Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 125 July 2012 The heritage of sport
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C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 1 Cover: John Cobb in the 24-litre Napier-Railton taking the ‘bump’ on the Members’ Banking at Brooklands in 1935 (Photo: courtesy of Brooklands Museum Archive). See page 17. Institute ofHistoricBuildingConservation No125May 2012 The heritage of sport Editorial Fun and games 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 David McDonald 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 David McDonald email education@ihbc.org.uk Communications & Outreach Charles Strang email communications@ihbc.org.uk Branch Officers North Geoff UnderwoodTel 0191 433 3435 NorthWest Crispin Edwards Tel 0161 474 2620 Yorkshire David Blackburn Tel 01943 603479 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 JohnWebb Tel 020 8871 6645 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 The writer’s voice 4 Out of Context 5 Letters 5 Periodically 6 Supporting columns 9 Legal briefing 12 Designating for sport Anthony Calladine 14 Britain’s historic cricket pavilions Lynn Pearson 18 The sporting legacy of a garden suburb Rob Sutton 21 New life for Cleveland Baths Chris Balme 24 Walking the tightrope Tim Morris 26 Conference report: Industrial heritage, Berlin Dennis Rodwell 29 Notes from the chair 30 Director’s cut 32 Vox pop 34 Book reviews 35 Products and services 41 Advertisers index 44 The heritage of sport.Whatever made us think of that as a theme for this issue of Context? As Anthony Calladine writes (page 14), in terms of designation assessment, the requirements for protecting the heritage of sports infrastructure are not so different from any other assets. Architectural, archaeological, historic and technological interest, age and rarity must each be weighed in balance. But sports and recreation buildings are subject to particular pressures. A great deal of the interest in them is driven by emotion. The more popular a football club becomes, for example, the more likely it is to outgrow its ground. At Highbury, parts of the east and west stands of the old Arsenal Stadium have been incorporated into a development of apartments, and the former site of the pitch has been kept as open space. The developers recognised its significance: the reverberating roar of the Highbury crowd has not quite faded away. Even two reclaimed turnstiles from Derby County’s Baseball Ground (pictured on page 3) flank the entrance to a local Starbucks in a fond attempt to hold on to history. Chris Balme (page 24) reports on plans to re-use the UK’s oldest surviving public open-air swimming pools for their original purpose and as a visitor attraction. ‘The site,’ Balme writes, ‘has a propensity to flood.’ Today that is seen as a problem: we do not want just any water in our pools. Lynn Pearson (page 18) discusses Britain’s historic cricket pavilions, and some distinctive examples of their vernacular and modernist architecture. She notes the vulnerability of many of the pavilions through being set in open spaces and not permanently occupied. Like many examples of the sporting heritage, the relationship between buildings and open spaces is often the key to their magic. Rob Sutton (page 21) remembers a time when that relationship was built in to the design of a housing development. At Moor Pool estate in Birmingham, the inspiration of the garden cities and garden suburbs movement suggested that sport should be planned for as an essential part of normal life. Now, where’s that remote control?
2 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 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 2012 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 corporate bodies at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £60.00 Elsewhere £90.00 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 remaining copy deadlines in 2012 are: September, Issue 126 16 July November, Issue 127 17 September Working order The Grade II* listed Brixton Windmill, one of only four surviving tower mills in Greater London has been restored. It had been on English Heritage’s buildings-at-risk register. Built in 1816, the mill was run by the Ashby family for all of its working life, the last wheat being milled there in 1934. Dannatt, Johnson Architects worked with the Friends of Windmill Gardens and London Borough of Lambeth to restore the mill to working order. It is now a focus for education services to local school and community groups. The work included conservation and redecoration of the brick tower; repair and refurbishment of the windows; and internal timber work. Extensive work was carried out to repair the sails, including re-introducing a shutter system to allow the sails to turn with the wind. The mill’s unusual timber cap was repaired. At home with Soane This summer Sir John Soane’s Museum unveils the first phase of its £7 million restoration project. No 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the house next door to Sir John Soane’s Museum, has been restored to provide facilities for the museum. Phase 1 of Opening up the Soane reveals a new Soane-designed house, built and decorated by John and Eliza Soane for their own use in 1792. Languishing unseen until now, No 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, is an elegant, neoclassical townhouse, with its astonishingly elaborate decorations reinstated for the first time in 200 years. Soane’s lofty ‘geometric’ staircase has been restored, with the walls painted to resemble the sooty masonry of a Roman catacomb. Other features include two Pompeian-red rooms, one with a ceiling painted like a cloudy sky, and the Soanes’ breakfast parlour, its vault painted as a fictive vine trellis by John Crace, the artist who decorated the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Julian Harrap Architects was the lead conservation architect. Upstairs a new gallery for temporary exhibitions has been designed by Caruso St John in a Soanean livery of mahogany and mirror. The memories linger on Fiona Newton writes: We just can’t let go of our sporting memories, as the images on the next page stand witness. The main stand entrance from the 1920s Archibald Leitch rebuilding of the Baseball Ground, home of Derby County Football Club, has been rebuilt – rather incongruously – against the steel and concrete of the new Pride Park Stadium. Now known as the Lionel Pickering entrance, its erection in 2009, some six years after the Baseball Ground was demolished, commemorates CONTEXT READER SURVEY Let us know what you think about Context. Please take a minute to fill in our survey. www.surveymonkey.com/s/contextsurvey
C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 3 Two reclaimed turnstiles at Starbucks at Pride Park The reinstalled clock at Pride Park The gates to theVictoria Ground (Photo: Bill Klemperer) The Baseball Ground’s Lionel Pickering entrance a former owner of the club. The clock from the Osmaston End of the Baseball Ground was installed at Pride Park in 2009. The 273 Synchronous Timepiece was made in 1968 by the influential local clockmaker Smith of Derby, which for over 150 years has been responsible for numerous church and public clocks. And in a strange juxtaposition of local distinctiveness and global identity, two reclaimed Baseball Ground turnstiles flank the entrance to Starbucks at Pride Park. Elsewhere, the gates to the Victoria Ground, formerly home of Stoke City Football Club, have found a wellguarded home, having been moved to Knutton, Newcastle-under-Lyme. Discourses of opportunity Dennis Rodwell writes: ‘Sustainability and the City: Global Policy Dialogue’, a two-day event in March, was hosted and sponsored by the British Council and the University of Edinburgh. Its purpose was to open an extended interdisciplinary conversation about the future of cities, unconditioned by established models and the prevailing sense of doom. What if we understand the city as an opportunity, not a threat? Can we imagine a new urban paradigm to replace the industrial and modernist models that surround us? What can the developed and emerging worlds learn from each other? In many respects the event provided an antidote to the expressions of environmental and economic limits that characterised the BEFS congress in Edinburgh last September (see ‘Valuing Places: why, what and how?’, Context 123, March 2012). RichardWilliams, professor of contemporary visual cultures at the University of Edinburgh and initiator of the dialogue, noted that the pervasive but ill-defined concept of sustainability was colouring all debates. Economic growth, for example, was no longer considered necessarily advisable or desirable, and discussion on the subject was becoming polarised.Yet, as F Scott Fitzgerald is quoted as saying: ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function’. Sue Parnell, professor at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, argued that urban theory and practice required radical reform in order to address today’s challenges, coupled with the application of universal values. The challenges for sustainability were increasingly urban, yet current global debates lacked urban specificity in relation to key issues such as energy, water and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Parnell described modernism as a ubiquitous and evil force in Africa’s urban development, identifying equity in the redistribution of land as a key issue of governance. ‘Smart cities’ needed also to be ‘just cities’ in order to address the needs of the weakest and most vulnerable. One of the provisional conclusions of this dialogue was that a loss of confidence in the future is closing our eyes to realities and opportunities. The distribution of resources is a far more serious problem than their expiration. Natural limits are variable, resources are being continuously discovered, and scientific inquiry is not finite.We have moved from the age of enlightenment through the industrial revolution to the age of intelligence. AustinWilliams, director of the Future Cities Project, proffered that sustainability as currently articulated was simply a philosophy of risk aversion: ‘It imposes limits, is misanthropic and miserable’. Previous attempts to define limits – whether to the world’s population or to economic growth – had all proved wrong. Carbon dioxide had become a problem, and yet it was the sine qua non of plant life. Humans were said to be the problem, yet they were an unlimited creative resource. Williams contested the pretensions of environmental activists to moral high ground, and the arrogance of developed countries seeking to tell emerging economies: ‘We’ve had it; it hasn’t worked out; therefore you shouldn’t have it’. The notion of selling a doom-ridden future simply did not work. Sustainability was a vital concept to keep, but a
4 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 From The Story of Architecture by Patrick Nuttgens, Phaidon, 1983 The story of architecture begins with the story of civilisation, at the stage when primitive man found himself able to improve upon hunting and gathering by establishing a settlement. Not just a single building – if that was all he needed he could have stayed in a cave. Instead, with others, he established the beginning of a town or city. So intimate is the connection between man’s building of the first cities and his development of a civilised way of life that the very word civilisation comes from the Latin word civis, which means citizen, or dweller in a city. Sir Kenneth Clark points out that a sense of permanence is the prerequisite of civilisation, and what could more explicitly indicate that man meant to give up his wandering ways and settle down permanently than his building of a city? Men, said Aristotle, come together in cities in order to live; they remain there to live the good life. The earliest indications we have of this settling-down process, between 8000 and 6000 BC, have been found in agricultural villages on the hill fringes of Anatolia and the Zagros Mountains, and to the west in the Levant. Jericho, today a palm-tufted oasis town, dotted with lemon trees in the Judean desert, is the oldest recorded city in the world, and it is in such remains and those of cities further east that we shall find the earliest known architecture. Until the birth of archaeology, however, there was little to draw historians’ attention to the land, now generally accepted as the cradle of civilisation. The Greeks called it Mesopotamia; in the Bible it is the land of Shinar. This land occupied an area between modern Iran and Iraq along the 700-mile course of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates from their sources in the mountains of Anatolia southwards down to the Persian Gulf, and is said by tradition to have been the site of the Garden of Eden, the place where Genesis says human life began. Today it looks unprepossessing. But archaeologists have established that, during the 5,000-year gestation period of civilisation, this desolate area was a rich alluvial delta, teeming with fish and wildfowl. It was, as Leonard Cottrel described it in Lost Cities (1957), ‘the most fertile land on earth, mile after mile of flat green fields, palm-groves and vineyards, criss-crossed by a network of irrigation canals… which at dawn and sunset still show as dark lines across the alluvial plain.’ The area has become known as the ‘fertile crescent’, but as each generation discovers more remains of early man, its shape resembles less a crescent than an ink blot bounded by a scattered circle of seas – the Black and Caspian Seas, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. fundamental flaw in the current debate was an authoritarian approach. In his closing remarks, Karl Sharro, an architect, urged us to replace discourses of anxiety with ones of opportunity. The focus should be on recovering a vision for the future, harnessing humanity’s creative energies, and realising aspirations. Tindalls Cottage in its original location Listed buildings prosecutions Please note a change of email contact details for notifying the IHBC with information about listed building prosecutions. Send these to Bob Kindred at either government@ihbc.org.uk or bob. kindred@bobkindred.demon.co.uk Reconstruction TheWeald and Downland Open Air Museum, at Singleton near Chichester, West Sussex, is reconstructing Tindalls Cottage. The 18th century home will become the latest addition to the museum’s collection of rescued historic rural buildings. Tindalls Cottage was dismantled in 1974 as a result of the construction of the Bewl Water Reservoir, near Ticehurst in East Sussex, and has been in store at the museum since then. The cottage, timber framed with a large stone and brick chimney, contains two rooms on each floor, and an attic. Dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, it would have probably been originally the home of a labourer.
C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 5 status to any roadside polygonal plan building, such as that adjoining the old main road at Higham, west of Bury St Edmunds, and omit mention of the many (particularly here in the eastern counties) simple rectangular toll-houses that are now being demolished or altered beyond recognition, as seen in the photos of Carlton toll-house, just north of Saxmundham in east Suffolk. Patrick Taylor In good company From Ian Hume, Essex There is an error in Elizabeth McCrone’s article (‘Moving with the times’, Context 124, May). The lower picture is captioned ‘The Falkirk wheel, the world’s first and only boat lift’. I was much involved on behalf of English Heritage in the work to the Anderton Boat lift (built 1875). Wikipedia lists 16 other boat lifts. The Anderton is the oldest and the smallest, capacitywise, at 250 tons, and almost the smallest, at 15.25 metres lift. The largest and highest is under construction in China, and will lift 3,000 tons by 113 metres. Ian Hume Letters Turnpikes and toll-houses From Patrick Taylor, Suffolk My initial excitement at receiving a Transport Heritage issue of Context (May) soon turned to disappointment when I found not a single mention of the turnpike roads or of tollhouses, their main surviving artefact and the subject of my own recently published researches, reviewed from time to time in your publication. Also unmentioned in your coverage, the Milestone Society is perhaps ahead of the game here.When the oil runs out there will be a wave of nostalgia for this early national transport system, but it may well be too late, as much more will be lost by then. Our listings in this area are particularly out of date and often misguided. They attribute toll-house ‘This is the right time for me to move on and try my hand at a new challenge outside government.’ Ruth Parsons announcing that she will stand down as chief executive of Historic Scotland after a turbulent 30 months in the job. ‘The proposed new building does not complement or enhance the existing building or its wider setting.We remain concerned about the long-term sustainability of the scheme and its relationship with the neighbouring Aston University Campus. ‘We think there is potential to deliver a convincing design solution for this site which responds to the townscape quality of the listed building.We continue to urge the design team to rethink the scheme.’ Design Council Cabe commenting on the proposed conversion of Birmingham’s Grade II-listed former central fire station to student accommodation and commercial uses. ‘In honour of Glasgow tradition, the Olympic flame will be used to burn down a listed building to make way for a nightclub.’ Comedian Frankie Boyle celebrates the Olympic torch relay on Twitter (@frankieboyle). ‘Itwould be a great crime to remove these figures of London and national life. Newton fitted in at Leicester Square as his first experiments were about light and film. Hogarth’s association is with the bawdy, drunken side of London. The square shouldn’t end up with a bland landscaping which doesn’t link to place or history.’ Historian Tristram Hunt MP protesting in the Evening Standard atWestminster City Council’s decision to remove busts ofWilliam Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Isaac Newton and the surgeon John Hunter from Leicester Square during its refurbishment. The council explained that the statues,‘fairly weather-beaten and fragile’, had been taken into storage to be assessed.The busts were seriously damaged a few years ago when they were cleaned with hydrazine. Carlton toll-house in around 1993 (upper) and more recently: unlisted and unloved
6 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 Periodically After the lamentations by some about the loss of the Heritage Bill, there is a cautionary tale in The Historic Environment: policy and practice (Vol 2, No 2, 2011). It might be characterised as: be careful what you wish for. Raimund Karl describes the unintended consequences of Austria’s legislative equivalent of the UK Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act and also our Portable Antiquities Scheme. Austria’s laudable aim of licensing archaeological fieldwork only to those professionally competent to undertake it (archaeology graduates) led to a dramatic decline in the number of finds reported by members of the public. The author summarises this as ‘a heavy-handed, inconsiderate application of a well-intended but badly phrased law’, the Austrian National Heritage Agency having ‘virtually lost the ability to manage and protect the archaeological heritage of Austria’; legislation ‘utterly unsustainable and seriously damaging to archaeology and archaeologists alike’ leaving archaeologists ‘with responsibilities but no rights’. Sobering reading here for both enthusiasts for and skeptics of the Heritage Bill.With both camps still attempting to square the intensions of the 1990 Act, its unrelated National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) phraseology and associated good practice guidance. Of course, PPS5 is no longer with us, so the article about the potential deployment of discretionary powers by planning authorities under the statement to preserve heritage assets has been rather overtaken by events, especially in relation to fixed and immobile vessels from the UK’s National Historic Fleet. The mobilisation of national policy in the case of the paddle steamer Ryde, now abandoned and derelict on the foreshore near Newport, Isle of White, is the subject of a paper by Fred Aldsworth. He concludes by observing that English Heritage was intending to prepare guidance on the relationship between historic ships and planning, to be published on the HELM website. There is no obvious sign of it. If heritage is still often defined as a physical abstraction without a proper relationship to its occupiers, the paper by Ioannis Poulios gives pause for thought by posing the question: is every heritage site a ‘living one’? This term has received increasing recognition in the field of conservation, but the concept of community remains abstract. Community involvement, especially within the terms of world heritage site management, is still far from successful. Poulios argues that the strict concepts of world heritage tend to suppress the role of communities in maintaining and enhancing the living tradition of a site, but where they are given the primary role this can often be at the expense of the protection of the material evidence. It would be an interesting debating point were it to be applied to UK heritage assets generally. Sustainability, its definition and application, is the leitmotif of the NPPF, but it is of pressing concern everywhere. In North America its relationship to the philosophies and knowledge associated with building conservation and planning formed the keynote lecture by Mark Holland to the annual conference of APT in Victoria, British Columbia last year. The lecture forms the lead article in the latest edition of the Association of Preservation Technology bulletin, The Journal of Preservation Technology (Vol XLIII, No 1, 2012). In the UK the urgency to address sustainability issues is no less great and they have to be tackled globally. Holland believes that this should not be about us surviving but about ‘thriving’, and that one of the most important principles underpinning this is the building of a much stronger connection between ourselves and the places in which we live. Is this more ‘localism’ than just local physical distinctiveness? Holland argues that contemporary culture and technology make us too physically, socially and emotionally distracted and disconnected from where we live.We need to find greater ‘meaning’ in all aspects of personal and community life, how this meaning connects us to the fabric of time and place, and where we fit into that fabric. These are important concepts that should resonate more strongly if read together with those of Ioannis Poulios (above). Other articles cover important technical issues. Jennifer Schork, NormanWeiss and JohnWalsh present the comparative laboratory evaluation of conservation mortars, with particular reference to the growing number of binders – albeit naturally hydraulic ones
C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 7 – that have appeared in recent years on the North American market. These are set within the context of a general scarcity of laboratory-based literature by comparison with its availability in Europe. Testing of lime-water consolidation effects on poor lime mortars is the subject of a paper by Miloš Drdácky and Zuzana Slížková, in which the same issue of a lack of scientific data and published literature is highlighted. Laboratory testing suggests acceptable results of lime watering on a certain class of historic lime mortars from the technical and aesthetic perspective, but that the technique is not suitable for all situations. Consolidation appears to be effective only with applications running into three figures. This in turn may wash away sand grains and the binder in the original mortar surface layer, changing the appearance of the historic surface and, in historic plasters, risking mobilisation of water-soluble salts. Other articles look at specific building issues, two of which might resonate with UK readers. Mattias Legnér examines archival sources that have provided valuable information on the past indoor climate of a Swedish church from 1800 to 2000. The wider context here is changes to methods of heating in response to the symptoms of problems (humidity, surface soiling, dehydration of wood and beetle attack), not necessarily the causes. The archives have assisted in determining more clearly the past impact of wrongly chosen heating and ventilation systems; lack of maintenance; impact of building location (such as on wet ground); the building envelope; and the use of materials. Long-span documentation has been essential. It clearly needs to continue to avoid the kind of minimalist approach now favoured in England, where the least possible information that is ‘relevant, necessary and material’ is deemed to be necessary, without considering its longterm heritage management value. Thomas Boothby, Kevin Parfitt and Mark Ketchum have looked at the types of thin-shell concrete structures invented in Europe in the 1920s and 30s, and used by architect Milo S Ketchum and others in Colorado frequently enough for these structures to become a defining regional characteristic. Among those discussed are hyperbolic paraboloid roofs – one of the excellent 2009 shortlisted dissertation subjects submitted for the GASAs in 2009; and also structures of the kind recently the subject of some post-war listings. On the subject of buildings from the 1920s and 30s, the latest edition of C20, the magazine of the Twentieth Century Society (Spring 2012), features a number of 1930s town halls. These include Norwich, Swindon, Swansea and one facing the uncertainty of being vacated in 2013, Brent (originally Wembley Municipal Offices, built in 1939). Pevsner considered it one of the best of its kind. Its fate may rest in its potential conversion to hotel use. The building type appears to lend itself particularly well to this type of adaptive reuse. It has been successfully achieved at, for example, Bethnal Green (offices as bedrooms, council chamber as function spaces). The issue also has much else of interest: the campaign to restore features of the Paxton landscape at Crystal Palace now that the future of the Sport Centre (Sir Leslie Martin, 1954) is secure; the proposed rejuvenation of Sir Geoffrey Jellico’s Water Garden at Hemel Hempstead in his jubilee year (a post-war rarity on the National Register); celebrations of Powell and Moya’s Grade II* listed Chichester Theatre at 50; Arup’s spectacularly sited 1962–3 Durham University Student Union; and, last but not least, the 1957 house by J Roy Parker, featured in House and Garden in 1958 and recently acquired by Context’s book reviews editor Peter de Figueiredo. After recent conundrums in this column (when is a historic building not a historic building? A: when it’s a tree; and do you see a window as the frame or the glass? A: hopefully both), here is another: when is stone not stone – or, more precisely, natural stone? The columns of Natural Stone Specialist (February, March and April 2012) have carried a number of trenchant opinions about ‘reclaiming’ the words ‘natural’ and ‘stone’ that should be reserved for products that really are made from natural stone, not concrete. This elicited a good number of responses from readers and a debate on the LinkedIn professional networking site. A counter-argument was prompted from IHBC affiliate Simon Scott of Haddonstone, in relation to artificial stone as a substitute for natural stone. Further views expressed in the industry were that while some artificial products performed very well, many of them did not, or were at best roughly equivalent to stone at the very bottom of the quality spectrum. One writer stated that ‘the major constituent in cement may well be crushed limestone, but that doesn’t mean that we should call it stone’. Another pointed out that in relation to the need for more honesty about labelling stone products ‘we need to draw a line between legitimate selling of a product that desires to look similar to natural stone, and a product that pretends to be natural stone’. Given that, for example, some ‘Yorkstone’ comes from India, this debate is going to run and run. In the last issue, this column referred to the heritage legacy of Victorian railways. This has been picked up again by The Institution of Civil Engineers Proceedings on Engineering History and Heritage (Vol 165, Issue 2, May 2012) with a review of the work of the Railway Heritage Trust. It discusses some of the difficult decisions that have to be made when considering the conservation and restoration of historic railway structures, particularly bridges and viaducts. The trust’s budget is currently limited to around £2 million a year.
8 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 Consequently its grants, though invaluable, are small in relation to the total expenditure required. For those unfamiliar with the trust’s work, Andrew Savage, its executive director, outlines its formation in 1985, its operational management, and eight case studies of its involvement with, for example, the Newcastle High Level Bridge and the Royal Albert Bridge, Saltash. There are five other papers. One deals with the controversy surround the completion of the Silent Valley dam, a major source of water for Belfast. Begun in 1923, it was the subject of arbitration over parts of the construction from 1926 to 1933.The paper by Philip TA Donald explores the involvement of the engineers and lawyers. Donald lays bare certain untruths about the outcomes that he maintains have been allowed to circulate unjustly for over 80 years. For those involved in classical architecture, Jacques Hayman provides an interesting short paper on interpretations of the phrase scamilli impares, sometimes left untranslated in editions of Vitruvius.The scamilli occur where small geometrical refinements are prescribed for the construction of Greek temples. Opinion is divided as to whether scamilli were some sort of physical aid to the surveying process or more abstract, such as a system of measurement. Other papers deal with subjects as internationally diverse as ancient underground aquaducts in Oman (the aflaj system) now designated as world heritage sites; the evolution of late 19th century large-truss road bridges in New SouthWales; and the career of Russianborn engineer Vladimir Bodiansky, and what this tells us about the gradual change of status of engineers in France in the inter-war period. The latest Transactions of the Association for the Studies in the Conservation of Historic Buildings (Vol 34 2011) [sic] has recently appeared, presenting wellillustrated subjects in greater depth than is often permissible in most other serial heritage publications. This year the volume was supported by a generous bequest from Corinne Bennett, who died in 2010. Some longstanding IHBC members will well recall during the Brighton Annual School a memorable and highly illuminating tour of the recently restored roofs of Brighton Pavilion led by Corinne. Aspects of her work on that incredible building, together with her work at Wilton House andWinchester Cathedral, are the subject of appreciations by Jill Channer, DuncanWilson and Gary Seymour. Corinne Bennett (and Harry Fairhurst, who died in 2011) is also central to a description by Richard Halsey of the early years of the English Heritage Cathedral Repair grant scheme. Halsey explains how their work greatly contributed to the 20 years of concentrated effort to bring English cathedrals into a good state of repair. He describes the tensions between the Association of English Cathedrals and English Heritage about the latter’s role, and the concerns expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Prime Minister in 1990 that ‘a proper evaluation of need and the resources available’ should be undertaken in part because of ‘real anxiety among cathedral architects’ about the role of English Heritage. To assuage these concerns, the then English Heritage chief executive Jenny Page agreed to set up a dedicated cathedrals team rather than farm the work out regionally. Halsey’s fascinating resume of the tortuous administrative and political difficulties that were overcome defines aspects of a scheme the like of which we shall not see again. The need to fully understand exceptional significance is demonstrated by an article by Eleni Makri about her painstaking work to stabilise the east parados wall at the Theatre of Dionysos in Athens. This urgent monument preservation, undertaken over a number of years, was completed in 2005. Successful conservation required an understanding of the history of this 6th century BC structure, only rediscovered in the second half of the 19th century, assisted by photographic records of subsequent attempts to conserve it. Such documentation (as in the Swedish case above) enabled an appreciation to be formed of the mechanisms of its decay and structural failure, and provided a basis for the philosophical and technical appraisal of the proposals adopted for its eventual conservation. In the last Periodically, reference was made to an article by Dante Vanoli of Purcell Miller Tritton about the conservation and re-servicing of the Arab Hall at Leighton House, Holland Park (listed Grade II*). The subject reappears in the Transactions. This is also worth perusal as it has more colour illustrations, which helpfully underscore the slightly different emphasis on the treatment of historic finishes. Historic finishes proved almost the least of the difficulties facing the English Heritage project, described by Nick Hill, to rescue the JW Evans silverware factory in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. The premises, which had been in one ownership from the company’s foundation in 1881 to its closure in 2008, are a unique and remarkably complete survival. The application of the philosophy of conserve as found (preservation in situ and untouched) was taken to its logical extreme. It encouraged a radical approach to preserving the extraordinary atmosphere of the interior on a scale never previously attempted in the UK. Sadly, towards the end the manufacturing skills employed were almost as close to extinction as the business itself. The silvermaking processes have been preserved by a documentary film archive. This is a case where there is not a truly ‘living’ heritage and, if there was, it would almost certainly compromise the remarkable fabric if public access was to be allowed on a commercial scale. Bob Kindred MBE transactions volume 34 2011 AssociAtion for studies in the conservAtion of historic buildings ice | proceedings www.engineeringhistoryandheritage.com ISSN1757-9430 ICEPublishing ICEProceedings EngineeringHistoryandHeritage Volume165 IssueEH2 May2012 Engineering History and Heritage Volume165 IssueEH2 May2012
C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 9 Supporting Columns How to avoid killing yourself Following his reflections in our previous issue, Ian Hume draws some more lessons from his long career as a conservation structural engineer. They might just save your life. After my beginnings as a draughtsman, I moved on to become a professionally qualified structural engineer designing reinforced concrete-framed buildings such as UK embassies and high commissions, and aircraft hangers. I was involved with committees for British Standards and, following a number of serious accidents, a government committee on the adequacy of temporary works. How to access dangerous structures is an ever-present problem. Do we start at the top and work down, or start at the bottom and work up? For the initial inspection one should always start at the bottom, so that a floor can be inspected before it is walked on. One decaying country house had a stunning ballroom that immediately invited viewing. Subsequent exploration of the cellar showed the ballroom floor to be seriously rotted and dangerous. Never walk on piles of debris, as therewill be uncertainty as to the condition of the floor that is hidden beneath. Never go alone to dangerous buildings and do not put your life at risk. Ruins are perhaps best examined from hydraulic platforms and through binoculars, as there is always a risk of falling masonry and floors. It is best to avoid wet, windy or frosty weather when inspecting ruins and other very dangerous structures. Have you ever used an old fixed access ladder, only to find when you were part way up that it was quite rotten? I have. Such ladders should be inspected before use – often a difficult chicken-and-egg problem, as decayed areas might well be part way up. Having reached the top of a long ladder accessing a church dome in Delhi, I was alarmed to discover serious rot. Have you ever been to a building and discovered that you need a ladder to get into the loft, but while you do not have a ladder there is an old dining room chair of suitable size? Do wait until you have proper access equipment. I have never yet fallen through an old chair but there is always a first time. Steeplejacks’ ladders present an interesting challenge. They are not for the fainthearted, so do not be tempted to use them unless you feel really confident. Half way up the first one I used, fixed to a 70 metre chimney in Belper, I met someone coming down. The best way to inspect things like factory chimneys or spires is to get the steeplejack to take a detailed video of the problem. You can then carry out your inspection from the comfort of your living room. It is not quite the same hands-on experience, but it is rather safer. Like so many aspects of life, one thing bears on another. So it is with my early experience with temporary works relating to later work with historic buildings. I long ago concluded that it is often quite easy to decide how to solve an historic building problem, but that it is quite another matter to decide how it can be done safely.We need to pay particular attention to how rotted beams are to be Two sides of the same piece of timber
10 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 replaced, howwalls can be taken down prior to rebuilding and, a particular interest and recurring problem of mine, how delaminating faces on tall towers can be taken down and rebuilt.With any of these problems it is often best to consult a structural engineer who is experienced in such matters. Do old buildings and structures collapse without warning?Yes, but in my experience, apart from a couple of very badly decayed structures, collapses usually occur during repair works.There has not been sufficient attention paid to the detail of the temporary works, they have been put in the wrong place, they are too small or they have not been put in at all. It has long been my practice to ask to see details of the temporary works that the contractor proposes to use two weeks before they are installed. Although this muddies the waters of responsibility, I believe it to be vital. I may have been involved with the building for months, if not years, visited many times, and have a good understanding of how it works.The contractor, on the other hand, has probably not been involved for long at all. I can think of several cases where the contractor’s proposals might well have caused serious problems if not amended before installation, usually through a lack of understanding of how the building worked. This applies to anything from the use of a couple of telescopic props as to major temporary works schemes. Early reinforced concrete is worth a brief mention. There were some weird and wonderful methods of reinforcing concrete structures in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. Some of the methods resemble the system of top and bottom bars with links with which we are all familiar, but many methods consisted of bottom reinforcing bars only,with no top reinforcement and little if anything by way of shear reinforcement.This may well influence the way in which the structure can be safely altered or how temporary works can be installed. Probably one of the most difficult things to do is to ‘uncondemn’ a building that someone else has condemned as incapable of conservation or repair. I have been asked to do this on a few occasions. It all boils down to understanding the structure, to inspection and to experience. I have one particularWestminster building in mind, which now stands happily albeit after some major intervention. I recall a great deal of rot and significant settlement, due to the almost total lack of foundations. Structural monitoring is a useful tool in the armoury of conservation structural engineers. Is it moving, how much is it moving and which way is it moving? My experience suggests that the longer one looks at cracking and deformation, the worse it seems to get. Cracks often get grubbier and settlement often looks worse than it did whenwe looked last time.Answering these questions often involves structural monitoring: the careful measurement of cracks, leans and settlements. Such measuring can be very expensive, but there are a number of modest ways of tackling the problem if the job you are dealing with can not support great expenditure. A series of articles in Context in March, June and September 1996 dealt with simple monitoring in some depth.We can be quite convinced that a structure is stable while others are convinced it is moving. All of this leads me on to a committee with which I have had a long involvement.The ConservationAccreditation Register for Engineers (CARE) lists structural and civil engineers who have proved to their peers that they have a good track record of dealing with historic fabric in a sensitive way. Find the list by going to the website of the Institution of Structural Engineers and typing CARE into the search box. Having encouraged you to ask the contractor what is proposed by way of temporary works, it is often a good idea to ask contractors and craftspeople how they would go about the repairs.They often have long experience and great skills, and professionals can often learn a great deal from them. Rather than concluding that I did not have a clue as to how to tackle a particular problem, craftspeople were always pleased to be asked for their views, happy to share experiences and ideas, and pleased that a professional thought their views and ideas important. Health and safety are clearly important but there is often a fine balancing act. I recall a debate about the relaying of the Donkey Road atWhitby.The road is paved with stone blocks and has distinct raised courses every 200mm or so to allow donkeys to grip the otherwise smooth surface of the steep pathway. Having been dug up in sections and relaid in a piecemeal fashion over the years for laying cables and so on, the road needed proper relaying.There was discussion about these raised courses causing a tripping hazard to people, there not being many working donkeys left in Whitby, as against the need to retain them as part of the character of the surface. In the end, the raised courses were preserved, their existence being considered to be clearly visible and regular in pattern. Inspections are very important. Do not ever jump to conclusions about what is wrong with a structure; check everything as best as you can. I recall visiting a country Some elaborate temporary works at Castle Howard Mausoleum Would you walk on this floor if you knew about the joist?
C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 11 Caroe& Partners Architects Wells | London | Cardiff | Ledbury Tel 01749 677561 | info@caroe.co.uk | www.caroe.co.uk house where the dining room ceiling had developed serious cracking. The immediate conclusion was that there was something wrong with the beam supporting the upper floor; probably it had been attacked by deathwatch beetle. Inspection showed that the problemwas the very large chandelier, which proved not to be fixed to a beam, as we had imagined, but simply screwed into the plaster. Why it had not collapsed when it was first installed was far from clear. Do not assume that the wall downstairs is directly below the one upstairs. It probably is, but equally it may not be. Does the wall have a foundation that would meet current regulations (even remotely)? Probably not, but does this matter if the building is surviving undamaged? Inspection will help solve this conundrum. Always look for the expected: rotten timber where it is built into external walls; lack of bracing where walls or timber frames lean; and lack of foundations where walls crack. But also look for the unexpected: decay at the centre of a beam where all should be well; old water courses under buildings allowing otherwise sound foundations to fail; voids in apparently solid walls; and snap headers inVictorian brick walls that appear to be better bonded than they really are.Timber is a material that can often catch us out by appearing to be in fine fettle when really the side up against a wall or hidden by boarding hides decay. One church roof I examined proved to have quite serious decay when the boards were lifted. Even when I knew this, the normally exposed surfaces were in excellent condition. I was left wondering howmany other roofs that I had pronounced as good actually had hidden problems. Try using a decay-detecting drill to check out suspect timber members. These drills bore holes just 1mm in diameter 200mm deep into timber to check for decayed areas, causing minimal damage and can be hired with an expert operator for relatively modest sums. Poking wood with a penknife or a screwdriver really is not good enough. Lessons 1. Take care on ladders and in dangerous situations: good conservation professionals are hard to come by. Context June 1997 has an article on safety. 2. It is often much easier to develop a repair scheme than it is to work out how that scheme can be installed safely. Think about temporary works when developing conservation schemes. 3. Consider structural monitoring if you or others are in doubt as to the degree or direction of structural movement. 4. When advising on repairs, bear in mind the safety of those carrying out the work and the stability of the structure, and take proper advice from someone experienced in such matters. Consider using the services of a conservation engineer. 5.Just how good is that beam you have just looked at? Would it benefit from a proper inspection with micro-drilling? Ian Hume teaches conservation engineering. He was chief engineer at English Heritage from 1987–97 and a conservation engineering consultant until 2008.
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