Building Birdwood
Many thanks to Mary Burgess from the Cambridgeshire Collection for providing the cutting from page 8 of the Cambridge Daily News, 21 April 1947:
Birdwood Road 1947
"New Cambridge Houses at Speed
Simplicity and speed is the key-note on the Cambridge Borough Council's Birdwood road building site, where 156 permanent concrete houses are being erected. Machinery used in the works of construction - like cranes, cement-mixers and lifts for conveying concrete to the scaffolding top - is electrically powered from the Electricity Company's supply. Briefly, the method of erection is this: a concrete foundation is laid and on it a steel case is placed in position. Concrete is poured into this steel "skeleton" and after the mixture has set the case is removed - leaving concrete walls with an air space between. The roofs will be tiled.
Ninety per cent of the labour, incidentally, is Polish."
Simplicity and speed is the key-note on the Cambridge Borough Council's Birdwood road building site, where 156 permanent concrete houses are being erected. Machinery used in the works of construction - like cranes, cement-mixers and lifts for conveying concrete to the scaffolding top - is electrically powered from the Electricity Company's supply. Briefly, the method of erection is this: a concrete foundation is laid and on it a steel case is placed in position. Concrete is poured into this steel "skeleton" and after the mixture has set the case is removed - leaving concrete walls with an air space between. The roofs will be tiled.
Ninety per cent of the labour, incidentally, is Polish."
