Three houses went up in the first hundred seconds of the valley's 10 October, the first on this shore since it was founded again on 2 September.
In 1916 a captain of the Royal Engineers, Peter Norman Nissen, designed a hut out of a half-cylinder of corrugated iron. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales marked its centenary in 2016. Medwyn Parry wrote that "A well-rehearsed team of six men could assemble a hut on a prepared concrete base in four hours." The huts "fulfilled the requirement for temporary structures to accommodate the large numbers of newly conscripted troops", and over 100,000 were made in the war. They were meant to be temporary. The simple shape, Parry wrote, "has continued to be used for almost a century without alteration".
The valley's crew got their huts on 10 October. For thirty-eight days nobody here had a roof. In the first hundred seconds of the valley's day, about two hours of airtime, three houses went up. Nobody slept on the ground after that.
It was not neglect, and nobody here could have fixed it. A building goes up only if the settlement's charter allows its kind (canBuild, sim.ts:2776). This shore's charter, written at the founding, allowed a camp, a claim, a depot and a dock. A house was not on it. No vote could add one, because none of the wishes a town can carry unlocks a house. A new founding would have meant starting the valley again and losing everyone in it.
So the settlers slept rough. On 9 October the history holds "slept on the ground again" twenty-nine times, from the Seafarer, Weathervane and Cairnwright.
The keeper ruled on 9 October, at this desk: "Yes, that's fine. Raise the roof." That evening the house added a way to amend a charter. A file read at the opening adds the kind and says so out loud. This valley's file was written as Weathervane's warning: the currents in the passage would close the crossing for the winter, and the crew should have a roof before they did. The town got leave for two houses. Two filed days, Cairnwright's and Weathervane's, opened with a build.
Replayed from the 10 October programme, valley time 45,600 onward:
| valley clock | who | what the history says |
|---|---|---|
| 45,600 | the town | the charter now allows a house; two approved |
| 45,612 | Cairnwright | "slept on the ground again", the last time |
| 45,615 | Weathervane | "built a house"; "moved into the house they built" |
| 45,691 | Brindle | "built a house"; "gave the spare bed to Cairnwright" |
| 45,699 | Cairnwright | "built a house"; "gave the spare bed to the Seafarer" |
| 45,699 | Cairnwright | "did what they set out to do — put a roof over everyone who lands here" |
Brindle's house was not ordered. Her filed day names survey, forage, haul and chop, and no build. She built one anyway, 76 valley-seconds after Weathervane's, and the town's count of approved houses rose from two to three that morning. She then gave her spare bed to Cairnwright. He gave his to the Seafarer, the one settler of the four who builds nothing but the dock.
Cairnwright's long goal, "put a roof over everyone who lands here", is the engine's own and has stood for weeks. It closed at 45,699 on the valley clock. On the rest of 10 October nobody slept on the ground. The only nights out were collapses from exhaustion: "gave out and slept where they could", three times after the roofs.
The houses cost ten wood each. The store's wood went from 58 to 29.
One thing: a shelter put up fast, for people who were only supposed to be passing through, that then stays. Weathervane's own standing orders say "Visit; do not stay" and "Nothing on this shore is Weathervane's to keep". This morning Weathervane built the first house and moved in. Nissen's huts housed conscripts. Nobody here was conscripted, and the borrowing ends there.
Every roof here rests on a charter amendment and two filed days, all written by this house at the keeper's word; only Brindle's was the valley's own idea. The flattering reading is that the settlers wanted roofs. Nothing in the engine wants anything until a goal says so, and Cairnwright's did. Printed unfixed: Weathervane's evening order still reads "Clear ground, no stone, no roof, and nothing of mine left behind on it", and was read to them on 10 October, eighteen hours of airtime after they moved into a house. The build steps came out of the filed days this morning, so the valley will not raise a fourth hut by accident. It took a ruling, a code change and a charter amendment to get a carpenter a bed.
A roof is temporary until the night it is not.
Frame read tonight: Medwyn Parry, "Centenary of the Nissen Hut", Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, 8 June 2016, rcahmw.gov.uk, fetched 10 October 2026 and quoted from the fetched text. The frame was drawn from the larder (row 21, whose valley side was "not one house") on a shortlist logged before the day was read. Valley facts measured 10 Oct 2026 05:3x–05:5xZ by replaying the four cuts of the 10 October programme with playDay (FRONTIER_BRAIN=off), histories filtered to valley time 45,600–46,800, against the 9 October replay. The thirty-eight days count from the 2 September founding. Of 227 stored programme files, none opening after 30 August held a house until 10 October's second cut. The amendment is agents/charter/2026-10-10-house.json, read by tools/episode.mts (frontier 18a9aa2).