UKAEA housing, 9-15 Sweyn Road. General view from south east

Description UKAEA housing, 9-15 Sweyn Road. General view from south east

Date 29/3/2017

Collection Historic Environment Scotland

Catalogue Number DP 258488

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and Thurso Burgh Council made sure that recreation space was planned into the atomic estates. This large field was used as a sports and recreation field, ensuring that Dounreay employees had some green space to enjoy. It was situated beside the Dounreay Sports and Social Club at Viewfirth, which provided a welcome home for staff recreation. In the background are the ‘non-traditional’ timber houses which were amongst the first UKAEA houses to be built in Thurso, with the first phase completed in November 1957. ‘Non-traditional’ buildings, constructed using materials such as concrete or timber and employing elements of pre-fabrication, could be erected quickly and cheaply; something which appealed to the budget-conscious UKAEA with its requirement to accommodate employees as soon as possible. These houses in Thurso were designed by the Nottingham building firm Simms Sons & Cooke, with Thurso architect Hugh Sinclair Macdonald celebrating their ‘considerable charm and character’. For the UKAEA, housing was allocated according to grade. This four-bedroomed ‘A-type’ house with garage would have originally been occupied by a Dounreay employee at senior level, with it believed that such staff required accommodation of high standard to both attract and retain them. It was completed in the late 1950s as part of the first phase of housing development. UKAEA housing consisted of A, B and C types, with A being the largest for higher grade staff. If a staff member was promoted or their family increased, they became eligible for a larger house. As an aside to nuclear development, the built environment of nuclear townships in Britain is overlooked in favour of its technical and scientific elements. Yet the consequences of the atomic programme extend beyond the technological: the social infrastructure behind the science was integral to the success of many nuclear ventures. This had its most significant impact following the 1954 decision to site the country’s first fast breeder reactor establishment at Dounreay in Caithness, the most northerly county of the British mainland. The arrival of the UKAEA brought nuclear science to a rural landscape with an agricultural skills base. The chosen site was located close to the town of Thurso, the population of which grew from 3000 to 9000 as a result of the UKAEA ‘importing’ skilled scientists and engineers into the county to work alongside local workers to ensure the safe running of the establishment. To accommodate this influx the town underwent an extensive period of planning, with 1007 houses built to house the new citizens who were termed ‘the atomics’. By the end of the building programme in May 1963, four recognised estates of UKAEA houses had been built in Thurso: Castlegreen, Ormlie, Pennyland and Mount Vernon. Accommodating this population stands as an example of quick, complex change, triggered by a technical experiment with enduring social consequences. The housing developments were managed by the Thurso architectural firm of Sinclair Macdonald & Son, whose archives are held by Historic Environment Scotland. The UKAEA-built houses are now owned privately or by Pentland Housing Association.

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