Details of Construction continued ...

At Waterhouses mission hall a ceiling has recently been inserted, but it seems that the building had a couple or principle rafter roof, of 2 3/4" (7cm) scantling, without a collar or tie beam. The main room was divided into seven bays, but the main bracing was provided by three horizontal tie rods, bolted through the wooden top plate over each window, along with a vertical king rod.

It would seem that in some cases there was no ridgeboard - the topmost purlins, on each side, were set on the principals close to the apex, in some cases leaving space for a king rod to be bolted through the truss. Once the sheets had been laid, a ridge coping would be fastened to these upper purlins. The purlins and sheeting almost invariably extended beyond the gables, and were protected by barge boards. These were either plain or decorated, with features like scalloped edging, or fretwork patterns. At Bewicke Main institute the boards were supported by horizontal and vertical timber members (similar to a collar and king post in a roof). Many buildings had a small board with pointed ends, or a turned and often pointed decorative post, set at the apex of the gables, or on a porch roof. This feature is not confined to this type of structure but is often found on private houses of the period that have large boards. Many can be seen on town houses in Durham.

The corrugated roof sheeting drained easily, and water was channelled away along half-round guttering hooked to boarding nailed at the eaves.

Some buildings had roof vents, most frequently in the form of small triangular dormer-like features (as at East Hedleyhope and Binchester). In the plans for Oxhill and East Stanley these opening were cusped like that at East Hedleyhope Wesleyan chapel. Complete examples can be seen clearly in the slate roof of the stone-built United Reformed church in Waddington Street, Durham City. At Tudhoe there are roof ventilation flaps.

Because of the comparative ease with which these structures were erected, they could also be removed and re-sited. Examples include the East Hedleyhope Primitive Methodist chapel, re-located in Esh Winning; a Catholic school at Ushaw Moor moved to a site close to Newhouse church, Esh Winning; and a Plymouth Brethren meeting room moved from the Leamside end of West Rainton to a more central place within the village. The Catholic church at Lanchester had been brought into the county from Gosforth in Newcastle, where it had formerly served as a mental asylum chapel.

Today the few surviving examples of these corrugated iron buildings serve as a reminder of the attempts made by coal owners and working people to provide fairly cheap and, in some cases, temporary public buildings in newly established villages - villages whose life-span was often computed on the quantity of exploitable coal, and whose inhabitants were highly mobile. It must say something of the strength of this medium that some buildings are still in use 100 years later.

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