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The £4.6 million Lottery Fund Nisson Huts


Frederick

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Bletchley Park may have done great work during world war 2 and hats off to the good people who worked there . But ... does it justify a lottery grant of over 4 million pounds to rebuild Nisson Huts to show visitors their wartime working conditions ?

I think this is the wrong time and the wrong project for such a huge amount in these times of big cut backs .

The Lottery Fund people seem to have a history of giving money for what I consider to be "Wrong " causes ... Paying out for wartime papers Winston Churchill took home

springs to mind . They should have been returned to the state by his family

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[quote user="Frederick"]Bletchley Park may have done great work during world war 2 and hats off to the good people who worked there . But ... does it justify a lottery grant of over 4 million pounds to rebuild Nisson Huts to show visitors their wartime working conditions ? I think this is the wrong time and the wrong project for such a huge amount in these times of big cut backs . The Lottery Fund people seem to have a history of giving money for what I consider to be "Wrong " causes ... Paying out for wartime papers Winston Churchill took home springs to mind . They should have been returned to the state by his family[/quote]

I do so wish that you would respect mining engineers and spell their names properly.

Between April 16 and April 18, 1916, Major Peter Norman Nissen of the 29th Company Royal Engineers began to experiment with hut designs. Nissen, a mining engineer and inventor, constructed three prototype semi-cylindrical huts

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From my understanding, not lot of the money is actually going to rebuild Nissen huts: a lot of it will be spent on the development of educational material, displays, exhibitions etc to explain the technology used, the science, engineering and mathematics behind the codebreaking that went on, etc. Itwill also look at the development of computer technology. Anything that raises the profile of technical subjects, science and manufacturing gets my vote.

Regards

Pickles

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 I think the more interesting question is 'why is it costing 4 million pounds?' thats a lot of money for what seems a fairly straightfoward project. Likewise the Roald Dahl preservation of a garden shed !

 I believe that 'Friends of Bletchley Park' are a well organised and vocal group so I'm not surprised they got the money.

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An excellent read on the history of the subject, "Nissen of the Huts: Biography of Lt.Col.P.N.Nissen, RE DSO by Fred McCosh", sadly now out of print but copies do spring up from time to time on ebay or Amazon.

Nissen must be turning in his grave at the thought of the cost of the lottery funded restoration. Following the end of the First world War, Nissen as the patent owner was offered £500 in royalties from the War Office, subsequently accepting the sum of £13,400 after the intervention of his patent agent in the negotiations.

 

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OK one for you anoraks.

Is there actually any difference between a Nissen hut and a Quonsett hut? Did one pay royalties to the other?

 used to rent a Nissen hut to operate my part time car repair business when i was an apprentice and saw loads of  Quonsett huts in the Pacific islands, I even lodged in a few in Vanuatu but to my untrained eyes they were the same animal, perhaps the ones used by the septic tanks were bigger [6]

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They aren't Nissen huts at Bletchley Park: they are wooden huts.

The Quonset hut (according to Wikipedia) was simply the US-manufactured WWII version of the UK-manufactured WWI Nissen hut, no doubt updated slightly. Wikipedia also says that Nissen Buildings Ltd waived their patent rights for the duration of the war, so no royalties then.

I'll try to post a picture of the Bletchley Park huts.

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[quote user="Chancer"]

OK one for you anoraks. mmmmmm, I'd prefer the term 'military history enthusiast'.[:)]

Is there actually any difference between a Nissen hut and a Quonsett hut? Did one pay royalties to the other?

Interesting to see in some publications, the Americans like to refer to the Nissen hut as being the "British version of the Quonset hut". Some differences in constuction but a very similar design. As to royalties payable or breach of copyright, the company waived all patent rights during the war years, something the US  obviously took full advantage of.

Nissen himself died in 1930 aged 58, but the firm he founded continued with the Second World War bringing back a surge in demand. It continued production and finally ceased trading in 1971.

 used to rent a Nissen hut to operate my part time car repair business when i was an apprentice and saw loads of  Quonsett huts in the Pacific islands, I even lodged in a few in Vanuatu but to my untrained eyes they were the same animal, perhaps the ones used by the septic tanks were bigger [6]

[/quote]
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That hut looks just like my abode in the UK would if I let the maintenance lapse for a couple of years.

Now that it is recognised a dwelling in its own right the local authority are leaning on me to replace it with a traditional brick and tile construction, perhaps I should let things slide for a few years and apply for lottery funding [I]

There are many people both in my village and in the local town living in dwellings virtually identical to the hut pictured just in a worse state of repair, many of them resemble the batten and asbestos construction Marley garages of the late 50's early 60's, the money would be better spent spivving up all of them to make them more habitable and less a health risk.

Editted. The hut in the photo is far from needing a lot of restoration, clearly money has been spent over the years to protect it, the roof is in good condition probably only needing refelting and the windows have been boarded up to protect the interrior from the elements, even most of the bardage could be re-used after removing and dipping if you wanted to keep it historically correct

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If that hut was in Gourgé and I filled in Category 5...mauvais.

The maire would change it to Category 1...Bon

to make me pay more taxe foncière.

C ÉTAT D’ENTRETIEN DE LA MAISON :

1. Bon. . . . . . . . . . . .  2. Assez bon . . . . . . 

3. Passable . . . . . . .  4. Médiocre . . . . . . . 

5. Mauvais . .[:D]

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[quote user="sid"][quote user="Russethouse"]

Edited:  I think the more interesting question is 'why is it costing 4 million pounds?' thats a lot of money for what seams a fairly straightfoward project. [/quote]

Hear, hear!

[/quote]

It looks as if that includes the cost of a new visitor centre....

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Wood or Tin whatever its called who cares ! It is still a lot of lottery money to spend when there are cuts to health services and old people are being moved out of homes due to lack of council funding . That Bletchley Park hut in the photo needs a match putting to it as far as I am concerned and the money spent on a more community minded projects ....
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[quote user="Frederick"]Wood or Tin whatever its called who cares ! It is still a lot of lottery money to spend when there are cuts to health services and old people are being moved out of homes due to lack of council funding . That Bletchley Park hut in the photo needs a match putting to it as far as I am concerned and the money spent on a more community minded projects ....[/quote]

 Hmm - My feeling is that the huts should be preserved, its part of the countries heritage after all, and once they are gone we can't get them back, but perhaps the visitor centre could wait or the funds raised another way

 

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This is not Woolybanana speaking...  
I am a long-term member of the forum, temporarily taking advantage of the WB connection [Www].

I have been to Bletchley Park, and am in awe of the work that was done there;  in fact my father and uncle were involved in it during WW2.
The place is run on a shoestring, and in desperate need of improvement/restoration. Valiant volunteers do their very best to explain the intricate computer manoeuvres involved in cracking the Enigma code, but the presentation is very primitive.  The cafe is worse than horrible. 
The informed visitor already familiar with the extraordinary abilities of the crossword addicts and others recruited along with Alan Turing, and armed with a guidebook, can just about keep up with the display panels in the decrepit huts, but I can see that an investment on this scale will turn Bletchley into a visitor destination worthy of these geniuses.

We on the forum are of an age to know what Bletchley Park stands for, but future generations need to be shown that British eccentricity/originality of thinking can win the day over sometimes blinkered traditional military planning.  One only has to look at the storming of the Heights of Abraham in the Battle of Quebec in 1759; Barnes Wallis's bouncing bombs in 1943; the D-Day invasion of 1944...

Woolybanana's friend

 

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I wish there was some way to preserve the spirit of the people who worked there as well as the buildings. A friend of mine's father had worked there during the war. When I knew him he was a quiet, unassuming headmaster of a successful local boy's school.

Feeling himself bound by the Official Secrets Act, he never talked about his war service even to his family and the role that he had played was not know until he died.

Thank goodness he was not a little Englander.

Hoddy
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Will future generations want to go and look round these huts ? Or will they prefer to look on line for a virtual walk through of the place and listen to a commentary ? Given the world my grandchildren seem to live in they seek to get all information off the internet . I cant imagine them wanting to travel to Bletchley Park and walking round .
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