: DIRECTORY OF ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES, PLANNING CONSULTANCIES AND CHARTERED I SURVEYORS EXPERIENCED IN HISTORIC/LISTED BUILDING WORK The Organisations below have paid 10 be included in the Directory. Conseque111ly,their appearance should not be taken to imply any endorsement or approval by the Association WEST MIDLANDS Wheatley Taylor Stainburn Lines Chartered Architects Powyke House, Powick Worcester WR2 4QR Tel: 01905 830577 Fax: 01905 830965 Also at Ledbury, Herefordshire and Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire Award winning practice specialising in the restoration, repair and adaptation of Historic Buildings, Listed Buildings and Ancient Monuments. Consultants to English Heritage, The National Trust, Local Authorities and Museum Trusts. Recent projects include the lronbridge Gorge Museum, Kenilworth Castle, Eastnor Castle and Hawkestone Hall. The Practice has over 25 years experience in the specialist field of Conservation work and can offer a full professional service for all types of project. Winners of the 1993 King of Prussia Award and the 1994 John Betjeman Award. S T Walker and Partners Architects and Consultants 68 Harborne Park Road Harborne Birmingham B17 0DH Tel: 0121-428 4282 Fax: 0121-428 3880 Consultants to the National Trust, English Heritage, and Local Authorities for the repair, consolidation, conservation and reuse of Listed Buildings and scheduled Ancient Monuments. Strategy reports prepared. Recent Commissions include Attingham Park (NT), Stokesay Castle and Clun Castle (EH), Ludlow Castle (Private), Tredegar House and Park, Gwent (Newport Borough Council). This Directory provides a service for Conservation Officers with Local Authorities, and others, when they are looking for specialist professional help with their conservation and repair of historic/listed buildings. A standard Entry (Six line information panel plus address details) in four consecutiveissues of "Context" at £30.00 per issue costs a total of £120.00 plus VAT.Additional lines may be purchased at £1.75 per line plus VATper issuei.e. £7.00 plus VATforfourconsecutiveissues.Tobe included in the next editionof this Directory or for further information pleasewriteor telephone: Context PublishingDepartment,Hall-McCartneyLtd., HeritageHouse,PO Box21, Baldock, HertfordshireSG7SSH Tel:01462-896688 Fax:01462-896677 48 Continued from page 45 strates the breadth of editorial interest and material presented during Godwin's tenure of office. Geographically the coverage was world-wide, although with an understandable emphasis on British and colonial examplt;s. Stylistically Godwin was eclectic, giving fair exposure to all contemporary styles while contributing to the Victorian ferment to identify a style appropriate to its day. The introductory essays are, in themselves, worthwhile pieces of historical research providing a good insight into the history of the joumal, its editor and contemporary publishing technology. The meat of the work is, however, the catalogue and index the compilation of which has been a Herculean task pursued from the early 1980s. The catalogue gives a single entry for each illustration as it appeared chronologically,indicating page number, type of illustration (and number) and any accompanying quotations. There are sixindices:geographical, titular (as per the catalogue), names (eg client, architects, engraver); roles (eg client, architect, contractor); style (as originally assigned); and subjects based on the RIBA keyword system. Attempting to review so broad an undertaking is a near impossible task; only extended use of the catalogue and index will effectively test its methodological soundness and accuracy. Issue might be taken, however, with the decision to base the geographical index on a benchmark of 1985. Hence the transient metropolitan counties - West Midlands, Greater Manchester etc, unknown to the Victorians and themselves abolished in 1986, appear alongside the 1964 London Boroughs of indeterminate location -Newham Havering, Redbrige Hamlets. How much better it might have been to have stayed with the 'real' places which featured in The Builder's pages. This though, is a modest complaint given the size of the project. The authors, and publishers are to be congratulated on their initiative and courage in seeing the enterprise through. A CD-ROMversion is scheduled to appear. This may give the work a more ready access than the £125 price tag might normally permit. It is to be hoped the publishers and their team BOOKS will be encouraged by the reception of this initial volume to index the post-1883 output. Less in quantity but of no less value to historians and conservationists. Alan Taylor SCOTS SOUND SENSE The Care and Conservation of Georgian Houses - a maintenance manual for Edinburgh New Town. 4th Edition. A. Davey, R. Heath, D. Hodges, M. Ketchin, R. Milne. ButterworthHeinemann. 1995. Softback. 290 X 210 mm. 320pp. 100 line (half-tone) illus. ISBN O 750618 60 4. £40.00. Edinburgh New Town was begun in 1767. Over approximately the next 80 years it expanded to form what is still one of the finest pieces of town planning and coherent urban architecture in Europe. The New Town survived well into the post-war period before the pressures for urban redevelopment and change began to threaten its survival. Concerted action by the City Council, the Edinburgh New Town Conservation Committee and others since the early 1970s, to arrest this trend, has made the fine preservation of the New Town one of the major successes of the late 20th century conservation movement. The initial edition of this manual was produced by the ENTCC as a guide for local households (the area is still predominantly residential) in the mid 1970s. While there is much in this new enlarged 4th edition that is particular to the special tenurial, aesthetic or constructional circumstances of the New Town tenements; or is localised to Scotland through the guide to conservation of all historic buildings, even the more specialised chapters on legal agreements and multi-proprietor conservation programmes have lessons for conservationists becoming involved in pro-active management (for example through English CAPs), or where ownership or occupation oflarge buildings is becoming sub-divided. Underpinning the authors' approach is a firm belief in a regime of preventive maintenance rather than more costly emergency repair. Owners are advised to commission at least an annual inspection of gutters, roofs and more vulnerable timberwork or decorations. At least 1 % of the capital value of the building should be set aside annually for routine maintenance. An architect should be retained to undertake a quinquennial inspection. Pointedly the writers suggest that failure to maintain a tenement adequately may preclude its eligibility for public grant. They suggest, too, that it would be a profligate waste of public money for grant aided buildings to lapse back into disrepair; although it is unclear how any disbursement could be clawed back. There are timely warnings of the risks of competitive tendering whereby lowest price will, unless only specialist contractors are involved, produce the lowest standard of work. Owners are enjoined, whenever any structural instability is suspected, to seek advice from a qualified structural engineer experienced with conservation work. This approach is underpinned by an apparently more interventionist building regulation role than in England. Individual chapters take building owners through all the disparate constructional, spatial and detailed facets that make up their tenements, highlighting potential damage, and promulgating appropriate repairs of stonework, stairs, floors; rainwater goods; door handles, bell pulls. All are considered in an admirably comprehensive and lucidly written and illustrated survey. The writers are keen to stress the retention of historic fabric; the re-employment of traditional materials and techniques; or the need for reversibility where new products have, unavoidably to be used. They especially stress the need for historic buildings to breathe and move - by use of lime mortars and plasters, or avoidance ofimpermeable paint coverings on older, moisture retaining surfaces. Against this, the authors' ready acceptance of cement based mortars even at 1:2:9 strength is curious; and their suggestion that intra-mural timber bonding timbers be replaced by rigid concrete sleepers seems quite reckless. These are but minor quibbles in the context of a large and detailed but eminently readable CONTEXT SO
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=