The joys of the wriggly stuff
Up there in the list of my obsessions are various things that are not strictly architecture, but which are adjuncts to architecture and often make buildings interesting or give them interesting contexts – lettering on buildings, three-dimensional pub signs, post boxes, wooden shacks, obsolete petrol pumps, and, somewhere near the top of the heap, corrugated iron. Aficionados of this versatile but low-status building material often refer to it as ‘wriggly tin’, which is a misnomer as far as the ‘tin’ goes, but is amusing enough and highlights its salient quality, the corrugations that both make the stuff strong and give it its characteristic appearance, helping it to look good when the sun comes out.
Wriggly tin is cheap, lightweight, easy for low-skilled people to build with, and highly versatile. If you hit the term ‘corrugated iron’ in the tag cloud in the right-hand column, you’ll find posts about barns, a house, a boat house, Nissen huts, workshops, and even churches built of the material. Here in West Camel there’s a multiple whammy of corrugated iron – not just a modest green-painted shed but a row of houses with great curving roofs with a corrugated covering. If the houses resemble Nissen huts, there’s a reason. They were built by John Petter and Percy J Warren, who took their inspiration from the Nissen huts designed by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Nissen. The pair of architects set up a company to produce the houses and acknowledged their debt to Nissen by calling their firm Nissen-Petren Houses and appointing Nissen to the board of directors.
The idea was to market the houses to local authorities, who were building homes in the 1920s in the wake of the First World War. The return of soldiers not only increased the demand for affordable housing, but caused a shortage of materials and skilled labour, and the design of the Nissen-Petren houses was a way of overcoming these problems by creating structures of non-traditional materials that were straightforward to erect. The houses had a steel frame, concrete end walls, and a roof covered with corrugated steel. They could be built much faster than brick houses and the hope was that the cost would be slightly lower too. However, the houses weren’t taken up widely – there were concerns about the cost, the appearance of the houses, and that fact that some roof leaks were reported. A few were built in the West Country, but not enough to make the Nissen-Petren company viable and it closed in financial difficulties. The row in West Camel, visible from the A303, are, as far as I know, the largest group to survive.
7 comments:
Speaking as someone definitely "low-skilled", I doubt if I could build satisfactorily with corrugated iron. You still need to join it on. If you have to drill into concrete or breeze blocks, you might still need someone with a bit of nous?
Another disadvantage, surely, must be the effect of being oven-roasted in extremely hot weather?
Busyantine: Thank you so much for your comment. I didn't see the colonial-style house in Sherborne, alas! I'd love to find such a house. There was one rather like that in one of the villages near Minchinhampton Common in Gloucestershire. There's also supposed to be one in a village called Legbourne in Lincolnshire, but I couldn't find it when I was there. I'll make a note of the Sherborne one in case I go back there. I'm glad it's listed.
Joseph: By 'low skilled' I meant someone whose low skills did nevertheless include the capacity to do these tasks, but who was not trained in one of the traditional building crafts. I certainly not trust myself to do build such as structure!
Re summer roasting, you're right. The problem can be minimized with good insulation – which also reduced heat loss in winter of course.
I wonder if you have seen any of the buildings by the Australian architect Glenn Murcutt - he uses corrugated iron almost as a signature. Our house in Canberra, Australia, was built for the workmen who were going to build the rest of Canberra, and was given a corrugated iron roof. Questions were asked in parliament about whether it was fitting for the nation's capital to have houses with mere corrugated iron roofing and the answer came that they would only do it in this one instance, for the cheap, workmen's houses. Needless to say, these houses are infinitely better made than anything that came later - cedar window frames, brass fittings, et cetera. Anyway, eventually, some 75 years after the house was built, it became necessary to repaint the roof - when it turned out that it would be four times more costly than replacing it with a contemporary corrugated iron called Colourbond, which also had insulative properties, we, slightly reluctantly, chose that. As the roofer removed each sheet of the old iron and put it out the front to be taken away at the end of the day, more and more people came knocking at our door, asking if they could have the old stuff - it turned out that it was much stronger and infinitely better made in all ways than the modern stuff. How surprising. In Australia, where rain is almost always welcome, the greatest pleasure of a corrugated iron roof is hearing rain begin to fall upon it.
zmkc: Thank you and yes, I know Glenn Murcutt's work from books (I've not been to Australia). Good to hear your house has survived - and good luck with the new material. I know compromises have to be made when repairing old buildings, and hope the new stuff gives you good service.
I own one of the wriggly tin houses… although the current roof covering is actually called box profile and is a sandwich of steel with insulation
Anon: Thank you for your comment. I'm pleased that your roof covering is now made of an insulated material and, I hope, good for many years. Plain corrugated iron must lose heat in the winter and get very hot in the summer.
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