EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure? 28 October 2016 at 12:08PM edited 17 November 2017 at 7:58PM in Debt free diaries 3.1K replies 179.4K views

EssexHebridean

Ooh nice one - thanks for that bugslet - off the back of that Britain From Above link I've found a few more interesting sites detailing where yet more are to be found, too! :T

beanielou

Interesting re the prefabs.
I grew up in a garden city & we had a lot of prefabs at one time.
Sadly all long gone now.
Great to heat & keep though.

Greying_Pilgrim

Am I imagining this, or have some people gone to the trouble of getting their prefabs listed in order to preserve them? I thought there was something in the news a couple of years ago?

Greying X

MrsTinks

Reminds me my car needs an MOT... bah humbug... LOL

Pre-fabs - where we lived previously there was a stack of them being pulled down to make room for new houses - they did look hidious in fairness and they were nearly all owned by a local housing association. The occupiers were offered new houses by the HA and those who could all went with right to buy which royally messed up the housing stock for people in need The extra houses on the site were obviously sold off to pay for the whole thing (hence why we moved in) but there was one guy who refused to agree to it as he'd paid off his mortgage and it would have meant he'd need to take out a mortgage for I think £20k... he thought if he held out they'd cave in and give it to him for free. They didn't so when the rest of the properties were done the attached house (who now hate him) paid to have all their half of the house, roof and eternal walls converted to brick and so on. After 6 months he realized his house was now unsalable because he couldn't get planning permission so all he could do was upgrade like his neighbour and it cost him way more than £20k... He would have been up about £150k on the deal if he hadn't been greedy (and we know it was greed and not necessity that made him dig in as it was the end of our road...)

Personally I don't care for the prefabs - they were never meant to have the lifespan they have had...

lionheartedgirl

another (lurky!) Essex person. Well, adopted really but I lived there for 11 years which is the longest I've lived in any county ever! Now I'm an adopted Glasgwegian :rotfl: and I feel equally at home in both the coastal bits east of Colchester and the hills north of Glasgow!

*** runs away back to lurkdom ***

MistyMountainTop

I hope you are feeling better now, EssexH! It sounds like you've had a stressful few days.

I enjoyed the prefab photos, are they an interest of yours?

fru-girl

Every day you learn something new I didn't know what the prefabs were, very interesting (and sad).

Hope you're better now.

bugslet

fru-girl wrote: »

Every day you learn something new I didn't know what the prefabs were, very interesting (and sad).

Hope you're better now.

You must be young:D

fru-girl

I'm very young just turned 40. I'm not from the UK though, that might explain it...

@Essex: we're keeping your thread warm.

EssexHebridean

beanielou wrote: »

Interesting re the prefabs.
I grew up in a garden city & we had a lot of prefabs at one time.
Sadly all long gone now.
Great to heat & keep though.

There is a map online that shows where they were situated - they have different coloured "pins" in the map for demolished, still occupied, still standing and used as museums, etc. Fascinating! I can certainly still remember them being about when I was growing up in the 70's!

Greying_Pilgrim wrote: »

Am I imagining this, or have some people gone to the trouble of getting their prefabs listed in order to preserve them? I thought there was something in the news a couple of years ago?

Greying X

Nope - not your imagination! There are a number of listed ones - including 6 on that estate that we visited on Sunday. I felt a bit sorry for the chap we got talking to on Sunday in fact - he was desperately hoping his might get listed, but as he'd made all manner of improvements to it, there was never much chance!

MrsTinks wrote: »

Reminds me my car needs an MOT... bah humbug... LOL

Pre-fabs - where we lived previously there was a stack of them being pulled down to make room for new houses - they did look hidious in fairness and they were nearly all owned by a local housing association. The occupiers were offered new houses by the HA and those who could all went with right to buy which royally messed up the housing stock for people in need The extra houses on the site were obviously sold off to pay for the whole thing (hence why we moved in) but there was one guy who refused to agree to it as he'd paid off his mortgage and it would have meant he'd need to take out a mortgage for I think £20k... he thought if he held out they'd cave in and give it to him for free. They didn't so when the rest of the properties were done the attached house (who now hate him) paid to have all their half of the house, roof and eternal walls converted to brick and so on. After 6 months he realized his house was now unsalable because he couldn't get planning permission so all he could do was upgrade like his neighbour and it cost him way more than £20k... He would have been up about £150k on the deal if he hadn't been greedy (and we know it was greed and not necessity that made him dig in as it was the end of our road...)

Personally I don't care for the prefabs - they were never meant to have the lifespan they have had...

They were meant to last TEN YEARS! Amazing to this that most are over 70 years old now - and I was astonished at what (relatively speaking) good condition so many of those we saw on Sunday were in.

And that really served your old neighbour right, didn't it! :rotfl:

lionheartedgirl wrote: »

another (lurky!) Essex person. Well, adopted really but I lived there for 11 years which is the longest I've lived in any county ever! Now I'm an adopted Glasgwegian :rotfl: and I feel equally at home in both the coastal bits east of Colchester and the hills north of Glasgow!

*** runs away back to lurkdom ***

You definitely qualify as an adopted East Anglian LHG!

MistyMountainTop wrote: »

I hope you are feeling better now, EssexH! It sounds like you've had a stressful few days.

I enjoyed the prefab photos, are they an interest of yours?

Thanks Misty! The pre-fab thing isn't anything I ever really thought of until the conversation last week that prompted me to google search them to find info to show someone else. I grew up with them still being about, but gradually for the most part being demolished. I do have an interest in/fascination for all things World War 2 related though - I blame the aircraft thing for that! :rotfl:

fru-girl wrote: »

Every day you learn something new I didn't know what the prefabs were, very interesting (and sad).

Hope you're better now.

Madam at work didn't either - it was a conversation with her that prompted the flurry of interest I found last week! (And she was brought up in the UK but her parents weren't, so of course whereas some of us just sort of "knew about them" - you and she wouldn't have that family connection to that time, in the UK. I learned various wartime bits and bobs in school but can't ever remember doing anything on the prefabs.