TIN TABERNACLES
An essay on Tin Tabernacles by Lizzie Induni
Report and illustrations of a Tin Tabernacle in Skelton, Teeside by Gary Green
David Rowell and Co. : a 19th century Corrugated Iron buildings catalogue
Corrugated Iron Buildings in County Durham by Norman Emery.
See some examples of Tin Tabernacles: Start at Draycott in the Clay and click on to follow the Tabernacle “pilgrimage” …
You can also look at Tin Tabernacles on Ian Smith’s excellent web-site: www.tintabernacles.com
The Corrugated Iron Club
Welcome! This virtual community welcomes enthusiasts from all over the world. If we had a membership it would be by submission of photographs and captions, notes, essays, observations that might make their way onto the web-site.
It may be thought that sheets of galvanised corrugated iron would make for standardised buildings. Far from it. The material has not had a homogenising influence mainly because it lends itself to small scale, self-build enterprises which reflect a precise functional response to need. The result is simplicity, functionally dictated and locally tempered, and sometimes idiosyncrasy plays a part.
Colours often carry or create local resonances – red, black, white, grey, whilst sympathetic deterioration leads to the soft rusty patinated walls and roofs which feel such a part of the landscape.
“I have always thought that cui is one of the most valuable conservation materials ever invented: it has probably saved more historic buildings than anything else. Not only that, but it looks really good in the countryside” … NM
Building in Corrugated Iron
Henry Robinson Palmer (1795 1844, the founder of the Institute of Civil Engineers) is credited with inventing corrugating iron which renders the sheets much stronger (London, 1828). The process of galvanising protects the sheets from oxidising, it involves dipping in zinc which alloys to the steel surface preferentially sacrificing itself to weathering offering protection from rust for possibly 50 years in clean, unsalt-laden air.
Popularity increased for ‘the galvanise’ (Dorset term of endearment) during the nineteenth and at least half of the twentieth century. It was used for farming and industrial buildings, for substitute roofing especially for thatch and for the creation of small buildings of all kinds based upon its cheapness and its ease of use. Perhaps for these same reasons it has not been highly valued, but it has its admirers.
Peter Beacham (English Heritage) writes on corrugated iron alongside James Ravilious‘ photographs for “Down the Deep Lanes”
Lizzie Induni and the Dorset Buildings Group are campaigning for the corrugated iron buildings in Dorset and the South West.
Here is a glimpse of their archive
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