Nissen Hut

I became a little fascinated by the building I had bought and spent quite some time reading about these amazing huts, their history and their journey from an army engineers’ sketch board,to mass production and now found in locations around the world.

I found a lot of super handy info on this Wikipedia website (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissen_hut) so if you wanted to do a bit more of a deep dive I’d encourage you to head on over to that site – it also includes a biography which will likely lead you down a few other gloriously delicious rabbit holes.

However, I wasn’t digging for very long before I realised that although the building I had bought was commonly referred to as a Nissen hut – it fitted more clearly into the definition of a ‘Quonset hut’ due to the cavity brick sides and end walls …and the more permanent structure. 

Following their initial use as army stores, pop up hospitals and troop accommodation – these huts became popular as an economic solution for school and church halls along with accommodation for ex-pats (as can be seen in the TV series: ‘10 Pound Poms’).

The Hut that I purchased was built in 1950 to host the 130 children who were part of the church congregation. While it was regularly used for Sunday School classes, it also played host to community events, dance classes, social gatherings, weekend markets, indoor bowls and theatre productions.

I purchased the hall on 500sqm of land in mid 2021. At that time the hall was being used by a Polynesian congregation for Sunday church services and not much more. The hall was in very poor state with around 26 internal leaks – largely the result of roof flashing failure from the 1975 kitchen and bathroom amenities addition on the northwestern side. The original lean tostructure at the rear of the property was all but falling down and the weatherboards were rotted and barely hanging onto the frame. The original Rimu floorboards were however, in excellent condition.