This 2011 project was undertaken to record more about the history of Brent’s post-war pre-fabs, filling a gap in the information available from official records such as council minutes.
Towards the end of the Second World War, it became clear that there was a pressing need for new homes across the country to replace those destroyed in the war. Under the Housing (Temporary Accomodation) Act, 1944, the British government appointed that temporary factory-made bungalows should be produced until sufficient new homes could be constructed. Although the original intention was that the pre-fabs should be destroyed and replaced with permanent buildings after no more than a decade or so, the last Brent pre-fabs were not finally demolised until the late 1960s and early 1970s.
There were around 850 of these temporary homes in the former Boroughs of Wembley and Willesden, many on the edges of parks or on former sports grounds, from Kingsbury, Sudbury and Alperton to Gladstone Park, Brondesbury and Harlesden, and although their location was known from maps and aerial photographs, and decisions regarding their construction were recorded in the minutes, little was recorded of life in the pre-fabs.
The project asked former residents to record their memories, either in written reminiscences or oral history recordings, as well as contribute digital copies of photographs and other images, in order to record the social history of life in Brent's pre-fabs homes in the 1950s-1970s.
