The temporary prefab museum needs your help!

The Prefab Museum has won a reprieve from closure. The Prefab Museum, Britain’s only museum to document post-war prefabricated housing, is curated by Elisabeth Blanchet, a French photographer. However the museum is not funded and is under threat of temporary closure due to lack of money while the outcome of funding applications is awaited.

To support the museum, its work and volunteers, please donate via our Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1413215915/the-prefab-museum

For more information, please see www.prefabmuseum.uk

The wonder of these ‘prefabs’ is that they were meant to last just 10 years to alleviate a post-war housing shortage but people really fell in love with them and have been fighting tooth and nail to make sure that they remain living in them. With the help of the Arts Council, Elisabeth has been photographing both residents and their homes and collecting their stories for more than a decade. 

The biggest remaining prefab estate is Excalibur in Catford, South London, where Elisabeth has been lent an empty prefab to create a Prefab Museum about the history of the estate and prefabricated living. The museum features her photography and documentary film, as well as the work of other artists who are interested in prefabs. 

The museum has attracted more than 2,000 visitors to the area so far – and much like the prefabs themselves, popular opinion has ensured that the museum, which started as a temporary initiative, has now been approved by Lewisham Council and will remain in place until at least 2017. 

The same cannot be said for the prefab homes on Excalibur. Of 186, more than 30 have already been knocked down to make space for redevelopment. Despite campaigns by their residents, the prefabs are slowly losing their battle for survival so Elisabeth is determined to record this part of our social and architectural history for posterity. 

The Prefab Museum is the focal point around which we organise historical tours around the estate and it is always staffed by knowledgable volunteers and residents who have popped in for a cup of tea and a chat. The Prefab Museum is a unique experience where visitors stay longer than they have planned to, share ideas and stories, come out inspired and often come back! 

The Prefab Museum is part of Open House weekend (20/21 September) and we anticipate an influx of visitors!

Some comments from visitors: 

‘Thank you for taking the time to put on this exhibition. It has been a very emotional experience and brings many happy memories.’

 ‘A real piece of British post-war history. We are privileged to see this remainder (and reminder!).’

The Prefab Museum is open every Saturday from 11am to 5pm. 

17 Meliot Road, Catford, SE6 1RY, London

Here are our Autumn events:

Opening Times:

Saturdays 11:00 -17:00 till 01/11/2014
Every other Saturday 11:00-16:00 from 01/11/2014 till 28/02/2015

Groups welcome by appointment

Autumn Events:

Open House Weekend 20/09 and 21/09 10:00-17:00 

Excalibur Estate Tour 18/10 from 14:30

Launch of Elisabeth Blanchet’s book Prefab Homes 25/10 from 14:30 

Mystery Tour 31/10 from 18:00
Excalibur Estate Tour 15/11 from 14:30
Knick-Knack Tea Party 29/11 from 13:00
Christmas Party 13/12 from 13:00

New Whitefoot Community Gardens

In a lovely location on a hillside in Oldstead Road with views towards Crystal Palace and Forest Hill, a new community garden emerges.

Whitefoot & Downham Community Food + Project was awarded funding from Phoenix Community Chest in June 2014 to set up a community garden. The project will see local residents and users/volunteers of the Community Food Plus Project in Whitefoot building and cultivating a community garden on an existing allotment site at Oldstead Road. It will include volunteer days, healthy cooking sessions, social events, and skills training for young Phoenix residents.

Whitefoot & Downham Community Food + Project is a voluntary community based project to support people or families who are experiencing hardship and issues relating to poverty. More details about the project here.
 

Councillor Janet Daby, Chair of the Whitefoot & Downham Community Food + Project

On Friday 1st August Ruth Webber from Downham Nutrition Partnership and I attended the inaugural day of the community garden. The sun was shining and everyone, young and old, was busy filling and planting up the raised beds, putting together the greenhouse and generally having a lovely time.

Large raised beds being filled and planted by enthusiastic volunteers!

 

Alex raking the soil prior to planting

Janet, Margaret and Stuart having fun with the hose

 

Imogen offering a big pot of blackberries to Ruth

 

Imogen helping to plant

Are you a local person, group or organisation that would like to be involved in a new community garden in Whitefoot Ward, helping local people to learn about food growing and gardening?

Andrew and Jackie fill up the raised beds

Lucy shows the children a frog!

Sally Ann sorting out the hanging baskets in front of the 'homestead'

Group photo complete with wheelbarrows

If you would like to get involved please get in touch with the Project Co-ordinator Tony Rich on 07905 164 705 or email e.tony@lcb.eu.com

Goldsmiths Summer Festival update - more photos!

Thanks very much to Donald Daby for these great photos from 2o July. Please come along to the Goldsmiths Community Association Annual General Meeting on 21 September from 3-6pm where more local talent awaits to entertain you. Will it be a BBQ, or pizzas from the Earth Oven? Watch this space...

MC Janet Daby

Manuela sings Suzie Quattro, with Goldsmiths Dance Academy

Queue for the face painting

Gospel Choir

Gospel Choir

Heidi Alexander MP announces the raffle prizes

Tim busy at the bbq with Chris taking the orders - and the money!

BB Queue - they were very good

Brunel Bannister on guitar

Chris plays rock guitar

Cllr Mark Ingleby plays jazz piano

Joshua and friend (and another little friend)

Last but not least DJ Granty G, the rapping plasterer, with DJ Cobra and Stevie G

Lloyds TSB volunteer day at Goldsmiths Community Centre 26 July 2013

For the second year running a team from Lloyds TSB volunteered at Goldsmiths Community Centre for the Our Day to Make a Difference programme. Arranged through Employee Volunteering, 35 volunteers from the Loan Credit Risk team were tasked with painting and decorating, weeding, digging and pruning! Many thanks to Kristen Keith, Project Manager at Employee Volunteering, for visiting the centre, communicating so clearly and sending us these photographs from the day, and to Jo Thomas the supervisor and all the volunteers for working so hard and cheerfully on the tasks. We hope they will come back next year - there is always plenty to do!

What did we ask them to help us with? 

Painting and decorating - before and after

One of the main tasks we asked the team to do was to redecorate the two corridors with magnolia paint. I think you'll agree it was very effective!

Remedial work in the corridors - painting over the eggy yellow!

Afterwards - what a difference

Light, bright and airy - and all the same colour

A splendid job, well done

The Gardens - before and after

At just under an acre, the community centre grounds need a lot of tender loving care to keep them looking nice. We have a static community payback team that comes every Sunday to help keep the grounds under control, but even in the space of a week the brambles and bindweed take hold again! We asked the team to dig out the brambles once and for all and prune the pyracantha behind the sports cage, a very prickly job. Some of the brambles have been there for 40 years, and their roots go deep.

Getting ready to tackle the brambles

A clear path created behind the sports cage

In the George Green Hall gardens, the team were asked to prune and weed, and sand and paint the benches. The gardens here are divided into separate plots; there is a Forest School, an allotment garden, and the main garden which is used for outdoor events such as the Goldsmiths Summer Festival,  outdoor play and private functions like weddings and parties.

Pruning and shaping the rose arch

Before and after photos of the allotment garden

Painting the outdoor benches, with a smile!

Roundtable discussion with team members

Four Lloyds TSB team members kindly agreed to join a roundtable discussion about the community centre. Like many voluntary organisations in the current economic climate, the Goldsmiths Community Association is struggling to meet rising costs and falling revenues for this venerable and very large (over 16000 sq ft) building. The utility bills for the centre alone can reach £20,000 per year, particularly in a cold and prolonged winter. It is harder to 'square the circle' as the Association aims to keep the cost of activities affordable so that local people are able to participate regardless of income.

The team were full of ideas for investment into the centre, marketing and activities that we hadn't thought to offer and gave us much food for thought. We had a very productive session, then let them get back to work! These ideas and plans will be shared with our new members, and the general public, at the Association's Annual General Meeting on Saturday 21 September.

Lloyds TSB, you are welcome at the centre any time and our grateful thanks go to you for all your hard work - it was indeed a day to make a difference.

Lloyds TSB volunteers in a roundtable discussion about the community centre

Friends of the Woodland Walk

The Woodland Walk is a long narrow strip of Ancient Woodland that runs for nearly a mile through the Downham estate.  It appears on old maps as the boundary of Shroffold Farm, and thankfully was retained when the houses were built in the 1920s.

The woodland is now part of the Green Chain Walk and contains some magnificent old oak and ash trees, as well as relatively rare wild service trees.  There are glades of bluebells in the spring, and several clumps of wood anemone. The wide variety of birds and insects there include woodpeckers, long tailed tits and stag beetles.

The Friends of the Woodland Walk were set up 13 years ago by a group of local residents who were concerned about the neglected state of the woodland.  It had become a target for flytipping, graffiti and vandalism. 

The Friends group arranged monthly work days to clear the accumulated rubbish and enlisted the help of Glendale to ensure that the bins were emptied and the gates locked at night.  They obtained various grants, including one from the local Assembly, and bought new benches and litter bins.  Bat and bird boxes were made by pupils at Bonus Pastor School, which borders the Woodland, and loggeries were created to encourage stag beetles and other insects.  Recently, large sections of the path have been resurfaced and Green Chain / Capital Ring signage improved.

Now, the woods are used by several schools as well as large numbers of local people, whether they are walking their dogs, taking a short cut to school or shops or just enjoying the sights and sounds of nature.  Our long term aim is to preserve the woodland as a local nature reserve by leaving dead wood as habitat for insects and fungus and brambles as shelter for birds and small mammals.  However we are aware that the public want a safe and attractive environment in which to walk, so we do cut back undergrowth close to the path and plant native bulbs to add some spring colour.

Our work days continue on the last Sunday of each month, and new volunteers are always welcome, regardless of age or fitness level.  We meet at one of the entrances to the woodland at 2pm for a couple of hours’ work.   Our next session is on Sunday 27 January 2013, meeting at the Haddington Road gate (near the junction with Oakshade Road).   Gloves, tools, refreshments and friendly company are provided!

Please ring Janet Hurst on 020 8698 6805 for any further information.

More information about local events and activities on the Downham Interagency website