Interview with Dennis Nicholls

Dennis was appointed as an Architectural Draughtsman at Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC), in April 1969, after interview by Bill Berrett at Walton Hall; allocated to work on construction of Wavendon Tower offices for MKDC, he was excited by the huge project, but had a practical approach; others were more visionary. He remembers slow building work until Fred Roche and Derek Walker arrived. Derek set up a Technical Advisory Group – ‘a group of four of us’ – to give technical support to the architects; many of the architects appointed were very inexperienced, but they did listen to the advice offered. Dennis was not involved in the planning or design of buildings; architects came to him with basic project plans and he obtained prices and availability for materials. He comments on the different designs favoured by the architects in Northern and Southern Milton Keynes, saying that the architects ‘went in different directions using the same design parameters for housing density and height no taller than the tallest tree’.

Dennis contributed to discussions of Netherfield designs; he did not advocate flat roofs. He talks of the Industry Sections on Kiln Farm & City Centre. He worked on the specification for the City Church while with Planning Design Development (PDD) [Dennis explains a little later in the interview the setting up of PDD in the late 1980s] and in this project encountered new issues like the domed lead roof, which he discusses. There was a threat, halfway through the building work, that the specific yellow bricks being used would cease to be available; he had to put pressure on the brick company. Dennis was particularly pleased with the church lantern, windows and doors that they selected from The Birmingham Guild: extremely high quality & performance. He recalls the opening ceremony of the Church, which the Queen attended in the congregation. The City Church is the project that he feels most proud of. Twenty years after his retirement, Dennis still lives in MK. He says: ‘I think it is marvellous …you can drive around the main roads and you hardly see any buildings, it’s all greenery’. Dennis says that his work at MKDC: ‘was the best, most rewarding and most interesting job that I ever had …it was always a pleasure to work there’.