Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/454

414 cost, more especially as there was substantial saving in having the three buildings, canteen, institute and dining-rooms, combined in one.

As the light-construction principle became more established in favour for buildings, including hospitals, in country districts espe- cially, designs were contemplated for larger schemes (e. g. for the cavalry brigade barracks at Chiseldon, Wilts., and for an artillery brigade barracks near Fermoy), at the time of the outbreak of the war in 1914, and were in part carried out. In 1912-4 this principle of design was mainly adopted in connexion with aviation buildings, required by the new R.F.C. The variety of new buildings, aero- plane sheds, workshops, instructional buildings, etc., that were involved was great, and the urgency for their provision very press- ing. A system of construction, therefore, which would lend itself to quick completion, not involve heavy expenditure, and be capable of expansion, was obviously suited to a service of which the full require- ments were still conjectural.

Allusion may be made to one particular development, for it applied to other branches of the service as well as to aviation. This was the construction of officers' messes and quarters. Hitherto, in permanent barracks everywhere, these had been combined in one continuous building, and, when enlargement or alteration of the mess became necessary, the problem was difficult. With the new arrangement for the R.F.C., the mess-house was designed sepa- rately, generally built on a site fairly central for groups of officers' cottages erected near it. Each cottage contained rooms for four single officers or two field officers, with an annex behind, contain- ing servants' rooms, store-rooms, bath-rcom, etc. If the establish- ment of officers increased, more cottages could be built; if the num- bers were reduced, one or more buildings could be shut up or reappro- priated. This form of accommodation was very popular.

Married Soldiers' Quarters. Accommodation for the married soldier had in earlier years been brought up to a reasonable standard of comfort and decency. The standard plans of married quarters, however, were neither economical in first cost nor pleasant in appear- ance. Frequently built in long and monotonous rows, they resembled the mean streets of an industrial town, and occupying, as they often did, some lovely spot in rural England, they were an eyesore and reproach. Hence, during the decade 1904-14, much attention was paid to (a) reduction in cost, and (b) improvement in external treatment. As regards (a) the average cost of the standard design was 400 per quarter of four rooms, and it was found that by rearrangement in constructive details, reducing height of rooms, rearrangement of chimneys, etc., the price could be reduced to about 22O-25O without sacrifice of comfort or authorized accommoda- tion. Greater attention to (b) was possible also, in combination with economy ; and the grouping of rows of quarters round gardens, playgrounds, etc., gave an impression of home life in country dis- tricts. Some groups of such cottages at Farnborough, Hants., were visited in 1917 by the Local Government Board Committee on the National Housing Problem, and elicited their full approbation.

Hulling during the War. When accommodation for the new armies first came to be considered by the British War Office in the first 10 days of the World War, it was definitely decided to adopt some cheap design of hut which could be readily erected, and also easily adapted to any form 6f temporary material and to any reasonably level site. But there were many other considerations, e.g. what nature of accessory accommodation should be given, in view especially of recent rules regarding dining and recreation rooms, what sort of sanitary provision should be made, what method of lighting should be adopted, etc. As a result of consultation between the various War Office departments concerned the following points were settled: (a) That huts to hold 25 men (including one sergeant) should be constructed, giving 48 sq. ft. floor area per man (about 400 cub. ft. of interior space) ; (6) that there should be two principal spans of huts, viz. 20 ft. and 28 ft., and that as far as possible all the various buildings should be planned to fit one or other of these, so as to simplify the construction; thus, men's barracks, officers' quarters, regimental offices, quartermaster's stores, officers' mess and ante-room and kitchen, sergeants' mess and kitchen, were all planned to fit into the 20-ft. span, while men's dining- rooms, cook-house and regimental institute were on the 28-ft. span;- (c) that there should be a battalion cook-house, fitted with the best known pattern of cooking-range and boilers for 1,000 men, and that there should be on either side of it dining- rooms for 500 men each, allowing 5 to 6 sq. ft. for each man on a total floor space of 2,800 sq. ft. Between the cook-house and the dining-rooms there should be sculleries; (d) that there should be in each battalion a bath-house with a central heating boiler and hot and cold water laid on to the showers, which should be in the proportion of 5 to every 100 men; (e) that there should be a

regimental institute of three rooms, viz. supper room, games room, and corporals' room; the bar and beer cellar to be between the supper room and corporals' roohi so that central serving could be arranged. There was also provided a kitchen and scullery in an annex. There was to be no " wet " canteen (though as a matter of fact some commanding officers made a canteen out of the corporals' room an arrangement which was

FIG. 12.

not in accordance with the original intention); (/) that there should be officers' and sergeants' messes planned to accommo- date 30 officers and 50 sergeants respectively, and consisting oi one block with mess-room and ante-room joined by a short passage with a kitchen block; (g) that four drying-rooms should be provided in which wet clothing could be hung, fitted with stoves and bars; (h) that the latrines should be on the dry-earth system, and that the ablution rooms and urinals should either lead into soak pits (in the chalk country in France this was invariably done) or into sewage filters; (i) that the lighting should be done by electric lamps and the wires carried on poles, not buried.'

FIG. 10.

Plans of the principal huts designed on the above decisions are shown in figs. 9 to 12.

That these points were speedily settled is proved by the fact that all the type plans in detail for a complete battalion camp were approved 10 days after war was declared, and three days after it was decided to raise 100,000 men for the new army.

Considering the urgency of the matter, it would not have been a matter for surprise if extensive changes had to be made after the camps, so built, came into use. There were not, however, many changes, though several details were amended. Thus, it was decided to omit some of the accessories, such as the dining-rooms, on the ground that the men could dine in their sleeping-huts if necessary, and dining-rooms were only a recently authorized provision. The drying-rooms were frequently used for purposes other than that for which they were built, and in many camps they were not used at all, as the men found they lost their clothing when mixed up with others. In matters of detail, it was found better to have the huts made up in sections, bolted together in situ, rather than to build up with gangs of carpenters on the spot. This building by sections enabled the work to be done chiefly in central workshops and very rapidly put together on the site. Incidentally, sectional nuts fetched a better price after the war than others, for obvious reasons.

As regards materials, the huts were at first founded on brick piers. This was a mistake, and it would have been better from the outset to