A quaint little building looking like a small barn, with its thatched roof and black weatherboard sides designed by Mr G C Holme in 1929, it is situated right in the centre of the new “model village” created by the industrialist Francis Henry Crittall in 1926 around the factory there to manufacture components for metal windows
Mr Crittall (later Lord Braintree) had a vision to provide his workforce with houses and amenities in close proximity to his window factory. Thus over six years from 1926 Silver End village was built.
The village includes some noteworthy early examples of modernist architectural design; the distinctive white, flat-roofed houses on Frances Way and Silver Street are the work of influential Scottish architect Thomas Tait leading designer of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne buildings in the 20th Century who is also credited with designing the concrete pylons on Sydney Harbour Bridge. Of note are the steel window frames manufactured by Crittalls’s firm as a test for their use in the damp English climate.
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