Model Air Raid Warden Training Buildings - two story cream bungalow with hole in side

Wooden model of a two storey house, nailed together and painted cream. The tin roof is painted red and is nailed to the house. There is a blue line painted 35mm from the bottom of the house. There are sixteen windows and two doors painted in blue with a black outline. A chimney has been nailed from the inside of the house and protrudes 20mm from the roof. Damage has been cut into the roof and façade of the house, leaving the unpainted interior visible.

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.