Model Air Raid Warden Training Buildings - wrecked two story bungalow with exposed rooms

Wooden model of a wrecked two storey bungalow painted red with a blue metal roof, mounted on a plain green painted base. The roof is attached with nails. The front section of the house has been modelled exposed as if by bomb damage, giving a stepped effect to the sides of the house that are missing. The inside of the house is divided into five sections with two rooms on each floor plus an attic, with a dividing wall down the centre of the house. Each of the rooms includes a blue door and a window and the interior is painted cream. Externally there are ten windows painted in blue with a black outline and a blue back door. Two pieces are missing from the front of the house (probably wreckage), although their bases are still extant.

Collection of twelve (12) painted wooden and metal buildings representing houses, churches and civic buildings, some with bomb damage. They are meant to represent the section of the northern Sydney suburb of Wahroonga for which Dr William Read was the responsible warden and were regularly used for weekly Air Raid Precaution (ARP) training and large scale exercise planning sessions at his home at Cleveland St, Wahroonga. A keen carpenter, Dr Read created the buildings and originally based them on a board, painted to represent the streets in his suburb, and his daughter states "He used these to play 'war games' with his fellow wardens and had them set up on the verandah of his home." Dr Read had served in Egypt at No 2 General Hospital with the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC) during the First World War, to the extent of moving his wife and three children to Cairo to be close to him. Upon his return to Australia, he ran the Hospital at Georges Heights which had been set up to receive the Gallipoli wounded.