Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 122 November 2011 The heritage of defence
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C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 1 A Sea Slug development round being fired from RAE Aberporth using the Gosling solid-fuel rocket motors (Photo: Cadw, Crown copyright) Institute ofHistoricBuildingConservation No122November 2011 The heritage of defence Editorial The heritage of defence ‘Sea Slug was one of the major achievements by the British during the cold war era, marking a significant escalation in the arms race.’ So writes Jon Berry (p19) in his article on sites in Wales associated with the guided weapon scheme. Was escalating the arms race really an achievement? That is the thing about defence: it raises awkward questions about the business of killing people – or, as the euphemistic word ‘defence’ is meant to suggest, avoiding being killed. We are always in an arms race, and only when it comes to war do we find whether we have won. The subject of Context is always the defence of heritage. In this issue it is also the heritage of defence. Sometimes this involves investigating grimly significant places associated with technology such as the Sea Slug system. Sometimes the focus is on industrial buildings, often of awesome size, constructed at a time when, however utilitarian they might be, they were designed by people who understood a long tradition of how to put buildings together, and they were handcrafted because there was no other way to build. Some defence buildings are among the inspiring best of their period. Other sites have structures of types unique to the business of war, of little delight in themselves, but significant in the history of war and its desperately evolving technology. That technological evolution means that surplus defence sites are in need of new uses. The scale of this is huge due to the fact that, as Chris Daniell (p13) points out, the Ministry of Defence is one of the largest landowners in the country. As ever, and particularly at a time of financial cutbacks, the government is looking to dispose of most of the sites on the open market, balancing public and community benefits with financial returns to the taxpayer. Will Holborow (p10) reports on how designation applications on such surplus sites have been handled. Other writers in this issue focus on particular places that are rich in defence heritage. Rob Harper (p16) describes Gosport’s military legacy in a spectacular waterfront location. Jeremy Lake (with Wayne Cocroft and Roger J C Thomas, p22) looks at the heritage of Wiltshire’s defence-related landscape and its military camps. The fact that the military use of Wiltshire’s Salisbury Plain has helped to conserve the archaeology of prehistoric fortifications, among other features, somehow puts the whole business in its sad perspective. www.ihbc.org.uk Registered as a charity in England andWales number 1061593 and in Scotland number SC041945. Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in England number 3333780. Registered Office: 3 Stafford Road,TunbridgeWells, Kent TN2 4QZ. Officers President Trefor Thorpe email president@ihbc.org.uk Chair Jo Evans email chair@ihbc.org.uk Vice Chair Sheila Stones email vchair@ihbc.org.uk Secretary Eddie Booth email secretary@ihbc.org.uk Treasurer Richard Morrice email treasurer@ihbc.org.uk Membership Secretary Paul Butler email membership@ihbc.org.uk Education Secretary John Preston email education@ihbc.org.uk Publicity Secretary Doug Black email publicity@ihbc.org.uk Law & Practice Coordinator vacant email law@ihbc.org.uk Director Seán O’Reilly email director@ihbc.org.uk Projects Officer Fiona Newton email projects@ihbc.org.uk Consultant Consultations Coordinator James Caird email consultations@ihbc.org.uk Membership Services Officer Carmen Moran email membershipservices@ihbc.org.uk Administration Officer Lydia Porter email admin@ihbc.org.uk Committee Chairs Policy Mike Brown email policy@ihbc.org.uk Membership & Ethics Paul Butler email membership@ihbc.org.uk Finance & Resources Richard Morrice email resources@ihbc.org.uk Education John Preston email education@ihbc.org.uk Communications & Outreach Charles Strang email communications@ihbc.org.uk Branch Officers North Geoff UnderwoodTel 0191 433 3435 NorthWest Kate Borland Tel 0778 0704726 Yorkshire Keith Knight Tel 01904 658482 West Midlands Charles Shapcott Tel 0121 7044312 East Midlands Roy Lewis Tel 01636 619335 South Julia Foster Tel 01296 585888 SouthWest JamesWebbTel 01202 732849 East Anglia Phil Godwin Tel 01263 516131 South East Sean Rix Tel 01483 523379 London David McDonald Tel 020 7361 3352 Scotland Stuart Eydmann Tel 01506 775279 Wales Nathan Blanchard Tel 01492 583443 Northern Ireland Colin Hatrick Tel 028 9064 1126 Republic of Ireland Cormac O’Sullivan Tel 00353 5677 62907 Business Office Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA England Tel 01747 873133 Fax 01747 871718 email admin@ihbc.org.uk Briefing 2 Letters 4 Case report: London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Rachel Case 5 Periodically 7 The writer’s voice 9 Regenerating surplus defence sites Will Holborow 10 The Ministry of Defence historic estate Chris Daniell 13 Gosport’s military legacy Rob Harper 16 Desperately seeking Sea Slug Jon Berry 19 UnderstandingWiltshire’s military heritage Jeremy Lake, Wayne Cocroft and Roger Thomas 22 Conference report: NorthWest Branch Day Conference Keith Parsons 27 Conference report: DoCoMoMo-EAHN conference on mass housing Beria Bayizitlioglu 30 Conference report: Bamberg, Germany Dennis Rodwell 31 Architecturally speaking 33 Archaeological view 35 Notes from the chair 37 Director’s cut 39 Vox pop 41 Book reviews 42 Products and services 45 Advertisers index 48
2 C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 Learning on the Tijou screen Bethan Griffiths and Tracy Simmons write: Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) has been supporting the National Heritage Ironwork Group’s Heritage Blacksmith Bursary with the Heritage Lottery Fund Skills for the Future programme. HRP’s extensive portfolio of historic ironwork includes Jean Tijou’s magnificent screen for William and Mary’s gardens at Hampton Court Palace. The NHIG and HRP established a work placement for the entire group of eight bursary students on the Tijou Screen as part of their advanced learning curriculum. They worked under the supervision of Hall Conservation, the appointed conservators to the screen. The 12 panels of elaborate wrought iron were designed by Jean Tijou in 1690, probably to stand in the Great Fountain Garden. On the completion of William III’s Privy Garden in 1702, the panels were taken fromTijou’s workshop on Hampton Court Green and erected where they stand today. In 1731 the panels were removed to the Pavilion Terrace, further away from the palace and along the Barge Walk. In 1861 they were removed to the new Victoria and Albert Museum, where they underwent extensive repair and probably replacement. They were returned to this position in 1901. Briefing Context Editor Rob Cowan Editorial Coordinator Fiona Newton 21 George Street, Louth, Lincolnshire LN11 9JU Tel 01507 602567 email editorial@ihbc.org.uk Editorial Board Fiona Newton (chair) Nigel Crowe (main features) Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Michael Taylor (main features) Cartoons by Rob Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2011 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Published for the Institute of Historic Building Conservation by Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury,Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA Tel 01747 871717 Fax 01747 871718 email context@cathcomm.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to non-members of the IHBC at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £50.00 Elsewhere £75.00 Subscription orders, together with remittances payable to Institute of Historic Building Conservation, should be sent to the IHBC Business Office at Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily held by the IHBC or the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication.While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Copy deadlines Context is published five times a year, in March, May, July, September and November.The copy deadlines in 2012 are: March, Issue 123 16 January May, Issue 124 19 March July, Issue 125 14 May September, Issue 126 16 July November, Issue 127 17 September HCA’s heritage investment The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has invested nearly £700 million in helping preserve and enhance England’s built heritage, according to the agency’s latest biennial report on its heritage assets. In the two years covered by the report the heritage assets brought forward for redevelopment included 51 listed buildings and 14 scheduled ancient monuments. The HCA transferred the freehold of five listed buildings following completion of major works to bring them back into re-use. A further six listed buildings and one scheduled ancient monument site were transferred to the management of a developer, while one site, the Grade II* listed Hanham Hall, has been redeveloped to BREEAM Excellent Standard for community use. The HCA invested £686 million in property and regeneration projects, including Park Hill in Sheffield and Lime Street Gateway in Liverpool. Since the period covered by the report, the HCA has completed the transfer of a nationally significant portfolio of assets from the former regional development agencies (RDAs). This includes more than 350 land and property assets, 52 of which are interests in 43 former coalfield sites. Many others are of local historic significance, such as Pump House No 5 at Chatham Maritime in Kent. A number of the inherited property assets also feature listed buildings. This includes buildings at Ancoats Urban Village in Manchester, often referred to as the world’s first industrial suburb, which is on the tentative list for world heritage site status. Forty-one per cent of the HCA’s historic assets are former hospital sites. The other main sources for the agency’s historic assets are from portfolios of the former English Partnerships and the Commission for NewTowns. Part of Park Hill, Sheffield’s deck-access megastructure The HCA’s Bewsey Old Hall inWarrington Jo Adkins removing paint to expose hidden corrosion
C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 3 controversially, should there be a Heritage Demon award? The developer who was recently prosecuted for demolishing a house in Richmond (see p5) springs to mind. David McDonald is chairman of the IHBC London branch. Industrial heritage at risk English Heritage has published the results of a major research project into the condition of England’s industrial heritage. It reveals that listed industrial buildings are more at risk than almost any other kind of heritage. Almost 11 per cent of Grade I and II* industrial buildings are at risk, compared to the three per cent of Grade I and II* buildings at risk in England. Forty per cent of listed industrial buildings at risk, such as mills, warehouses and factories, could be put to sustainable and economic new uses. The remaining 60 per cent, typically buildings that contain historic machinery, redundant engineering structures or mining remains, are of immense cultural value and often greatly loved. Lead, tin, copper and coal mines are the industrial sites most at risk on the register. Textile mills, also making up a large proportion, are often concentrated in a single place – Lancashire, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. The remains of 20th century industries are poorly understood, under-appreciated and very much at risk. Most industrial heritage sites at risk in the north east of England are things which are not capable of being converted for new uses, 54 per cent of them being connected to various forms of mining. Most industrial heritage sites at risk in the east of England are wind and watermills, and most in the south east are maritime structures. A poll of public attitudes to industrial heritage which English Heritage also published today shows that almost half the population does not know when the industrial revolution took place, and 80 per cent thinks that the industrial heritage is just as important as castles and country houses. English Heritage is offering a new developers’ portal on its website, offering advice on re-using industrial buildings. Each English Heritage local office will, for the first time, publish a list of 10 at-risk priority sites, many of which will be industrial. Developers interested in taking these on will get additional help from English Heritage to guide them through the process. A new guide to keeping buildings safe from decay or in temporary use until better economic times (Vacant Historic Buildings: an owner’s guide to temporary uses, maintenance and mothballing) is available from the English Heritage website. English Heritage, the Pilgrim Trust and the J Paul Getty Junior Foundation Machinery at Pleasley Colliery Tyntesfield Orangery, Somerset, before restoration A restored tomb at ArnosVale Cemetery Thanks to the angels David McDonald writes: Readers of Context who watch the Culture Show on BBC2 may have been following the progress of English Heritage’s Angel Awards. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the awards ceremony on 31 October. The venue was TE Collcutt’s marvellous Palace Theatre at London’s Cambridge Circus, formerly the home of Jesus Christ Superstar, and now showing the rather more worldly Priscilla Queen of the Desert. The event was opened by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who handed over to the compere, Clare Balding. The list of media names continued as the individual awards were presented by the likes of Melvin Bragg and Graham Norton. The only notable absentee was the Bishop of London, who had more pressing matters to deal with at St Paul’s Cathedral. The real stars of the show were those groups and individuals who, as Simon Thurley said, ‘demonstrated people power, passion and perseverance’ in bringing their respective heritageassets-at-risk back to life. The winners in the four main categories were: best rescue of an industrial building or site: Pleasley Colliery, Nottinghamshire; best rescue of any other entry on the heritage at risk register: Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol, and Church of St Stephen, Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead (joint winners); best rescue or repair of a place of worship: former church of St Antioch, Leeds; best craftsmanship employed on a heritage rescue: Smythe Barn,Westwenhanger, Kent. There was one final award, for the project with most votes from English Heritage members and readers of the Daily Telegraph. The winner was from the craftsmanship category and went to Tyntesfield Orangery, Somerset. The fact that this was the well-deserved ‘peoples’ choice’ was no doubt in part due to the National Trust’s enlightened approach to letting its visitors observe repairs being carried out at close quarters. Both Andrew Lloyd Webber and English Heritage should be applauded, not only for giving awards to some of the unsung heroes of conservation, but also at the same time highlighting the issue of heritage at risk. The occasion did make me reflect on two issues. First, should there be awards for those many heritage professionals who frequently go the extra mile? Second, more
4 C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 St Mary’s College in Oscott, near Sutton Coldfield, has been restored as student accommodation. ISG was the contractor. are putting £180,000 into a three-year industrial cold-spot grant scheme to kick-start rescue projects in places where few are going on. The scheme will be run by the Architectural Heritage Fund, which, with English Heritage, is putting £400,000 into part-funding three people to matchmake voluntary heritage groups with industrial buildings needing rescue. English Heritage is also to part-fund an industrial heritage support officer to set up a network of support and advice for trusts and voluntary groups. New life for Brute’s bridge Torfaen County Borough Council in South Wales is to conserve Aaron Brute’s Bridge in Blaenavon. The iron bridge, dating from the period 1820 to 1845, carried a primitive railway from the mine to the ironworks at Forgeside and Brute’s Row, the earliest industrial terraced housing in the area. Named after Aaron Brute, a stone mason and building contractor, the bridge is constructed from three cast-iron arches joined by iron plates on top and tie bars between the arches. It is considered to be one of the earliest examples of this type of bridge still surviving in South Wales. Following the removal of the bridge from its abutment walls, it will be restored, the abutment walls will be re-built and the restored bridge replaced. The task is complicated by the fact that a modern pedestrian bridge was installed on top of it during the early 1980s. Capita Symonds has been appointed as consultant. Letters Telford’s close shave From Dave Jump,Wales branch secretary I appear to have been misquoted in the report of the study tours I helped organise and guide (IHBC Annual School report, Context 121, September, p26). What I said regarding the survival of the Telford Bridge was: ‘Following the opening of the new road bridge, the residents of Conwy held a referendum, concerned that they would have to foot the maintenance bill for the obsolete bridge. A vote was cast 1,825 in favour of its demolition and 1,299 against. Luckily the authorities realised that the bridge’s attractiveness to visitors was important to the town. Later the bridge was purchased by the National Trust, which still looks after it and maintains it today. Unfortunately, as we saw, a piece of the town wall was lost to progress.’ The referendum was held in 1965. The published article implies that the people of Conwy were responsible for the bridge’s survival, which is not the case. Dave Jump intention to set up its own scheme’ was unfortunately out of date. Some conservation architects were critical of the assessment method adopted by the AABC and chose not to apply for membership. A number of years ago I published in the technical press two revealing observations. First, a significant number of schemes that were not conservation-based were being submitted by AABCaccredited architects for secular and non-secular historic buildings alike. I estimated the proportion of these inappropriate schemes to amount to as many as 20 per cent of the total, which is not to say that most members did not have the expertise. Second, only a small proportion of English Heritage regional offices included an AABC architect on their staff, although by then such registration had become a requirement of grant approval of conservation schemes that EH were themselves assessing for funding. Neither observation was countered at the time. In my view, entry criteria for the RIBA scheme are more appropriately drawn than for the AABC scheme, although there is still no provision for interview. The three levels of registration – specialist conservation architect, conservation architect and conservation registrant – may prove to be more helpful to the public. Like any scheme, its success will be in whether it is effectively monitored. JohnWinstone RIBA accreditation From JohnWinstone,Wells The article you carried in the May issue (‘Caring for the building and the client’, Christopher Catling, Context 119, p13) about the independent AABC scheme of architects accreditation in building conservation 10 years on, was surprisingly not followed up by an article on the new RIBA conservation register of architects scheme, now one year old. The author’s claim that the RIBA had merely ‘announced its
C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 5 Case report: London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Record fine for house demolition It is traditional in the conservation world that disasters happen on Fridays or over the weekend. True to form, I received a call from a concerned resident, on a rather quiet Friday morning, about demolition works that were taking place at 6 Trafalgar Road, Twickenham. An enforcement officer promptly went on site. The photographs she bought back made my jaw drop; the entire building had been demolished. 6 Trafalgar Road was a beautiful building. It formed one half of a pair of semi-detached villas which had shared an elegant, understated elevation. Although the precise date of the house is unclear, it was certainly extant by 1841, and was one of 12 pairs of villas of a consistent scale and style that formed a distinctive group. The significance of the estate was recognised early on by the London Borough of Richmond, being designated as a conservation area in 1969. In 1982 an Article 4(1) Direction was applied to the group and in 1983 they were locally listed. The only exceptions were 2 and 4 Trafalgar Road, which had been listed at Grade II in 1952. In response to the demolition works, the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames interviewed the owner of the property, Mr Johnson, under caution. At that interview it became clear that 6 Trafalgar Road was Johnson’s family home, that he had paid over £1 million for it in 2007, and that he had ordered its complete demolition. He had never applied for the necessary conservation area consent. The council issued a summons commencing the prosecution of Johnson for the offence of demolishing the building without conservation area consent. At the first hearing in the magistrates’ court, Johnson pleaded guilty and asked to be sentenced there and then. However, since the maximum fine available in the magistrates’ court is only £20,000 (and/or six months imprisonment), our counsel, Gary Grant, who prosecuted the case on behalf of the council, argued that the offence was too serious to justify the limited penalties available. The magistrates agreed and committed Johnson for sentence at Kingston Crown Court where the potential penalty is an unlimited fine and/or two years imprisonment. A prison sentence was never considered appropriate in this case. At Kingston Crown Court the case was heard by His Honour Judge Dodgson. The factors he assessed in determining the proper level of sentence were the degree of financial gain, the defendant’s state of mind, or culpability, and the degree of damage that had been done. Since owning the building, Johnson had obtained permission for a twostorey side extension and basement. His intention, following demolition, was to rebuild the house in replica along with the approved extension and basement. Expert witnesses on VAT and building costs for both the defence and prosecution agreed that by knocking down the building and then rebuilding it in replica, complete with the basement and side extensions, 6 Trafalgar Road formed half of a pair of semi-detached villas, one of 12 pairs. The judge described the effect on the closest neighbour, who was in her house at the time of the demolition, as ‘devastating’.
6 C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 rather than doing the works while the building was in situ, Johnson would have saved himself £109,320. As expert witnesses concurred on this point, Johnson was sentenced on an agreed basis of this level of financial gain. The defendant was also sentenced on an agreed basis of his state of mind, or culpability. This was that he had behaved ‘grossly negligently’ – a state of mind more serious than mere mistake or carelessness, but less culpable than a deliberate and wilful contravention. On the degree of harm, the prosecution, supported by Philip Davies of Philip Davies (Heritage and Planning) and me, and the defence, supported by CgMs, could not agree. All parties accepted that the conservation area was rightly designated, that 6 Trafalgar Road made a positive contribution to the character and appearance of the conservation area, and that a replica building, if executed accordingly, could substantially mitigate the harm to the appearance of the conservation area. We did not agree on the impact the demolition had on the character of the conservation area. As we could not agree on this issue, it was decided at a ‘Newton trial’, which is a mini-trial before a judge. On the edge of my seat in anticipation that I might be called to the stand, I found the Newton trial absolutely fascinating. Philip Davies, first on the stand, articulated the harm that the demolition had caused to number 6 itself, to the pair, to the larger group of locally listed buildings, and to the setting of adjacent listed buildings. He described the demolition of a principal house, of a form and type for which the conservation area was designated, as substantially harmful to the character of the whole conservation area. When cross-examined, Philip Davies was asked to agree that conservation areas are concerned only with areas, not individual buildings. He disagreed strongly, reaffirming that the individual buildings which comprised a conservation area were crucial to its character, and that the loss of a principal original building must constitute substantial harm. The defence then went on the stand. It was argued that the harm to the character of the conservation area was minimal, as the house was only one of 39, and that the character of the conservation area remained largely intact due to the remaining 38 houses. The defence argued that the overriding consideration should be to the conservation area and not the intrinsic architectural interest of an individual building. During cross-examination, Gary Grant asked one crucial question.What would happen to the cultural value, integrity and authenticity of a complete collection of Victorian stamps if one were torn up and replaced by a modern replica? An individual historic asset would have been destroyed and the collection as a whole diminished. The parallel was obvious. Having heard two days of submissions and evidence, and having taken a keen interest and visited the site himself, His Honour Judge Dodgson ruled that this was ‘one of the worst cases of its kind in this context’. Johnson was ‘highly culpable’. The effect on his closest neighbour (whose semi-detached house was now divorced from its partner and who was in her house at the time of the demolition) was described as ‘devastating’. ‘It may be,’ the judge said, ‘that in a few years to a casual observer the visual impact [of the rebuild] will be unnoticeable, but nothing can alter the fact that it is a replica…The point is made by Mr Davies in his witness statements that if we can just rebuild replicas, then why not replace all the paintings in the National Gallery with a series of photographs?’ Slapping his hand against the bench for emphasis, the judge continued: ‘There is something intangible and incredibly valuable about our history. Parliament has legislated to try and preserve our history in a number of ways and any act that destroys something of the age of that building can not be dismissed as minimal.’ Judges come across such planning cases rarely. During the trial Judge Dodgson noted that he was looking for any light in the dark to guide the level of sentence.We supplied him with the IHBC Prosecutions Database (which is available on the IHBC website). It seems to me essential that heritage professionals feed as much information on prosecutions into this database to guide sentencing in the future, particularly as Judge Dodgson noted that more detailed information would have been helpful. Johnson was fined £80,000, which is believed to be the highest recorded fine for the offence of demolishing an unlisted building in a conservation area, and ordered to pay £42,500 prosecution costs. Judge Dodgson commented that when Johnson’s own substantial legal costs were added to the equation ‘there will be no financial gain and, indeed, you will be substantially worse off’. In default of payment Johnson would have to serve 21 months imprisonment. If Johnson had not pleaded guilty, Judge Dodgson indicated that the fine would have been one of £120,000. This is a very sad case. ‘In my 40 years of experience,’ says Philip Davies, ‘this is the worst case I have encountered of the unauthorised demolition of an unlisted building in a conservation area.’ While photographs give a good idea of the devastation, it is only once you go to the site that you can experience the sense of loss and the level of harm. This case has involved a huge amount of work, but it has paid off. The London Borough of Richmond cherishes its historic buildings and this sentence sends out a clear message to those intent on saving money at the cost of our heritage. The task is now to get a replica building back on the plot. To this end a conservation area enforcement notice has been issued. Rachel Case, conservation officer, London Borough of Richmond (rachel.case@richmond.gov.uk)
C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 7 Periodically Back in September 2009, your reviewer had occasion to remark about a disappointing trend of a dumbing-down of content by some heritage publications, presumably to provide more bite-sized, information-lite material for a more general readership. Unfortunately, this is decreasingly informative to heritage practitioners. It is therefore pleasing to be able to welcome to the roster of reviews here The Historic Environment: policy and practice periodical, which is likely to be essential reading for heritage professionals. This refereed journal, initiated in 2010, is issued twice a year.The publisher, Maney Publishing, has been kind enough to supply the first three issues. Members of the IfA receive a copy as part of their annual subscription. IHBC members can obtain it at a 20 per cent discount. A number of articles are worth highlighting, and I hope to devote more space to the content of individual issues in future. The new journal takes perhaps a more holistic view of the historic environment than two other leading journals in the field, the Journal of Architectural Conservation and the Bulletin of the Association of Preservation Technology, both of which are more oriented to architectural conservation. All three provide a valuable international as well as a domestic perspective on best practice. Consequently The Historic Environment has more of a mix of archaeological and building conservation content. As might be expected, and is indeed welcome, there is also some inter-disciplinary overlap. The June 2010 issue (Vol 1, No 1) gives a particularly interesting and detailed overview of urban characterisation in the Black Country, as part of English Heritage’s Historic Landscape Characterisation programme. This subject, presenting particular challenges in a large industrial conurbation, provides the necessary evidence in support of local character and distinctiveness. This may prove to be essential as background to underpinning the concept of localism and managing the sort of change anticipated in the radical restructuring of the planning system. International perspectives are provided by articles on the archaeological challenges associated with the construction of an immersed road tunnel across the inner harbour in Oslo (not the scale of public works project one can currently readily anticipate being undertaken in the UK any time soon); and an evaluation of the main threats to the MoenjodaroWorld Heritage Site (2350–1800BC) in the Indus flood plain of Sindh, Pakistan. Another very sobering article, ‘Footprints in the Concrete’, deals with the difficult issue of the identification, heritage significance and management of the sites of camps in northern France used by Jewish slave labour while building part of the Atlantic Wall for the Nazis during the second world war. In the November 2010 issue (Vol 1, No 2), Dennis Rodwell examines the comparative approaches to the theory and practice of urban conservation in central and eastern Europe, using Zamość in Poland and Sibiu in Romania as examples. The former became a world heritage site in 1992; the latter was unsuccessful in its bid to become one in 2007. Rodwell notes the role of strong mayoral leadership about a decade ago in identifying the importance of the historic core of both cities as essential to city-wide strategies of sustainable urban development. In the same issue, Malcolm Cooper’s deliberations about the impact of cuts to public expenditure and regulatory reform in England and Scotland in the context of the change in political philosophy at the heart of government will be of particular concern to those readers in the public sector. Cooper was writing in 2010 at Historic Scotland, from which he has since retired. Although the debate about the role of the state and regulatory bodies has moved relentlessly onward since, the questions he poses about the balance between the constraint of the behaviour of individuals and the reduction of individual rights for the broader environmental benefit of society, now and in the future, remains germane to the continuing argument. The issue also looks at the international management of marine aggregates in relation to the impact on the marine historic environment. It also addresses concern about the underappreciation of, and lack of analysis of, historic urban areas and vernacular buildings in Portugal, with a particular focus on Coimbra in central Portugal. An area occupied since the 11th century is under threat from highway works, which would bisect it. The article presses the case for a better understanding of the area’s evolution, and of what this process could mean for urban buildings archaeology and historic area management in Portugal as a whole. The final item in that issue is a short but important one in which Harriet Devlin reviews recent online or DVD guidance for British home owners on undertaking preventive maintenance. Having looked at advice from English Heritage, Historic Scotland, Cadw and SPAB, Devlin asks: are they useful and instructive? She concludes: instructive, yes; useful, no. ‘A paper checklist and a calendar to act as a visual aid on your pinboard is probably the best and cheapest option, for in the end it is the manual doing rather than the intellectual viewing that will keep buildings going.’ It is worth drawing attention to David Dunworth’s long and highly informative
8 C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 article on the value of historic window glass and the use of chemical analysis to show how window technologies have changed over the past five centuries. Providing horrifying fascination is a well-illustrated paper about the policy of the former mayorYuri Luzhkov, who was rebuilding historic Moscow in facsimile. This approach of ‘restoration as re-creation’ is becoming normal as a consequence of the liberalisation of postSoviet Russia. Although the preservation movement in Russia has protested vigorously against the abuse, the article reports seemingly little prospect of a more enlightened approach. The issue has a detailed case study, illustrated in colour, of the conservation and restoration of two early 17th century ceilings in Edinburgh Old Town. There is also a stimulating paper examining the success of bottom-up community archaeology in Telford, Shropshire, a new town of the 1960s. It discusses how this influences the role of communities in heritage, and changes perceptions of community identity and engagement with heritage. The latest issue of the Association of Preservation Technology Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology (Vol XLII, No 2–3, 2011) will be of considerable interest to anyone concerned with modern heritage – the theme to which this issue is entirely devoted and which stems from the 2009 Association of Preservation Technology (APT) Conference. Thomas Jester and David Fixler discuss the progress made in the 25 years since the association last took an overview of the issues, in response to former APT president Michael Lynch’s prescient question: ‘What are we going to do with the recent past and in the not-too-distant future?’ The authors highlight the growing awareness in the 1980s of the seminal works of inter-war modernism and the neglect from which many were suffering; the establishment of DoCoMoMo ‘galavanising both modern zealots and committed conservationists’; and the difficulties of reconciling the principles and practices of preservation as they apply to modernism. There are excellent summaries of the philosophical and technical approaches over the last quarter century. The authors identify the problems arising from the sheer number of significant modernist buildings. They discuss how conservation management will apply to those constructed from materials with comparatively short life cycles, and how they will respond to the imperatives of sustainability and modifying climate change. Toronto is characterised by a substantial number of high-rise apartment towers built in the downtown core and inner suburbs during the rapid growth of the post-war period. Michael McClelland, Graham Stewart and Asrai Ord describe the ambitious programme initiated by the city council in 2008 to rehabilitate these towers. This programme marked an important departure from previous thinking that had placed little value on the conservation of buildings of this period. The Tower Neighbourhood Renewal Program focuses primarily on the towerin-the-park building typology that was integral to modernist urban planning ideas of the mid-20th century. In the UK, in concept, we might think for example of Roehampton, but there were numerous other less distinguished UK examples. These were more the result of public housing policy and urban renewal than growth. The Toronto initiative took a multi-faceted approach, upgrading the buildings particularly by over-cladding for energy conservation, with revitalisation of the community and refreshment of the landscaping on an unprecedented scale. This article is interesting for what it tells us about the contrast to the UK experience in the conservation of large-scale urban resources and the relationship to planning and politics. David Strauss discusses the refurbishment of Magnolia Branch Library in Seattle, built in 1964, and rehabilitated and extended in 2008. The distinguished single-storey, timber-framed building is in the west coast architectural tradition, which is still reflected in current architectural practice in the Pacific north west. It was formally protected in 2001. The detailed description of the balancing of repair, extension, upgrading of services and IT, and refreshing the original landscape scheme, demonstrate the need to consider change on the basis an interpretation of current objectives in the light of past intentions. The author emphasises the concerns that repair, even narrowly considered, is a revision. He quotes the Italian expression ‘traduttore, traditore’ – to translate is to be a traitor to the original. This might apply to all of us who attempt to improve or restore the work of exponents of a language whose meanings are still not lost. Equally interesting is Vanessa Fernamdez’ description of the preservation of post-war glass-clad office buildings to accommodate current energy controls, and the difficulties of reconciling sustainable design with the special architectural interest. The author discusses the evolution of this building type and the differing approaches to heating and ventilation according to regional climatic characteristics. She uses the case study of the refurbishment of the UNESCO Secretariat building in Paris. This building by Marcel Breuer and Bernard Zehrfuss, with Pier Luigi Nervi as engineer, was completed in 1958. It has a ventilated double-skin facade. Fernamdez concludes that the climate-control system can not be dissociated from the architecture of the building. ‘Although the history of devices, elements and materials related to environmental control in modern office buildings has not been widely explored,’ she writes, ‘the paper will give some clues to help understand their importance.’ A number of other papers in this issue are worth highlighting. Cameron Logan discusses modern hospitals as historic places. He concludes that as a consequence of design issues integrally tied to modernism – functional planning, campus development and built-in obsolescence – the conservation and adaptation of hospitals has proven difficult in North America.While attention in the UK has been given to Victorian and Edwardian hospitals as heritage assets, one wonders where the identification of the heritage significance of modern hospitals might lead us, given the political sensitivities, public expenditure constraint and priorities of the NHS. There are also papers on the sustainable restoration of Paul Rudolph’s 1963 Art and Architecture Building atYale University; consideration by Kenneth Itle and Harry Hunderman of the issues leading to the successful repair of the paved plazas which
C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 9 often surrounds modern towers and usually have accommodation below (a neglected but important subject which gets a valuable airing); the sustainable re-glazing of Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1959 Guggenheim Museum in NewYork; and the conservation of the 1969 kinetic light sculptures by the German light sculptor Otto Piene in the Hawaii State Capitol. This last item poses and answers the question: ‘Should preservation of mechanical components follow a museum standard, which generally favours the retention of original wiring, lighting, electronics and their associated ephemeral values, or is this value dispensable when dealing with architecture?’ Also worth noting in brief: the August issue (Vol 164, Issue EH3) of The Institution of Civil Engineers Proceedings on Engineering History and Heritage is a themed issue devoted to the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Scottish civil engineer John Rennie. It is not a biography but looks at six aspects of his work: his adaptation of steam power in mechanical engineering; his work on the Rochdale Canal; his work on the Waterloo Bridge and Southwark Iron Bridge; his drainage scheme for the Lincolnshire Fens; and his work with resident engineers. Finally, a short briefing note by AndrewTegg sets out the approach by BritishWaterways to the aftermath of vehicle strikes to historic canal bridges, with the Lancaster canal as a particular example (see also his article on the subject in Context 110, July 2009). The damage is costing the organisation an estimated £2.5 million each year to repair. Partnerships are being promoted with communities and regulatory authorities to minimise the damage. Bob Kindred MBE Adam Fergusson writing in The Persephone Biannually (Autumn/Winter 2011–12) about his 1973 book The Sack of Bath never made the original list at all. Acres and acres of eighteenth century streets had only recently been flattened to create those ‘comprehensive development areas’ with which the planning department had persuaded the city fathers that they must tackle the future… Already, two decades of tastelessness ranging from the uninspired to the grotesque starkly punctuated Britain’s most remarkable townscape. The then biggest names in architecture were involved: Sir Frederick Gibberd had designed the unspeakable Technical College. Owen Luder was behind the Southgate shopping centre, now mercifully replaced. Sir Hugh Casson, another luminary of the Royal Fine Art commission, was retained by Bath Corporation to guide its taste. I went to Bath then as a journalist. I returned as a crusader, horrified by what had already happened, by the planning blight that had caused neglect in so much that was saveable, by the demolition still proposed – and by the outrageously unsympathetic attitude of the city architect who had recently written an article on ‘the dangers of conservation’. Unlike any other major city of historic importance, Bath was built virtually in a single century. Uniquely, all Georgian Bath grew old together, as a unity. It never spawned a ‘West End’. Consequently, the little artisan houses and streets and lanes were as essential to the urban scene as the big set-pieces like the Royal Crescent and the Circus. The lesser dwellings are what Shelley might have called ‘unpremeditated art’ – with their sudden corners, tiny arches, wrought ironwork; the idiosyncrasies of raised pavements, tumbling steps, cobble-stones, narrow doorways, and twisting alleys. To destroy these informal streets, as Bath Corporation with its lust for comprehensive development was bent on doing in the early 1970s, was – these similes are not new – like denuding a forest of its wild undergrowth, robbing old masters of their frames… And who lived in the artisan houses and little inns and mewses and these diminutive streets which the corporation’s planning department was sweeping away? Well, they were precisely the people who made it possible to run the Assembly Rooms and the Pump Rooms, who serviced the city known to Jane Austen; the city visited by Johnson and Boswell and Nelson, and Sheridan and Sydney Smith and Dickens. And, unlike the constant stream of well-to-do visitors from all over Britain, down an ever more crowded Barth Road, these people dwelt in Bath all year long. In many way they were the real Georgian Bathonians: the sedanchair carriers, the launderers, the ostlers, the postmen, the grooms, the footmen, the buhl-cutters, the croupiers, the shopkeepers; the paviers, the chimney-sweeps and stonemasons; the families – of the landladies, and of the man- and maid-servants, and of the porters and the watchmen. Of course, if it is practicable (and it largely was and is), we must conserve this Bath as well… Hundreds of Bath’s Grade III [the nonstatutory grade, abolished in 1970] buildings had already been lost by 1972, in addition to the 2,000 Georgian houses which, mainly because they were so profuse, had ice | proceedings www.engineeringhistoryandheritage.com ISSN1757-9430 ICEPublishing ICEProceedings EngineeringHistoryandHeritage Volume164 IssueEH3 August2011 Engineering History and Heritage John Rennie Volume164 IssueEH3 August2011
10 C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 Will Holborow Regenerating surplus defence sites The handling of designation applications on surplus Ministry of Defence sites can be challenging, especially when they affect plans for disposal or redevelopment. Since the early 1980s, changes in defence policy have resulted in the closure of numerous military establishments, including naval bases, barracks, research facilities and RAF airfields.Areas which have been shaped by their military past, such as Aldershot, Chatham, Colchester, Gosport, Devonport, Portsmouth and Woolwich, have had to adjust to this contraction of the MoD estate by planning for new civilian uses. The next few years will see an intensification of the closure and disposal of MoD sites throughout the UK. The background to changes in the UK defence estate is set out in the government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review, published in October 2010¹. An announcement on ‘defence transformation’ in July 2011 provided details of future distribution of armed forces bases and rationalisation of the defence estate, including confirmation of the future of a number of individual sites. English Heritage advises the secretary of state on the statutory protection of heritage assets through listing or scheduling, including cases which arise from external requests. Over the past 20 years English Heritage has made great strides in understanding and protecting the military heritage of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially through national contextual studies.These include thematic designation projects on topics such as barracks (completed in 1998), military aviation (completed in 2005) and ordnance yards (completed in 2009). Although many disposal sites include listed buildings or scheduled monuments, the historical significance of these sites is often inadequately understood prior to their disposal. This can result in statutory designation casework arising at a late stage in the disposal process. The assets involved are often highly specialised, such as weapons systems, research structures and communications infrastructure. Some sites, including several former military airfields, are protected as conservation areas by local planning authorities. The MoD is required to handle the disposal of heritage assets in accordance with official guidance issued by English Heritage with the endorsement of the Office of Government Commerce and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport ².The aim should be to avoid piecemeal development, which could leave heritage assets isolated, or a protracted period of vacancy, which is likely to result in their deterioration. The method of sale adopted needs to ensure that heritage assets find sustainable new ownership. The MoD may need to assess potential purchasers and their proposals to ensure that they can fulfil agreed planning and conservation objectives. The great majority of disposal sites are sold on the open market for commercial development. Government policy is to obtain best value from disposals, taking into account public and community benefits as well as the financial return to the taxpayer. Although government guidance is clear that maximising receipts should not be the overriding aim where heritage assets are involved, ministers have only rarely been called on to endorse the sale of historic buildings at below full market value. One such example was the sale of the Royal Army Medical Woolwich Grand Store
C O N T E X T 1 2 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 11 College on Millbank to Chelsea College of Art in 2001. In exceptional cases, the government has used public endowments to support the transfer of nationallyimportant heritage sites to charitable trusts, beginning with ChathamHistoric Dockyard and Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust in the 1980s. These were followed in the 1990s byWalthamAbbey Royal Gunpowder Mills Trust and the Greenwich Foundation for the Royal Naval College.The enlightened use of public funds has secured these sites for public enjoyment, and helped to meet the costs associated with backlog repairs and decontamination works. Even successful regeneration schemes can have a long and difficult period of planning. In some cases this process has taken more than a decade to resolve. Delays in the regeneration of former defence sites are not unusual, due to difficulties in obtaining planning permission for development or downturns in the property market, especially since the current downturn in the economy began in 2008. Changes in the MoD’s estate development plans and the rights of former owners under the Crichel Down rules can hold up or prevent the sale of surplus sites. These delays can leave heritage assets vacant and vulnerable to neglect, resulting in them being identified as being at risk. Details of all listed buildings and scheduled monuments at risk on the MoD estate are published in English Heritage’sBiennial Conservation Report on the Government Historic Estate. Buildings on disposal sites have often been functionally redundant for years prior to sale. If they have been neglected, the backlog of repairs can be a deterrent to potential purchasers. However, the viability of regenerating surplus defence sites has been demonstrated by numerous examples around the country where historic buildings have become the focus of successful new neighbourhoods.The RoyalWilliamYard at Stonehouse and the Royal Arsenal atWoolwich (see the case study below) are two well-known examples which have been the subject of major, long-running regeneration projects. At Gosport, Hampshire, there is an extensive mixeduse regeneration area which encompasses the ordnance buildings of Priddy’s Hard and the navy victualling buildings of Royal Clarence Yard. Two adjoining groups of barrack buildings (St George Barracks, North and South) have been sympathetically converted to residential use. At Shoebury in Essex, the former barracks site has become a new residential area, with the historic buildings successfully converted to new uses and complemented by well-designed new housing. In some cases, historic buildings have been incorporated in new industrial parks.The former Royal Aircraft Establishment Factory Site at Farnborough is a successful example, where key listings were put in place and refined at the beginning of the development process. English Heritage wishes to learn from and build on the integrated techniques adopted for the evaluation of military heritage since the late 1990s³.The National Heritage Protection Plan (NHPP), published by English Heritage in April 2011, has identified defence disposal sites as a priority for action. A pilot study has already been completed examining 21MoD sites inWiltshire (see the article by Jeremy Lake on p22). Further stages of this NHPP activity will focus on refining the methodology and rapidly assessing selected military sites across the country. The heritage significance of military sites is often poorly understood while they remain operational, due to restricted access to them and the specialist nature of many of the assets they contain. Once declared surplus, they face a much greater level of scrutiny and public interest. Many pose significant challenges for Shoebury: the former barracks site has become a new residential area, with the historic buildings converted to new uses and complemented by new housing. Farnborough: key listings were put in place and refined at the beginning of the development process.
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