RESTORATION ROUND UP FINDING FAULT Sharlston Hall is a Grade II* timberframed manor house with a complex structural history spanning the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. The earliest part of the house originally had a crown-post roof, blackened with soot from the open hearth. A high solar wing dates from around 1500, with a possible chapel wing adjoining. A richly decorated porch and service wing date from the second half of the sixteenth century and a kitchen wing from the seventeenth. The setting of the house is English Heritage Action £Im repair offer for Ribblehead Viaduct English Heritage has offered up to £1 million towards the repair of the historic Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, but after many months there has been no response. The Viaduct is one of the most spectacular Victorian engineering structures, carrying the famous Settle-Carlisle railway, which runs through some of the finest landscapes in Britain. The Viaduct, a Grade I listed building, needs extensive repair as a result of over a century of progressive weathering. British Rail, which has applied to the Department of Transport to close the railway, claims that repair would cost over £4 million. English Heritage experts on historic engineering structures are convinced that the cost would be just over £2 million. However, if deterioration continues, the cost of eventual repair could be distinctly greater. English Heritage have proposed a pilot repair scheme 19 enhanced by the survival of its seventeenth and early eighteenth century garden enclosures, in an angle of which stands a high pillared gazebo, overlooking the village green and two medieval fishponds. The house is built across a geological fault. Successive mining operations by the local colliery made repairs necessary in 1894, when the mullioned window in the northern wall of the hall was renewed, and in 1976, when sub-standard repairs were carried out by the National Coal Board. Following additional mining operations in 1985, further dramatic movement took place with ground on the northern side of the fault subsiding as much as 18 inches in relation to the land surface to the south. The fault runs diagonally under the solar, under a corner of the hall, under two garden walls and cuts across a massive seventeenth-century stonelined drain, 10 feet underground, as can easily be seen in adjoining fields. The solar wing, which retains the major elements of its timber frame, has reacted well to the stresses imposed upon it and has tipped northwards on its axis. In contrast the hall, cased in stone in the sixteenth century, was seriously damaged with cracks in the wall wide enough to see through. The subsiding stonework dragged down the surviving timber framework buried within it and the roof, no longer restrained by the medieval tiebeams (removed in the which would finally settle the arguments about cost. English Heritage, together with many others, believes that the railway should be kept open, and that a feasible scheme for doing this is possible. Not only would this keep the viaduct in use, but would likewise keep in use the many other Victorian buildings on this line, such as seven other viaducts and station buildings. Retaining the railway would save an economic lifeline for the historic towns and rural communities of the area. The viaduct was built in 1875 for the Midland Railway, to the design of the engineer J. S. Crossley. It is 156ft tall at its highest point, and its 24 arches spanning the Pennine moorland render it one of the grandest historic railway sights in England. Enquiries to: Stephen Williams 01 734 60 I O ext. 887 Emergency Action to save Revesby Abbey In mid December 1987 specialist workmen, acting on behalf of English seventeenth century), spread some three feet. Archaeological investigation by the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service showed that the medieval occupation levels had been removed in the seventeenth century. A photogrammetric survey of both faces of the north wall of the hall, preceded its dismantling course-by-course: this unexpectedly revealed that all the stone had been robbed from the ruins ofNostell Priory. A reinforced concrete foundation now spans the fault and the wall has been rebuilt in its original form, with stonework bedded in lime mortar matching the original mix. The subsidence of the timber frame and sixteenth-century floor frame was corrected as far as possible, but it was impossible to raise them to their original position because of the need to retain a satisfactory junction with the tilted solar wing. English Heritage has throughout provided generous quantities of professional advice and has also undertaken regular monitoring of the continuing movement in the building. Mr D. G. and Mr M. E. Cooling and their families, whose farm centres on Sharlston Hall, have suffered the complete disruption of their home with a good humour which has seldom failed. David Miehe/more, Historic Buildings Specialists Ltd., Horbury Hall Heritage, moved in to carry out emergency repairs to Revesby Abbey, a neglected Victorian mansion near Boston, Lines. English Heritage acted under an Emergency Repairs Notice; the first time it has used this procedure. Revesby Abbey is a Grade I listed Jacobean-style mansion, designed in 1843 by William Burns, a leading architect of the period. It contains shaped gables, sub-Renaissance details and interior baroque plasterwork. It has been empty for some 23 years, the roof is deteriorating, and the ceilings, chimney-pieces and other features are being destroyed by dry rot. An application by the owner to demolish Reves by was refused in 1977. English Heritage wants to find a long-term solution for the building, which is currently for sale. New Head of Historic Areas Mike Pearce from Hampshire County Council has been appointed Head of Historic Areas, a post held very effectively by Alfie Wood until his early retirement because of ill health.
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