page_title: Prefabs in the United Kingdom
section_title: Swedish
hierarchical_section_title: Prefabs in the United Kingdom / House types / Swedish
caption_attribution_description: Swedish timber-framed prefabricated houses at Shorne.Camera location51°&#160;24′&#160;49.1″&#160;N, 0°&#160;25′&#160;55.2″&#160;E&#160;View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth Off Swillers Lane in Hollands Close – in 1946 the Swedish government donated some 5000 timber homes to the UK in gratitude for our co-operation during the Second World War. Six of these are still in use in Shorne as three blocks of semi-detached dwellings.
context_page_description: Prefabs were a major part of the delivery plan to address the United Kingdom's post–Second World War housing shortage. They were envisaged by war-time prime minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing Act 1944.
  Taking the details of the public housing plan from the output of the Burt Committee formed in 1942, the wartime coalition government under Churchill proposed to address the need for an anticipated 200,000 shortfall in post-war housing stock, by building 500,000 prefabricated houses, with a planned life of up to 10 years, within five years of the end of the Second World War. The eventual bill of state law, agreed under the post-war Labour government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee, agreed to deliver 300,000 units within 10 years, within a budget of £150 million.
  Through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works, the programme got off to a good start and, of 1.2 million new houses built between 1945 and 1951 when the programme officially ended, only 156,623 prefab houses were constructed.
context_section_description: Between September 1945 and March 1946, Sweden exported 5,000 prefabricated houses to the UK and 2,100 to France. The design was adapted by the MoW from a standard Swedish kit, with the all-timber houses arriving in flat sections, and then stored at the docks for allocation.
  In England and Wales this was often in small numbers to rural areas in support of farm workers. The first of these houses were built at Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, in January 1946. There are two basic designs: semi-detached houses with a single storey utility extension and semi-detached dormer bungalows. A pair of the bungalows at Auckley near Doncaster (Grid Ref: SE651012) have been listed by Historic England (their ref: 1392257).
  In Scotland a slightly different style of house (without the single-storey utility extension) was erected in large estates in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and elsewhere.
caption: Swedish Timber Framed House at Shorne, Kent
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