“You can buy anything from Harrod’s", so it was once said.
You could certainly buy a church, or at least a Tin Tabernacle as
these prefabricated, corrugated iron buildings came to be called.
The parish church at Maesbury in Shropshire, illustrated here by
Maggie Humphrys, was one such structure. Supplied by the
Knightsbridge store in 1906, for just £120, it was delivered on the
back of a lorry and assembled by two men.
Harrod’s
catalogue offered a range of "flat-pack" buildings,; they
were just one of a number of companies to supply them.
The
technique of producing corrugated iron and galvanising with zinc to
prevent corrosion was developed in the mid 19th
century. A range of buildings was available including churches,
sports pavilions, village halls, railway structures, warehouses and
even a diminutive shepherd’s hut. The
town of Oban, in Scotland had
a Roman Catholic cathedral built of corrugated tin until it was
replaced in 1932 with a stone building designed by Sir Giles Gilbert
Scott.
