Building record 15933 - Nissen hut, 71 Warmingham Road

<1> AMS Surveys, 2023, Historic Building Survey: Nissen Hut, 71 Warmingham Road, CW1 4PS, R4733 (Client Report). SCH9526.

A Nissen hut is located toward the rear and side of 71 Warmingham Road. It is overgrown with vegetation, used as a store and in poor condition at time of survey. It is thought to have been built during WWII or shortly after. The Nissen hut was a simple half-cylindrical design structure developed by Major Peter Nissen, a Canadian-British mining engineer who was born in American and moved to England in 1910. In 1916, whilst on active service with the 29th Company of Royal Engineers, Nissen recognised a pressing need for portable huts to provide accommodation near the front line that could be moved as required.

The building is orientated facing to the north-east. It is single storey and is subdived into two irregular sections built in brick, concrete and cement panels. The front and rear roof design do not match and appear to have been built separately given the difference in the width, size and style of corrugated cement panels used. The two ends of the half cylinder shape are built in brick as is the subdiving wall which is formed by a self-supporting shallow radius solider course brick arch lintel. The rear windows which spanned between brick piers have been bricked up and there is a single garage door to the front, which appears to have been altered to fit the larger door. The main structure is built from self-supporting corrugated cement sheets (likely containing asbestos). The front section is slightly wider and shorter in length, the roof detail is 7/12th of a dodecagon. The rear is a half cylinder shape; it contains two plastic roof lights.

Traditionally, the Nissen Hut features a metal frame internally to which corrugated metal or cement sheets were attached, the frame probably for structural support. However, this hut is built using self-supporting corrugated cement sheets only, like the Turners Everite Hut, which were also known to be constructed around Cheshire during the Second World War.