Friday 7 February 2020

A TIN CHAPEL - THE BRORA EPISCOPAL CHURCH


Corrugated iron is considered to be a traditional Australian material by those who live in the southern island continent. The material is seen to be an essential part of our roots; our heritage; our beginnings: “Good ole Aussie stuff! Reel Ozstrailyan, ya bastards!” So it is always a surprise to see the profiled steel sheet in unexpected locations in suaver, gentler, colder climes. One might never have thought that one would come across a corrugated iron cathedral in Iceland: see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-corrugated-iron-cathedral.html ; nor would one ever think of bonnie Scotland, the home of tartan, haggis, and whiskey, as having a long history of corrugated iron buildings: “Jeez!! Wud ya beleev?” No, for Australians, this is the material for cladding ‘good ole Ozzie’ farm sheds, shearing sheds, dunnies, work sheds, structures in mining towns, and other, any different rudimentary ‘functional’ buildings: whatever. “It’s tha Ozzie way!”






That the sheeting might have become fashionable in the architectural world is an anomaly. Its origins and characteristics are rooted in older times, reminding folk of the bush characters and their rough ’n tumble make-do experiences, when the ripple sheet was used regionally and variously – for roofing in the tropics; for sheds in the outback. The logic for its popularity explains that it was cheap and transportable, and strong and durable. Sun, heat, drought, and flooding rains are connected to this tenacious product, such is its context of use; snow seems a strange bedfellow. One image in which corrugated iron plays a critical part is the Queensland house, as well as those marvellous ‘outback’ shearing sheds: see –https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2014/02/deeargee-gostwyck-shed-and-chapel.html and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2014/10/pairs-12-shearing-sheds-isis-downs_25.html  





Colloquially, the style is known as ‘timber and tin.’ The original iron came with a queen’s head brand image stamped on it: “That wuz tha gud stuff! Not like the new crap!” "It'l larst uh lifetime." One never considers snow to be the companion of this product; the thought just does not arise. The best climate in which Australians relate to this material easily, is the sub-tropical southern regions of Queensland. The southern states have their own traditions of brick and tile. These southern images are those seen regularly on Christmas cards that also illustrate robins and dense white masses on fir tree-filled landscapes, in just about every country; such is the potency of concepts, ideas and experience: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2020/01/experience-context.html  Corrugated iron is not a Christmas material. Yet the sheeting is used in Iceland, throughout Scotland, and in many other regions of the world both cold and hot; and not only in sheds, although there are many, but also in the unexpected functional enclosures of varied, specialised purposes and ordinary habitation. This material has been used for cathedrals and chapels, as well as for basic sheep shelters, krogabøls, in Shetland. One could play with the idea of sheep sheds here to try to establish a justification for a spiritual parallel – buildings for the ‘flock’; to worship the ‘lamb’ of God; but this analogy is textual only, holding no necessary meaning. Indeed, it has a rudeness and crudeness that is close to that seen in puns.




Krogabøl

Herra Hall, Shetland (now a Men's Shed).

Shed on road to Vidlin, Shetland

One is not on any crusade to seek out this material in its various uses; it is just that it appears in surprising locations from time to time, literally in passing. Even the remote Shetland Islands have stunning sheds and small chapels sheeted in corrugated iron; see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2014/02/deeargee-gostwyck-shed-and-chapel.html and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2013/03/shetland-sheds.html : so it should not have been a surprise to drive past a corrugated iron example on the Scottish mainland. Just where this occurred had to be rediscovered on Google Earth, and confirmed by Street View, for the building was a fleeting intrigue that was admired as we moved on: “Look at that! A corrugated iron church!” - gone. One did think of turning around, but driving has its own distractions and ambitions, its own momentum and eagerness that make their own different demands on progress; to keep on going. “We’ll see it on the way back” is a strategy that always fails, as the return journey has its own different stressful demands and different conditions. In this case, it was dark. We had forgotten that the autumn days are shorter.




Brora on the Brora River




We were driving along the Scottish coast, on the northeast route from Dingwall to Wick. We had time, so thought that we would peruse the lie of this part of the land. We had been to both places before, but had never seen the context of place; the getting there – the region. One understands more about places by arriving; learning about the approach, the link to other settlements and regions. The little chapel was passed, being remembered only by its unique location in our drive for that day. For some unknown reason, the quirkiness of this part of the trek was distinctive, being recalled, known, by the aggravation of the procession through and out of the small town.  Driving into this settlement was frustrating, as we were keen to arrive at our destination: time was passing. It was probably a longer trip than we had anticipated. One frequently discovers that, in Scotland, what looks like short distances on the map to one used to the Australian open countryside - “Aw, that’ll only taka cuplla ours” - takes hours longer to traverse than it would at home: such are the different conditions for driving – the narrow roads; the many small villages and towns; the terrain. The route is no motorway, and has no speedier alternative.


The main road north: leaving Brora.

The first glimpse of the church.





The transit through the town was tortuous; the delaying effort annoyed, frustrated progress. It was only once we had negotiated this congestion that we felt happy again, relaxed; free and eager to move on along the open road: “Aaah!” It was on this exit from what felt like a chaotic shambles, that the small chapel was glimpsed. It was a marvelous tiny building, surprisingly smartly sheeted in corrugated iron, all walls and roofs. The context and location were memorised, along with the name of the town. No, we would not turn back: “I’ll look it up later.” The site could be checked out on the Internet: Google Earth. We drove on, keen to reach our destination: what turned out to be a very windy Wick.





When the time came to open Google Earth, the name of the town had been forgotten, but not the drive. Oddly the characteristics of place remained as a felt experience. So, knowing only the route that we had taken, Google Earth was opened and the path was followed. One had to seek out a small town, with a road leading from it as a strip development. The little chapel was on such an open, defined exit, seen as we were leaving what had been guessed to be ‘Briira,’* to drive north. It was a day’s outing; we were keen to get a move on. All portions of the road were gauged for the unique characteristics recalled. Eventually the most likely location was looked at more closely. Surely this was it, but where might the chapel be? Street View was opened. The detailed progression along the highway was tedious, but eventually the chapel was found after many trials and errors. It was the St Columba Scottish Episcopal Church at Brora – of course!


St Columba Scottish Episcopal Church, Brora.





Yes, that was it. Street View is a valuable tool – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-need-for-street-view-in-architecture.html 
https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/10/taylor-square-warehouse-variations-in.html 
and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/03/architectures-two-remote-islands-too.html 
It was indeed the church we had seen: an excellent example of a corrugated iron-clad building. How is it that so much that was completely unexpected can be seen in such a short period, and recalled? The puzzle was: why was this a one-ff for the area? No other corrugated iron buildings had been seen. All the other buildings in the town, and on our drive, seemed to be either stone or brick, with tiles or slate roofs. What were the circumstances that caused this little structure to be clad in corrugated iron? Nearby churches were much more substantial in the use of materials and their size. Is it the Episcopal way to be frugal, modest, unassuming? The other kirks were much grander, bolder.


Church of Scotland, Brora

Free Church of Scotland, Brora


Free Church of Scotland, Brora

United Church, Brora


Christ the King, Brora

The street context

The Brora corrugated iron church was a very sweet little place, nicely bland in a wonderful way, holding the ambiguity of the familiar shed and strange church. One of the questions in architecture is how do the more subtle aspects of expression get revealed? How does one build a shearing shed, a dunny, a shop, or a chapel out of the one material and maintain the unique characteristics of the function being enclosed? The question is worth considering, as we see so much effort going into unique expressions today. The idea of one cheap material doing everything is something that rarely gets considered. It is not a subject of any interest to architects today, although it should be. All traditional architecture has been able to manage a variety of diverse expressions with one material, be this mud or clay brick, or timber, or stone: consider Aberdeen, ‘the granite city.’ One local favourite is the shop/house that appears in country towns. Here the shop sits directly on the front alignment or the corner of the block, connected to the house behind. Both are built from the same materials, just like every other neighbouring home, but with the duality, one part is clearly shop that is public; while the other is unquestionably house that is private. The division is clear, effortlessly articulated without any obvious or specific definition or separation.


Shop/house examples, Broken Hill, Australia







The Brora chapel is simple and unpretentious. It is as un-Gehry/Hadid as anything could be, yet it holds a spiritual quality in its naive elegance. Howard Robertson wrote about symmetry and proportion, subjects mocked today as being, well, just unthinkably old fashioned, terribly out of date - just not 'cool'; but this little place relies for its character on these straightforward matters. The large gable of the main ‘shed’ topped by a cross, has a small porch extension in the front with a hipped roof and a mirroring centre gable over the main entry axis. Along the side – churches usually have side entrances – there is another projecting mass that is roofed by the extension of the main slope of the church roof. The windows are simple openings with just a hint of ecclesiastical detailing. Timber frames are slightly shaped with moldings to suggest an arched opening, referencing a Gothic window; and that is all. Yet the tin mass rings out chapel, a small church. One could recognise this even in passing.







It might be that the drive by was memorable because of the unique exposure of this building to the main road. It sits on a corner block, backed by a dense shroud of trees. As the road runs north, one sees the southern aspect, then passes the western entry, to glimpse the northern facade in the rear vision mirror. One realises that this shed has the traditional orientation of western spiritual centres – east-west, with the altar in the east, the entry on the west. Indeed, one glimpses a slight narrowing of the building on the east, a variation that seems to be a gesture to the shaping of an apse. The search for an interior view on-line revealed this to be so.


Interior of St Columba Episcopal Church, Brora.





In the rummaging around looking for the Brora chapel, one stumbled across other churches and corrugated iron buildings - see below. Some were Episcopal churches. Is this the preferred material for these? Australians are going to have to change their thinking on corrugated iron and realise that it is an English invention; that it was transported across the world to all its colonies; Malaysia has its corrugated iron buildings too, as do many other places. The material has all of the memories of cringe-worthy colonialism that we seek to forget today. Australia lies at the tail end of a long history, stirred recently by Glen Murcutt and his buildings that have stimulated a fashionable interest in ripple iron in forms that “touch the ground lightly.” The jargon is catchy, but the reality is otherwise, somewhat like that associated with the material itself.


Murcutt's 'Marie Short' house at Kempsey, Australia.


The Brora church generates much to consider and peruse, and perhaps to reconsider. We are not alone in being enthusiastic about this product that was invented by Henry Robinson Palmer in the 1820’s, just over fifty years after Cook arrived on the lands of our aboriginal occupiers: see - https://www.google.com/search?q=who+invented+corrugated+iron&oq=who+invented+corrugated+iron&aqs=chrome..69i57.5614j1j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8   Palmer was an architect and engineer to the London Dock Company. The original corrugated iron in Australia probably came out as ballast with the convicts. It is a past that we seem to want to ignore in favour of the home-grown, emotive ‘blokey’ story: “She’ll be right mate!” "Yeah; no worries" - " 'on ya."#




See Google Images for other Scottish corrugated iron churches – esp St Fillan’s Church, Killin, another corrugated iron kirk. The Episcopal church at Doune is a contrast, being more like a Horbury Hunt building; brick and tile.


St Fillan's Church, Killin


St Madoc's Episcopal Church, Doune

Kangaroo Valley Anglican Church, Horbury Hunt, 1871.



For an excellent visual record of corrugated iron structures in the UK, see: https://www.johnhrhodes.co.uk/photo_10564890.html#photos_id=14268619  These are a few of the images:




















See also: https://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/Downloads/ichs/vol-3-3097-3116-thompson.pdf  - A Study of Early Corrugated Iron Structures in Rural Scotland. 




THE RETURN





NOTE:
All the 'passing' images of the Episcopal church at Brora, and the examples of the shop/house, have been taken from Street View. Other photographs are from Google Images.

This tiny, modest building surprisingly holds something of the panache of Wells Cathedral.

Wells Cathedral


*
For more on Brora, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brora
It is interesting to note the confusion with the remembered name that was wrongly recalled as Briira. The Gaelic name of the town is Brúra.

#
In Australia, the role of evidence that might help understanding any issue has been highlighted in the ABC TV Q&A programme of 3 February 2020. In an article by Michael Mann published by The Guardian, (why not the ABC?), the 'most memorable exchange of the evening' was noted. It was made by Liberal senator and former major-general in the Australian Army, Jim Molan, a human-induced climate change denier, 'shockingly confessing, live on air, that he is "not relying on evidence" for his dismissive views.'
If this approach to evidence is commonplace, then it seems unlikely that the parochial Australian understanding of corrugated iron will ever change.

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