Council houses

[Porcy Mane]

If they were built post WW2 I'd wonder that the roof didn't come off the Wellington production line

 Made a phone call this morning to be told they were built during the immediate (WW2) post war housing boom. Another pic here showing front & rear details when new and I assume that's the way they will have stayed until the 1970's. Plenty of 1920/30's influences given the intervening war years, with the Maison de Verre glass bricks & steel window frames. Nice outside wash-house come coal-house to supply a fireplace in most bedrooms, going off the chimney pots.

 

https://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2003/08/14/housing-in-fairfield-stockton-1945/

 

The interior & outside doors probably came from Hills just down the road as they manufactured doors/frames for a large part of the national building sector during the 1940/50's.

 

P

Edited March 3, 2017 by Porcy Mane

[rue_d_etropal]

Not quite - the four at West Camel are the best known, but there were (and are) some more in Goldcroft, Yeovil. The West Camel houses were an experiment which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Navy; the airfield wasn't even started until 1939. As the link Arthur gives in his post above: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/120128-council-houses/?p=2638261 explains the connection between one of the Petter family, known for oil engines and Nautilus grates, and Colonel Nissen. Those actually in Yeovil were built by the town corporation, the survivors at Queen Camel by Yeovil Rural District Council, the connection being the architects, Petter and Warren, based in Yeovil; hence they were and remain unique to the area. Pre-War council houses were very area-specific with the degree of uniformity being dependent upon who was commissioned to design them, the scale of development and how many builders were involved.

 

All were a response to the demands of the 1919 housing act which is what brought about the 'Council House' as we know it.

Adam

I found these last year when I was searching for info on the Nissen hut. Google did not bring up any other links.

I had not realised the airfield only dated back to 1939. I remmber reading somewhere that Hendon had been a RN airfield inWW1 so assumed there wre others. The Navy were more proactive in developing airplanes initially.  I wonder where the village name came from, as I thought it sounded like it had connections with Sopwith Camel, or are camels native to Somerset.

I think theywould make an interesting model. The Dutch Barn style is possibly more common, having I think been used in other house design. I have the Wild Swan book on Semi Detached London, which briefly talks about council house building, but wonder if ther is something out there on council building given it importance after 1919.Without actually visiting, I think I could estimate measurements, as they look similar to my own house, and suspect they followed the same general plan. Maybe the centenary of the 1919 Act will prompt interest, as there was a lot more interest in Nissen huts last year as it was their centenary.

[Adam]

I wonder where the village name came from, as I thought it sounded like it had connections with Sopwith Camel, or are camels native to Somerset.

 

Since the name appears in Domesday Book in 1086 as Camelle, we can safely rule any association with Sopwith out! The runway only came that far out when it was extended in the '60s in any event.

 

West Camel (and it's neighbour, Queen Camel) were named after a local river, the Cam, a tributary of the Yeo, though there is a roof boss depicting a camel in Queen Camel parish church just over the hill. I note that my predecessors in the day job completely ignored the unusual form of construction of these houses, though they did mention them: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol3/pp71-81

 

There are lots and lots of books about local authority housing and prefabs in particular (some of them even affordable). Here's a download from Historic England:

 

https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/dlsg-modern-housing/domestic_4_final.pdf/

 

And a nice case study from Portsmouth:

 

https://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/ext/documents-external/hou-100years-history-of-housing.pdf

 

Adam

Edited March 3, 2017 by Adam

[chris p bacon]

All were a response to the demands of the 1919 housing act which is what brought about the 'Council House' as we know it.

 

Wasn't that named "Homes for Heroes" after the returnees from the First World war ?

 

We have a design called 'Addison' around here built due to the act, brick and tile and still very popular due to their room sizes and the size of plot they're on (although these have been diminished by further local authority building)

[rue_d_etropal]

Since the name appears in Domesday Book in 1086 as Camelle, we can safely rule any association with Sopwith out! The runway only came that far out when it was extended in the '60s in any event.

 

West Camel (and it's neighbour, Queen Camel) were named after a local river, the Cam, a tributary of the Yeo, though there is a roof boss depicting a camel in Queen Camel parish church just over the hill. I note that my predecessors in the day job completely ignored the unusual form of construction of these houses, though they did mention them: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol3/pp71-81

 

There are lots and lots of books about local authority housing and prefabs in particular (some of them even affordable). Here's a download from Historic England:

 

https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/dlsg-modern-housing/domestic_4_final.pdf/

 

And a nice case study from Portsmouth:

 

https://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/ext/documents-external/hou-100years-history-of-housing.pdf

 

Adam

that is probably one of the origins of the word used to name the camel. Had not thought of the river Cam. When I first found it, mu mind was on WW1 research, so I associated it with the airplane.

 

I know quite a few books have been written, but the significance of 1919, could suggest an interesting project, especially in this day and age where there is more pressure to build houses for profit, not social need.

Edited March 3, 2017 by rue_d_etropal

[rue_d_etropal]

 Made a phone call this morning to be told they were built during the immediate (WW2) post war housing boom. Another pic here showing front & rear details when new and I assume that's the way they will have stayed until the 1970's. Plenty of 1920/30's influences given the intervening war years, with the Maison de Verre glass bricks & steel window frames. Nice outside wash-house come coal-house to supply a fireplace in most bedrooms, going off the chimney pots.

 

https://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2003/08/14/housing-in-fairfield-stockton-1945/

 

The interior & outside doors probably came from Hills just down the road as they manufactured doors/frames for a large part of the national building sector during the 1940/50's.

 

P

I am always interested in the detail, and I wondered where Hornby Dublo got their station window design from.

Some of the designfeatures in my own house have a feel of Charles Rennie Mackintosh , with regular repeats of straight lines and angles, which is why I am wondering what the windows looked like originally.

[Talltim]

Some hipped roofed, concrete lapped houses in Chesterfield

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.2327298,-1.4023196,3a,75y,89.17h,84.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1so0ckBc6EuRp6KXp4bV1Y3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[Adam]

Some hipped roofed, concrete lapped houses in Chesterfield

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.2327298,-1.4023196,3a,75y,89.17h,84.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1so0ckBc6EuRp6KXp4bV1Y3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

Classic Cornish Unit houses - made from ECC byproducts. The style of Mansard roof is very distinctive, even when the lower floor or floors has been reclad.

 

Adam

[Porcy Mane]

I always thought the mainline Hornby-Dublo station took it's cues directly from the Art Deco movement. Hard to model those slimline steel frames so typical of the 1930's though.

 

http://www.self-build.co.uk/art-deco-windows

 

Going back to the Unity-Airey type build there's some decent examples on this page.

 

https://fet.uwe.ac.uk/conweb/house_ages/council_housing/section5.htm

 

They were popular around Central/East Durham as can be seen in Charlie Verralls pic of Fencehouses.

 

63453 FENCEHOUSES - COAL TRAIN by Charlie Verrall, on Flickr

 

I took this pic of updated and original Unity/Airey houses in 2006. They were built circa 1955.

 

 

P

 

[PhilJ W]

Some hipped roofed, concrete lapped houses in Chesterfield

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.2327298,-1.4023196,3a,75y,89.17h,84.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1so0ckBc6EuRp6KXp4bV1Y3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Exactly as produced by Kingsway models.

[pctrainman]

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!

Worth 3 Million ? or is it rather that due to those in charge making loadsa money out of other peoples misery 3 Million is the going rate fror something actually worth probably no more than £100.000 ?.

[phil_sutters]

One of the main reasons for the huge rises in commuting has to be the right-to-buy scheme, which made councils and more recently social landlords sell off houses and flats to their tenants - usually at heavy discounts. There are now far fewer council properties in inner cities. The sold off houses are now selling for astronomical sums and working people, including professionals like teachers, nurses and doctors, can't afford to live near work and have to commute from long distances. Hence the massive over-crowding on trains and buses.

[Ron Ron Ron]

?....There are now far fewer council properties in inner cities. The sold off houses are now selling for astronomical sums and working people, including professionals like teachers, nurses and doctors, can't afford to live near work and have to commute from long distances. Hence the massive over-crowding on trains and buses.

Well it hasn't left those inner city areas devoid of people. They are generally more heavily populated than ever, except where the areas are now redeveloped with commercial property etc.

It is certainly true that people have been moving further and further out from towns and cities for decades, due mainly to house prices or the cost of renting, but the areas they left behind are not ghost towns.

If council properties hadn't been sold off and house prices and rents hadn't gone up so much, overcrowding and a severe lack of available homes would still have driven people to live further out.

The rate of population growth is not to be underestimated, or in the case of our politicians, conveniently forgotten.

 

 

Ron

[Edthefolkie]

I must compliment everybody who has contributed to this thread - I learned a lot. Incredible how erudite modellers are. Well, not incredible - I always knew!

 

Our family's brand new council house was an end one of a block of four, which we moved into seven years after WW2 - I had spent my first five years in a Victorian terraced house with parents, grandparents and elderly uncle. The house was a new world for Mum and Dad - built to Parker Morris standards, pebble-dashed, Crittal windows, enormous front and rear gardens, two toilets, coal store, also a little downstairs "outhouse", actually a room integral with the rest of the house, but reached via an outside door. The latter was my Dad's bolthole, bike/mower store and workshop. I never managed to colonise the loft with a model railway but there was a lot of space!

 

Not really mentioned on here was the snobbery which existed about council houses, even in the 1950s. There was still an echo of "Why give (give??) them these big places, they'll only keep coal in the bath". But in those days there was a really good community spirit on the estate. Everybody worked together, all the kids went to the local primary schools, some like me made it to grammar and independent secondary schools.

 

The rot of course set in later - subsequent housing was built to a lower standard, and even later many of the houses were sold off; we'd better not go into all that. I just wish I'd bought ours!

[Nimbus]

Not really mentioned on here was the snobbery which existed about council houses, even in the 1950s. There was still an echo of "Why give (give??) them these big places, they'll only keep coal in the bath". But in those days there was a really good community spirit on the estate. 

It was put about in our parish that council tenants did not have to pay rates, and thus we were sponging off those who were responsible enough to buy their own homes.

 

The Nim.

[PenrithBeacon]

It was put about in our parish that council tenants did not have to pay rates, and thus we were sponging off those who were responsible enough to buy their own homes.

 

The Nim.

I can remember in the sixties that my friends would all insist that council housing was subsidised but that their income tax relief wasn't a subsidy! Funny the attitudes that people have.

[PhilJ W]

When I started working for a London Borough in 1970 I was in the council rents department and I can assure you that council tenants paid rates. The biggest anomily was when VAT was introduced, a tenant who also rented a garage would have it added to his rent payments and as such would not be liable for VAT on the garage rent. Anyone else renting a garage with its own separate rent book would have to pay VAT. This was because the stand alone garage was regarded as a service and therefore subject to VAT. But a council tenant renting a garage it was regarded as part of the living accomodation, even if it was a few streets away, and was not subject to VAT.

[Porcy Mane]

... and then there was the Cutteslowe Walls at Sunnymead.

 

http://oxfordcockaigne.co.uk/cutteslowe/cutteslowewalls.htm

 

and a "off the wall" take on the affair.

 

 

P
 

[GemRedneval]

On 02/03/2017 at 19:29, uax6 said:

Having dug through some GPO Engineering Instructions I found these:

 

G3050 uni-serco.pdf 163.35 kB · 340 downloads

G3056 USA type.pdf 73.26 kB · 218 downloads

G3057 Phoenix.pdf 133.52 kB · 177 downloads

G3058 Miller.pdf 83.33 kB · 366 downloads

G3059 Tarran.pdf 115.42 kB · 219 downloads

G3060 Arcon.pdf 134.51 kB · 288 downloads

G3061 Spooner.pdf 168.8 kB · 173 downloads

G3062 Universal.pdf 134.5 kB · 185 downloads

G3063 Orlit.pdf 135.22 kB · 212 downloads

G3064 Airon.pdf 161.79 kB · 275 downloads

G3065 Airey type lead in.pdf 146.89 kB · 202 downloads

 

Hope they are of some interest...

 

Andy G

 

 

Hi uax6, 

 

I was excited to see this, as i'm really interested in it the Uni-Seco model - especially the mark II -
but i think the option to download might be outdated now...

If there's any chance you still have it, it would be incredible. 
Or anyone know where to source? 

Cheers so much!

 

G3050 uni-serco.pdf 163.35 kB · 340 downloads

 

 

[uax6]

Ah, another victim of the crash... I'll upload them all again by the end of the week. 

 

Andy G

[johnofwessex]

On 20/03/2017 at 18:39, Nimbus said:

It was put about in our parish that council tenants did not have to pay rates, and thus we were sponging off those who were responsible enough to buy their own homes.

 

The Nim.

 

I have worked in Housing Offices, basically Council Tenants pre Poll Tax in Bristol at least paid a single payment each week that covered rent, rates and water rates, so they did pay for everything just not in a way that owners did.

 

It was a significant saving in terms of Rates and water rates administration

[smokebox]

When my parents moved into their brand new Nottingham council house at the end of 1952 the rent was ten shillings and sixpence per week, paid fortnightly (1 Guinea) including rates and water charges.  That was about twice as much as older houses in the city!

Edited January 24, 2023 by smokebox
Typo

[DCB]

    Basically I come on RM Web to get away from from the incredibly screwed up mess which is the housing situation in this Country,  but the fact is housing is so expensive that very few people now have space for a model railway, and those who have the luxury of being poor enough to get "Benefits" and  access good old spacious social housing with three bedrooms a garden and space for a shed can't afford the start up cost of railway modelling,  so soon  being a Railway Modeller will be a luxury status symbol like having a Rolex or Tesla

[uax6]

As requested, here are the missing files for the temporary houses:

G3055 Uni-Serco.pdf

G3056 USA type.pdf

G3057 Phoenix Type.pdf

G3058 Miller Type.pdf

G3059 Tarran Type.pdf

G3060 Arcon Type.pdf

G3061 Spooner Type.pdf

G3062 Universal Type.pdf

G3063 Orlit Type.pdf

G3064 Aluminium (Airon) Type.pdf

G3065 Airey Type.pdf

 

Remember they are Crown Copyright, and are here for education purposes!

 

Andy G

[The Johnster]

On 04/03/2017 at 09:24, pctrainman said:

Worth 3 Million ? or is it rather that due to those in charge making loadsa money out of other peoples misery 3 Million is the going rate fror something actually worth probably no more than £100.000 ?.

 And built of probably stolen ‘surplus’ materials in the first place.