C O N T E X T 1 3 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 4 7 In the final paper of note, Cath Neil and Steve Roskams describe the successes and limitations of community work during archaeological investigations at Heslington,York. A combination of time pressures of commercial excavation, the need to conduct student training and carry out academic research, and a programme of community engagement comprised a number of inter-related complications. These required a collaborative approach, from which the authors define wider lessons that can be drawn. The latest issue of the Institution of Civil Engineers Proceedings on Engineering History and Heritage (Vol 166, issue EH4, November 2013) contains rather more international items than usual and is wide ranging in scope. After an appallingly wet UK winter, concerns about waterway management, rivers, canals and dams have been much to the fore. The paper counterpointing this and with the greatest domestic interest concerns recent conservation engineering work to make John Rennie’s Grade I listed Lune Aqueduct watertight. This engineering marvel, carrying the Lancaster Canal over the River Lune, just north of the city, is a monumental five-span masonry structure built between 1793 and 1796. Leslie Clark, principal engineer to the Canal and River Trust, explains the history and form of Rennie’s original construction and a succession of leakages. These started (in the adjacent embankment) as early as 1798, and occurring to the canal trough at intervals, culminating in a major leakages in 2006 and 2008. This led to significant repairs assisted by an Heritage Lottery Fund grant in 2011–12. The significance of the aqueduct as heritage led to the rejection of options to seal the internal faces of the tough masonry structure, or undertake reconstruction. Sealing the trough by grouting and providing new concrete approach channels was considered likely to be the best solution. The author sets out how three stages of grouting works of the aqueduct were undertaken. He comments on the issues that arise with grouting masonry structures of this kind and notes how current practice relates to the three types of mortar originally specified by Rennie. Clark sets out nine lessons that could be applied to similar projects. The Proceedings also includes four papers on engineering history: various perspectives on 18th-century bridges in the Languedoc, France; the collapse of a cable-stayed road bridge in Germany in 1825; Gustave Eiffel’s aerodynamic experiments from 1903 to 1921 (including examples of early wind tunnels); and methods of cooling the heat build-up generated during the construction of mass concrete dams in America in the 1930s. Natural Stone Specialist has concluded its recent overviews of building stones by Barry Hunt in the November and December 2013 issues by looking at slate; its sources; fitness for roofing and other uses; a table of suggested classifications of roof slate quality; and a table of some standard tests and ranges of results. The November issue also describes the renovation of St Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, Irish Republic, devastated on Christmas Day 2009. All 28 of its solid Irish blue limestone Ionic columns have been replaced. The December issue describes how the Belgian-owned Erinstone company has been extracting this stone from its quarry at Old Leighlin in the republic, where fortuitously the stone beds are about 1.75m high, for use in architectural projects including the Longford cathedral. In his director’s notes in the latest SPAB Magazine (Winter 2013) Matthew Slocombe makes several telling points that seem to have otherwise gone unremarked in the publicity surrounding the award of the 2013 Stirling Prize for Architecture to the Astley Castle project. First, he writes, this exemplar should be a springboard to encourage architecture school students to engage more with historic building work (the society is talking to the RIBA about conservation roadshows). Second, while it was the new work that grabbed attention, the repair of the surviving historic fabric did not receive the same degree of attention, despite consolidation of the original walls being a considerable challenge.Yet again inconspicuous and self-effacing conservative repairs and the professional and craft skills required to complete them have been insufficiently recognised. Also in this issue, Jeremy Musson (this year’s judge of the IHBCGus Astley Student Awards) places the rapid decline of the country house in the mid-20th century in the context of commemoration of the start of the first world war. Timothy Easton extensively illustrates protective and symbolic markings by leadworkers on Suffolk church roofs, and seeks help in identifying similar characteristics elsewhere (including on the lead roofs of country houses). Bob Kindred MBE
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