Movinglistedbuildings David Morton discusses a way of extending the useful lives of buildings which have fallen on hard times. The stimulus for this article stems from two things: first a piece in Private Eye (Conservation Officers must be widely read!) which concluded that listed buildings should not be moved and secondly a listed building I know which is situated in the middle of a chemical works. While, obviously, in the vast majority of cases the issue of moving a listed building should never arise, there are some situations where it might be justified or even perhaps positively encouraged. The building in question was originally a 17thcentury timber-framed manor house set in open countryside. Originally it was the house of a minor land owner, becoming a farm possibly around the time of Enclosure. Over the years, the building has undergone substantial changes. So far this is not an unusual history for a 17th century manor house. Very few remain unchanged and their development over time can, when sympathetically carried out, be part of their attraction. In the late 19th century, however, the building itself (and more particularly its surroundings) changed radically as it was engulfed by a chemical works. Today it is difficult to evaluate the real intrinsic merit of the building mainly because of the changes which have taken place to it over the last hundred years. These include some demolition and rebuilding so that only one complete wing of the original building remains and one elevation of this has been rebuilt in what can best be described as a very poor quality pastiche (softwood and hardboard!). The building was listed Grade II in the 1970s, when it was an isolated domestic scale building in a sea of modem industrial plant. Not really sympathetic development over time. Today the public cannot see the timber framed house and large lorries regularly rumble close by. It clearly has no future in its present location for domestic purposes and a building of this scale does not have any practical future within the works. Realistically as a listed building it 44 is quite meaningless. PPG 15 doesn't give any guidance on how to deal with this type of situation! Listed buildings are moved but only rarely and normally only as a last resort where demolition is the only other option. Features such as market crosses and monuments have often been moved in the past for road schemes and are perhaps the simplest and most common examples where this can be done at relatively little cost. Other cases are in quite a different category and involve what might be described as major regional or national infrastructure projects. The moving of two listed houses in connection with the construction of a new airport runway is one example and another is the moving of a water mill to allow the building of a new reservoir. The need to move listed buildings with schemes of this type will continue. Very occasionally, buildings are moved as part of the listed building consent process, although even here major schemes are usually involved. I know of an example of a Jacobean timber framed building which was being encroached upon by both industrial development and a housing estate which was simply jacked up and moved about half a mile by a specialist firm. Bob Kindred mentioned a case to me some time ago of a 16th century mediaeval warehouse in the middle of a bottling plant affected by a road scheme. This was taken down, stored for a number of years, re-erected and then re-listed. This latter comment raises the very relevant point of the status of a listed building after it has been moved. It really is not the original building and it is quite proper that it should be reassessed when it has been re-erected. In detail, each case involving the removal of a listed building is different and depends upon the location, building materials etc. Two basic SirTitus strands which they all have in common, however, is that doing the job properly is not cheap and requires specialist skills. In the examples quoted so far, there were strong regional or economic factors and large organisations were involved which meant that the cost was a relatively small amount of the overall budget and the necessary professional skills could be bought in. Organisationally, this is the least complicated way of moving a listed building but there are others Museums such as Beamish, Ironbridge and the Weald and Downland have most experience of moving buildings (although not all are, of course, listed) and re-erecting them in a way in which both the building and its setting can be appreciated. This is often a 'rescue' approach and is not a general panacea. Organisations of this type can only deal with a strictly limited number of buildings and they already have a 'waiting list'. In reality therefore, removal to a museum is likely to apply only or mainly to buildings of particular interest or quality. What about more run of the mill listed buildings, such as the one in the chemical works which don't fit into any of these categories? Is the only real option here slow decay or demolition? As far as a listed house or similar sized building is concerned, there is no such thing as a yardstick cost. Some work I did two or three years ago suggests that the cost of taking down a listed house and re-erecting it in a proper professional way may be slightly higher than simply putting up a new building. It is rarely therefore a straightforward economic proposition and the case of the house in the chemical works seems to confirm this. The fragile condition of the building was a problem in itself and in any case a timber framed building is probably the most difficult to move. Many of the timbers were in poor condition Context 56 December 1997
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