Leigh’s Pre-Fabs (Meadow Bank)

LEIGH’S PRE-FABS

In the aftermath of the Second World War, 156,000 ‘prefabs’ were built across the UK – particularly for the returning soldiers.  Seventy years later, most have been pulled down, although a few have been rendered and/or had their flat roofs replaced.

Leigh eventually had ten pre-fabs, which were where Meadow Bank is now.  They were built in 1948 and the late Vera Ingram and husband, Reg, were the first people to move in.  Initially, there was trouble with the drains but although Sevenoaks Rural District Council blamed the German prisoners of war for digging the foundations wrongly, Vera said “we reckoned that the Council must have had people over-seeing them.  It took six months to put right.  But when we did move in, they were wonderful”.

Nearly everyone in Leigh shared this view.  Monica Purdy, now aged 94, lived in the pre-fabs with her husband, Dave and they loved them.  Monica had been born in Warley, Yorkshire on 2 April 1925.  Just after the War, she met her future husband, Dave, who was a butcher.  Dave had worked for Mr Whitehead in Leigh in 1944 and, when he married Monica in 1946, they came to Leigh, lodging first with Mr Frank Bourne at Church Hill House.  Frank, or Frankie to his friends, had worked as the head shepherd for the Hall Place Estate, living at Prices Farm with his sister.  Monica remembers him well.  He was over 80 by this time, very tall, very gentle and very deaf.  They lodged there for about four years before renting two rooms with Mrs Pankhurst in Garden Cottages for a couple of years.

From 1954 onwards the Purdys were allocated one of the pre-fabs.  Other families there were Vera and Reg Ingram, Nurse Ogden, Dorothy Gibbs, Ben Fagg and one of the many Faircloths.   Monica remembers her pre-fab well.  “You came into the front door and there was a sort of passage.  The living room was on the left and it was nice and large.  You went through it to the kitchen which had everything built in.  In those days, you didn’t have fridges and the sink all built in and all the cupboards.  There were no draughts anywhere.  And there was hot water which came from a coal fired stove – with doors on the front you could open to heat the house.   On the right-hand side of the house there was a really good sized bedroom for Dave and me which had the bathroom off it and another pretty big bedroom as well.  The bathroom was all fitted out too and really warm.  It must have been the warmest bathroom in Leigh!  And there were built in cupboards and drawers everywhere.  There was masses of storage room – you didn’t really need much furniture.  So we loved our prefab and we – and the others – were all very sad when they were pulled down around 1983”.

Chris Rowley (April 2022 Parish Mag. Article)