To clad his sumptuous new palace for himself and his 320 wives, King Eyambo of Calabar in 1843 chose one of technology’s newest products — corrugated iron. Invented in the 1820s, it was the first mass-produced cladding material of the modern building industry.
Corrugated iron is cheap and easy to use. Perhaps for those reasons it has not been highly valued but it possesses unpretentious merits. It is light and easily transported. The corrugations give strength and other structural advantages over flat sheeting. It can be erected as a self-supporting barrel roof to cover relatively large areas.
Galvanisation offers protection from corrosion for perhaps 50 years in salt-free air. The original wrought iron product was gradually replaced by mild steel from the 1890s but the common name has remained.
Corrugated iron is the stuff of improvisation and lends itself to local idiosyncratic need. It has been used for substitute roofing and for buildings of all kinds — lean-to extensions, isolation hospitals, sheds, cricket pavilions, warehouses and fishermen’s huts. The prefabricated portability of a curvaceous Nissen hut allowed it to become a garage, scout hut or village hall.
“Tin tabernacles”, pleasing little corrugated iron churches of non-conformity, were chosen from catalogues and self-assembled from flat packs. Derided by some in the ecclesiastical establishment, they met the spiritual needs of many communities.
We may be reluctant to accept corrugated iron for the repair of traditional buildings, but it has proved valuable in conservation work and in sympathetic extension projects. It has been used throughout the world, notably in the development of Australia, the US and India.
Corrugated iron has entered the soul of the countryside in many guises and has long since proved that it belongs there. The Dutch barn, standing alone in the fields, displays an intrinsic elegance, its slender steel uprights supporting the gentle convex curve of its corrugated iron roof.
Farmstead buildings of corrugated iron have mellowed, rusted and been naturally absorbed into the palette of the countryside.
Anyone caught out in a downpour in the country will have known the refuge sought in a field barn, with the rain drumming deafeningly on the “tin” and a loose sheet banging in the wind. Corrugated iron always offers all that we need, no more, no less.
