The Armstrong hut and its interior

[brian drury]

I am slowly building a web site to document the WW1 army training camp that was constructed on the South Downs north of Shoreham-by-sea in Sussex.

The camp consisted of 600 Armstrong accommodation huts amongst many other wooden buildings. An image below shows a scale drawing I have made of the hut which is 60 feet long and 20 feet wide with beds 2’ 6” wide. Some simple maths reveals that if there were 40 occupants then each man would have only 3 feet for his personal space and yet the huts were supposed to be equipped with a stove and a table.

A letter written by one of the hut occupants makes it clear that 40 men to a hut was the norm although some other references suggest less. A figure of 20,000 men is often suggested for the camp which would mean say 30 – 35 soldiers per hut.

Whatever the true number of beds, it was obviously a tight squeeze unless they used two tier bunk beds.

Hopefully someone may give me guidance on the maximum number of occupants, the bed type and dimensions plus details of the stove and table. Also, any other indication of how the hut might have been organised would be appreciated.

Brian

[Warren Hardman]

Hi Brian,

Attached is a letter from a Canadian soldier that describes his hut dimensions and number of occupants in his hut at Shoreham. It appears there were less troops per hut when he was there in Nov 1916.

222nd Batalion letter - Shoreham Nov 23 1916-same ship as Henry.doc

[Moonraker]

The initial aim in late 1914 was for an Armstrong hut to hold 24 men and one NCO. But there are references to as many as 40 men of the First Canadian Contingent being accommodated in a building at the turn of the year. On 11 November 66 men of the Reserve Park were compressed into one hut at Sling Plantation. Whether this hut was an "Armstrong" I don't know, but overcrowding must have seemed preferable to living in tents that blew down in a very wet winter. Ironically the huts were badly built with unseasoned wood, the floorboards weren't "tongue-and-groove", the wind blew in and up through the floor, which was laid on brick piers, then the occupants went to bed with the stove(s) red hot, up when it was freezing. Sick-rolls shot up after the men moved into huts and many contracted meningitis, some fatally. But it's not clear when they first got infected - it could have been on the voyage over from Canada.

Moonraker

[centurion]

I have a photo of Canadians erecting these huts. I'll scan this evening and post. Some stuff I have on the first contingent suggests that the badly ventilated huts were actually unhealthier than the tents (especially when overcrowded) as the warm fuggy damp atmosphere acted as a perfect environment for many diseases.

[Harry Flashman V.C.]

There is an old large, long hut that in a poor state of repair that is due for demolition at Bisley Camp I was there in November. I'm going back there in May and hopefully I can get some pictures of it before they knock it down. Could be ww1 era and from what I remember it sits on bricks has a couple of chimneys large vents on top of the roof, Horizontal timber lats and old windows like the ones in the diagram.

Dazz

[Guest]

I have been looking into the Eastleigh Clearing Hospital.  This majority of the beds in the hospital were in 225 Armstrong huts with sides partly of canvas.  The huts were sold after the war and the advert for their sale stated that they were 24 ft by 10ft, height 7 ft to the eves. We know the capacity of the hospital; from this we deduce that each hut provided accomodation for 4 men.  There does not appear to have been any heating but they would have been much more comfortanle than the trenches.

The hospita's job was to take walking wounded arriving at Southampton Docks and to arrange for them to travel on to appropriate hospitals. A typical stay was 5 days.

Edited 12 May , 2018 by Guest

[Chasemuseum]

In Australia, many of the older army bases had blocks of huts built in WW1, which seem to fit the descriptions above. All of the criticisms listed above were applicable to these. At Singleton Camp the floors were not tongue and groove and were rather fragile. Soldiers occasionally put a leg through the floor.

 

Most of these were demolished during the 1980s & 1990s.  There is still a WW1 hospital complex at middle head in Sydney (not HMAS Penguin). When I get a chance I will go out and see if the huts include any of the "Armstrong" type buildings. If there are any I will post some photos.

Cheers

Ross