Boot House and Whillanside, Eskdale, Cumbria

Boot houses were houses built in the United Kingdom after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

to accommodate the housing boom following the war. They were named after

Henry Boot Henry Boot (1851–1931) was the founder of Henry Boot PLC. Henry Boot was the eldest surviving son of Charles and Ann Boot. He was born on 9 December 1851 in Heeley, a small village two miles outside Sheffield. Henry's father had described him ...

, whose construction company ( Henry Boot Limited), produced an estimated 50,000 houses between the end of World War I and the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Due to a shortage of bricks, boot houses were built using precast reinforced clinker-concrete columns. Structural tests in the 1980s revealed significant deterioration in the concrete as a result of

carbonatation Carbonatation is a chemical reaction in which calcium hydroxide reacts with carbon dioxide and forms insoluble calcium carbonate: :Ca(OH)2CO2->CaCO3H_2O The process of forming a carbonate is sometimes referred to as "carbonation", although t ...

. The

Housing Act 1985 The Housing Act 1985 is a British Act of Parliament. The act introduced laws relating to the succession of Council Houses.Wilson, W. (2014) ''Succession rights and social housing'', House of Commons Research Paper, SN/SP/1998, p. 2 It also facilit ...

provided government grants for homeowners of such "defective" houses.

References

House types in the United Kingdom Prefabricated houses {{house-type-stub

See also

References