example, council housing in Scotland tends to be in roughcast rather than exposed brickwork.

Then there are the modifications. As built council houses would have had wooden or metal framed windows. By now almost all have UPVC windows. The "right to buy" means that individual houses in a street which matched when new have now acquired new features, extensions, or fake stone cladding. So a model of a 1940s-1960s council house as built requires a lot of work to make it useful on a 2010s model railway.

[28XX]

Now would be a very good time for any interested party to survey these Cinderella properties, only a tiny fraction retain original features such as windows, doors, rainwater goods. Rear elevations are almost universally obscured by conservatories and extensions.

 

The age of socialist grand vision housing estates covering hundreds of acres with identical properties is well and truly behind us.

[Legend]

Actually they weren't all the same . Council estates were built with one two and three bedroom homes as the. council attempted to cater for all families including elderly couples. True they would all be similar looking , metal framed windows and grey rough cast in the area of Scotland I was brought up on. The 60s were a nice time . You didn't just know your neighbours but the entire block . A typical house was a 2 up 2 down quarter villa with side stairs ie two homes downstairs and two upstairs , but these tended to be a 40s/50s type while in 60s I think the most common would be two bedroom terrace. Door colours tended to be the same. For years ours was green , then someone decided on alternate shades of blue yellow green and red. The key thing is that the houses would have a standard look about them. No individuality allowed!

 

Not aware of anything that captures look of these at the moment. We tend to either have large suburban semi detached houses or red brick terraces . Not much in between

Edited February 20, 2017 by Legend

[Dunsignalling]

Now would be a very good time for any interested party to survey these Cinderella properties, only a tiny fraction retain original features such as windows, doors, rainwater goods. Rear elevations are almost universally obscured by conservatories and extensions.

 

The age of socialist grand vision housing estates covering hundreds of acres with identical properties is well and truly behind us.

A bit unfair. Much post-war council housing was built under local authority management and government finance because the private sector couldn't or wouldn't provide quality housing at the lower end of the market in the required quantities.

 

Sound familiar? The only difference today is that the public sector is prevented from taking up the slack to protect the big developers who are still, deliberately, failing to meet demand. Under-production keeps prices artificially high; more money for less work.

 

As for being "Cinderella" properties, the 1952-built, ex-council house that I grew up in (and where my mother still lives) is far better constructed than spec-built private housing of the period and is on a low density non-regimented site of around 150 houses that has become much sought after by private buyers.

 

John  

Edited February 20, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[davetheroad]

A bit unfair. Much post-war council housing was built under local authority management and government finance because the private sector couldn't or wouldn't provide quality housing at the lower end of the market in the required quantities.

 

Sound familiar? The only difference today is that the public sector is prevented from taking up the slack to protect the big developers who are still, deliberately, failing to meet demand. Under-production keeps prices artificially high; more money for less work.

 

As for being "Cinderella" properties, the 1952-built, ex-council house that I grew up in (and where my mother still lives) is far better constructed than spec-built private housing of the period and is on a low density non-regimented site of around 150 houses that has become much sought after by private buyers.

 

John  

 

Same here. The newbuild council house keys were delivered in 1951 on the day I was born. My mother still lived there until 3 years ago. The build quality was excellent and we even had upstairs and downstairs loos!. It was huge compared with todays shoeboxes. High quality brick, tiled roof, 3 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms and still much sought after by prospective tenants. I remember the windows were metal framed with horizontal panes - crittal hall?

 

Google earth and streetview of the area you are interested in. You will still find some houses with the original wall finish.

[pete_mcfarlane]

The build quality was excellent and we even had upstairs and downstairs loos!. It was huge compared with todays shoeboxes. High quality brick, tiled roof, 3 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms and still much sought after by prospective tenants. I remember the windows were metal framed with horizontal panes - crittal hall?

 

According to a biography of Bye Bevan I once read, council houses vary in size according to when they were built. The ones built in the years after the war were larger, because the Atlee government took the approach of designing quality houses and building as many of these as they could with the resources available (and presumably this carried on for a year or two after they lost power as the plans were already in progress).

 

Other Governments (of both parties) apparently went for quantity over quality, which resulted in larger numbers of smaller houses. 

[Fat Controller]

The Parker-Morris standards for room sizes were not just a vast improvement on what had gone before, but are much better than those for the majority of private estate developments. We had family members living in P-M standard houses or flats in Wales, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire and London; all these properties were capacious dwellings, built to high standards. The steel window-frames were not a great idea, but used scrap steel from redundant military equipment, rather than expensive imported timber.

[birdseyecircus]

I am on a smart phone at present so unable to search properly, but wasn't there a topic or blog with people building there own a couple of years back?

 

Paul

[PenrithBeacon]

I was brought up in a council house in the 50s-60s period in Manchester. The estate was built by Wimpy not by Manchester Corporation, but it was maintained by the Corporation Direct Works Department. I would imagine that the Corporation, who financed the estate with a 60 year loan, had a very direct influence on the management of the project.

 

The houses are all very similar, using standard parts where possible and it's very noticeable that other council houses of the early fifties period elsewhere in the country are very similar if not quite identical to the Manchester examples. This leads me to conclude that the Government of the day laid down standards that it expected would be followed. I would expect that the Ministry Of Works would have been responsible for this.

 

Regards

Edited February 20, 2017 by PenrithBeacon

[russ p]

Thanks for the replies, a shame those peedie ones aren't brick apart from having no chimneys they are excellent .

I'll need about five or six but unfortunately they only have one in stock

[The Johnster]

In a very upmarket area of the city I live in, on the main drag through it where property commands the top prices, there is a quite large house built for himself by a contractor who was involved in the construction of several large council estates in the area late 50s-early 60s.  It is exactly as you would imagine a large posh house constructed of parts available to him would look, not unlike a whole row of several council brick houses.  It is probably worth about £3million, given it's size, quality of construction, and location!

[corneliuslundie]

Parker Morris standards carried on for quite a long time, and were much more generous than the private sector houses of the time.

To me the archetypal council house is two bedrooms and a box room, upstairs bathroom, two reception plus small kitchen downstairs, downstairs toilet combined with the coal house. Probably rendered (Cardiff). My family moved into one in I think the early 1950s.

I think an earlier poster was a little unfair. There were enormous housing losses during the war and the private sector was simply not big enough to build enough on its own.

I know that these days private builders want to keep the market short and therefore prices high. However, there was an interesting comment recently from a quite big builder (but who built up his business from scratch)  in response to claims that builders hoard land with outline planning permission. He said that it was necessary to have at least a three year supply because of the delays in getting from outline to final planning permission in many local authorities - even though by law they are not supposed to take more than two years to consider applications. This agrees with other comments I have heard locally (though they may be biased) that Powys CC asks for far more detailed information in planning applications than the law requires, and then takes ages with questions, finally never taking much notice of the extra information. The builder's comment was that unless things change in a few years there will be no small builders.

Back on design, there are certainly distinctive local designs, quite a lot of them. Some areas had distinctive roof styles with half hips at rhe ends. Then there were the concrete houses, most of which have now been demolished or heavily altered to cope with the concrete cancer.

And I agree that 1950s housing if looked at today is hardly recognisable with porches, garages, fake stone cladding (ugh!), conservatories, roof windows etc etc. And such things as Georgian up and over garage doors, Greek style pillars either side of the front door. The list goes on.

And another thing which will date the scene nicely is the absence or presence and style of TV antennas and satellite dishes. Even this will depend on the locality.

Jonathan

[pete_mcfarlane]

Something I've never seen modelled are council houses made out of corrugated steel. There were a couple of streets of them off Harrowby Lane in Grantham (a school friend lived in one) but they eventually got brick outer cladding. 

 

Here's an example from Nottingham: http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;NTGM015890&pos=6&action=zoom&id=71711

[russ p]

Corrugated steel! I bet they are noisy in a storm

[chris p bacon]

Something I've never seen modelled are council houses made out of corrugated steel. There were a couple of streets of them off Harrowby Lane in Grantham (a school friend lived in one) but they eventually got brick outer cladding. 

 

Here's an example from Nottingham: http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;NTGM015890&pos=6&action=zoom&id=71711

You'll possibly find that is cement board rather than steel. Around here they're called 'Utility houses' IIRC

[uax6]

Somewhere in my pile of GPO Engineering Instructions I have a file on how to mount and lead in the telephone lines into the various types of pre-fab and utility houses, a surprisingly interesting read, with excellent drawings!

 

How about some of those lovely ones with the concrete slatted exterior walls Russ? They seemed quite popular around our neck of the woods....

Like the one on the right in this image: http://www.cornerstonelimited.co.uk/aireyhouseskl.html

 

 

Andy G

Edited February 21, 2017 by uax6

[PhilJ W]

Something I've never seen modelled are council houses made out of corrugated steel. There were a couple of streets of them off Harrowby Lane in Grantham (a school friend lived in one) but they eventually got brick outer cladding. 

 

Here's an example from Nottingham: http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;NTGM015890&pos=6&action=zoom&id=71711

There were quite a few in Hornchurch plus a small estate in Dagenham that actually belonged to Newham. Though friends of my parents lived in one I didn't hear of noise being a problem when it rained. The biggest problem I heard of was that they had steel chimneys lined with asbestos. I'm pretty sure there is a card kit of these houses, Kingsway Models? Kingsway do produce a card kit of a 1960's block of flats.