Prefabs on Sky Edge

[Big Stan 10]

i was born in 1956 in a prefab on Sky Edge Avenue - we lived on the jennel which went from the turning circle down to Boundary Road - left in 1967 ish

[USUK 10]

I lived up Crookes by the Bolehills and I remember the neighbourhood took a real beating from the Gale.

 

I remember going to work that morning and looking straight into someones bedroom as the Gable End had blown out.

[Di-namic 10]

I used to live on Sky Edge Avenue and remember looking through the bedroom window of our prefab ( 134 ) with my brother and first seeing our neighbours coalhouse lurch across and block their back door, their roof by degrees began to lift in the hurricane, then it came off completly and sailed into the back garden of the houses on Boundary road, all the time washing and litter and bits of corrugated asbestos roof were blowing through the air. My dad rounded up the neigbours and they were tying half house bricks onto washing lines and throwing them over the prefab roofs, the council brought metal spikes to knock into the brickwork below the pebbledashing so the roofs could be tied down, will never forget it.

 

I can't remember the number on Sky Edge Ave but I spent many, many happy months in the early 60s at my Aunty and Uncles prefab. Norah and Ernest Staniforth. Their sons were John,David and Richard. I loved them dearly. The neighbours were great and to say the prefabs were a temporary structure I remember them being very sturdy.

[rholt 10]

I was a fireman at Intake fire station,we turned out during the night shift, on what we thought was small storm damage, not at that time realising how severe the storm was, protected inside the machine. Jumping off the appliance on arrival, the galeforce wind blew us into the garden hedge and at that moment, saw with horror the nearest prefabs front wall blow in, quickly followed by the roof taking off and all the contents disappearing through the gardens at the rear,several other prefabs disintergrated in the same way.It was impossible during these moments to do anything other than to assist occupants to shelter in the local cinema near by. It was at this time unused, and we had to force an entry.Fortunately it was still standing firm. The rest of the night shift,was going from call to call assisting people, mainly where chimney stacks had crashed through roofs.For several weeks, we carried on removing dangerous stacks,roofing with tarpaulins,where we could.

[GOLDEN OLDIE 15]

The 1962 hurricane in Sheffield demolished 98 homes in Sheffield mostly prefabs at Sky Edge. When were these built? Was it after the war? And after the hurricane were the rest of the pre-fabs demolished?

[DavidFrance 19]

I saw these prefabs being built in the immediate period after VE day. My grandparents lived opposite Sky edge Avenue in Manor Lane, no. 116, and I used to play on the rocks overlooking the pig farm. An uncle was a labourer on the site and my mum’s sister and her husband were among the first tenants, living in what I think was number seven on the left hand side. Before work started there was a bridleway ran from Manor Lane all the way to St Johns Church at Hyde Park which we walked along to visit my great grandmother, Lizzie Poole who lived in a three storey house overlooking the canal wharf and railway sidings on Bernard Rd. They may have been basic but those prefabs were a god-send to the grateful tenants.  

My poem “Manor Lane “ is enshrined in the iron sculpture in Castle View Park and describes wartime Manor Lane and that area.  Good times. Happy memories. 

[chrishall 10]

On my way to Hurlfield Sec Modern Boys school pals advised me to divert and look at the prefabs, I was amazed to see no prefabs left but instead a forest of cisterns and flush pipes anchored by toilets complete with flush chains still standing.