Just an amazing thing, a building adjoining the methodist church in North Road. Bill Meyer told me nissen huts were known in the US as quonsets. As so often happens I marvelled at this new word I had never seen before and then when I got the program for a conference I am attending/presenting at, at the end of the week noted that one of my fellow speakers was talking on the subject of 1940s quonsets.
2 comments:
Nissan, I think, David. There was a church like this in Mitcham, where I have lived for 26 years, before their current church. No brick front on it, though.
oh! the photo is fab! worthy of a thesis - as the Nissen Hut has a construction-site office on it, as well as the insane facade.
Genevieve is clearly still sufferingn from The Nissan Cedrics, as:
April 1916, Major Peter Norman Nissen of the 29th Company Royal Engineers began to experiment with hut designs. Nissen, a middle-aged mining engineer and inventor, constructed three prototype semi-circular huts. The semi-circular shape was derived from the drill-shed roof at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Nissen’s design was subject to intensive review by his fellow officers, Lieutenant Colonels Shelly, Sewell and McDonald, and General Liddell, which helped Nissen develop the design. After the third prototype was completed the design was formalized and the Nissen Hut was put into production in August 1916. At least 100,000 were produced in World War I (McCosh 1997:82-108).
Nissen patented his invention in the UK in 1916 and patents were taken out later in the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia. Nissen received royalties from the British government not for huts made during the war but only for their sale after the conflict. Nissen got some £13,000 and the DSO.
(from Wiki)
Nissens are seen often in country padocks ... due to the portability.
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