A Perfect Day

[brian daley]

What a beautiful day it was today,warm enough to go out sans jacket and clear enough to take a few shots. Birmingham was my chosen destination and I thought I would show Sue some of the changes that have been taking place. First stop was the city centre I took a shot similar to this in 1968, very little has changed hers,some taller buildings and a general tidy up, but Smallbrook Queensway looks better than it did 48 years ago.
Our next stop was Dickens Heath (pictures 2 &3) the village centre. It was very pretty but toally soulless. Closed shops and good looking houses but,no people! A bit Stepford wives!
The final three pictures are of some of Birmingham's post WW1 prefabs. This is the Thomas Austin Estate in Northfield, Mr. Austin imported enough houses to build an estate for those of his workers who had been off to the war.. They are over 90 years old and are still going strong. We had the good fortune to meet a lady who was born in one of them . She still lives in the house of her birth and is now a great grandmother herself. They are listed buildings and they have to be kept clean and painted. I noted that a lot of them had pvc cladding on the sides and rear but the front has to be kept in it's original state. You could think you were in America as you walk around the tree lined avenues.






172951729617297172981729917300

[Oudeis]

You intrigue me Brian. I had never heard of the estate in Northfield before now.
Thanks, Tom Austin.

[az_gila]

It does look like an older development in the US midwest....:)

Interesting story.

As far as the vinyl (PVC) siding goes - I think that is now the norm. in parts of the the US that have a damper climate similar to the UK - such as western Washington state and western Oregon.

Scraping and painting the wood on an entire house is a real pain in the &*^%....

[lindylou]

That Austin estate looks very nice Brian.

[Aprillove20]

That was intriguing and interesting.

I like the shots and the place also.

Keep it up!

[az_gila]

To add to this thread, from just before WWI to the 40's lots of homes in the US were actually mail order, coming as precut kits, with the beams and studs all marked. Sears and Montgomery Wards sold them through their catalogs.

http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/index.htm

So, if Mr Austin wanted houses ready to assemble, with complete plans for semi-skilled workers, these kits would have been ideal. As the article says, a lot of waste was removed by having all of the wood pre-cut to precise length, and assembly time was also reduced.

You can still get some homes like this in the US, but they tend to be larger vacation homes for a rural setting.

http://lindal.com/homes/building/deliveryconstruction.cfm