Wednesday, 24 July 2019
Panem et...
And then he ran away with a circus. But with a clown having kissed the Queen's hand today, I think I'm in the saner place. Life is certainly not going to be dull from now on.
Sunday, 5 March 2017
Good lord above...
...fossicking around on the computer I came across this. Maybe it's time to revisit it - though life these days is very different. No sheep, no lime, and lots of trivia.
Be back again soon,
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Where did the time go?
Ye gods, it's 11 months since I last wittered. Eleven months in which the conservation project in West Wales has come to an end, and with it the agonies of local government bureaucracy and the sheer bloody frustration of dealing with the Welsh Assembly.
And now I'm in London. Without the dog. Which is sad, but desperate times force desperate measures. And, as they say on FaceBook, it's complicated.
At the moment I'm flat-hunting, peering up the arse-end of the rental sector in North London like a disillusioned proctologist. Longer term the plan is to bring some of the conservation expertise to bear on London. OK, not much rubble-stone walling to build, but plenty of repointing and plastering that needs doing, and no end of opportunities to inform, educate and entertain in the ways of traditional materials.
That's the plan, anyway.
And I will also try to update this more frequently, and make it more interesting. Lord knows a chap needs some amusement when there's no dog.
And now I'm in London. Without the dog. Which is sad, but desperate times force desperate measures. And, as they say on FaceBook, it's complicated.
At the moment I'm flat-hunting, peering up the arse-end of the rental sector in North London like a disillusioned proctologist. Longer term the plan is to bring some of the conservation expertise to bear on London. OK, not much rubble-stone walling to build, but plenty of repointing and plastering that needs doing, and no end of opportunities to inform, educate and entertain in the ways of traditional materials.
That's the plan, anyway.
And I will also try to update this more frequently, and make it more interesting. Lord knows a chap needs some amusement when there's no dog.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
A bad workman blames...
All is not peaceful in the world of lime, it would seem.
Following the success of a television series about Griff Rhys Jones’s project to restore Trehilyn, a farmhouse on Strumble Head in Pembrokeshire, Griff produced and presented a second television series about the restoration of the farm's outbuildings.
It followed the now-familiar formula of TV building programmes, with idyllic shots of natural scenery intercut with anxious pieces to camera about slipping deadlines and minor crises. All very cosy and formulaic, but pretty undemanding telly for a September evening.
Unfortunately, however, one of the ‘disaster’ vignettes has proved rather damaging to the world of building conservation and to the reputations of two companies who should be celebrated as the 'good guys' rather than cast in the role of villains.
Griff wanted to restore two derelict buildings on the farm and convert them into holiday lets. This being Pembrokeshire, he wanted one of them to have a common feature of many buildings in that part of Wales, a grouted roof.
A what?
Grouted roofs are an oddity; a classic example of bodging that has now become part of the vernacular, but one which is as ‘authentic’ as a Derbyshire goitre or bowel cancer in Scotland, if truth be known.
The practice stems from the way roofs were built and the parsimony and poverty of the farmers in the region. Pembrokeshire roofing slates are heavy, lumpen things, more than twice the weight and thickness of the more widespread Welsh slate. Traditionally they were fixed to the roof using square oak pegs forced through a round hole in the slate and simply hooked over the battens. To keep them from lifting, the slates were then ‘torched’ into position from below with a fillet of lime mortar.
It’s a simple and effective method of fixing, but one that requires regular maintenance. The roofs are incredibly heavy, and if allowed to decay, the structure suffers. The pegs shrink and fall out of the holes, allowing the slates to slip, and the sheer weight of the roof can pull the battens loose, resulting in the roof parting company at the ridge and slumping towards the eaves. To remedy this takes skill and money – and money was in short supply in Pembrokeshire in the latter years of the 19th and the early 20th century.
So, as a classic bodge, the farmers came up with a solution. A bag of the new miracle material, portland cement, was stirred up with water and sloshed all over the roof in a slurry so it would set and hold the loose elements in a hard shell of cement. To stop the roof slipping down over the eaves, that other new wonder-material - barbed wire - was used, with lengths nailed into the wall plate and taken up over the ridge and down the other side to secure the loose courses in a cradle of wire. The grouting was sloshed over the top, resulting in a roof that looked like a flat slab with regular vertical ridges where the wire ran up and over.
It was simple but not terribly effective. Every few years another load of wire and cement was tied and sloshed over the top, and the grouted roof became a common sight. An annual coat of limewash over the cement gave the roofs a brilliant white appearance, and a thousand picture postcards were born.
However, after a few decades of repeated grouting, the roofs became dangerously weak from the sheer mass of cement, while the barbed wire inside crumbled away. It was an object lesson in the folly of short-term, penny-pinching repair, but the look was established as unique to Pembrokeshire; the grouted roof had become a part of the vernacular and was ‘authentic’.
So when Griff wanted a new roof for his barn conversion, it had to be a grouted roof. Forget the fact that a new slated roof would have decades of healthy life in it before any repair became necessary, forget the fact that grouting a brand new roof in the name of ‘authenticity’ is about as absurd as taking a healthy child to a Victorian reenactment and breaking its legs to give the appearance of rickets. Forget even the fact that grouting was done with cement and barbed wire in a desperate attempt to save money and defer proper repairs; the roof had to look ‘authentic’.
Of course, being a conservation project, cement was out of the question – the roof had to be grouted with lime. Modern hydraulic lime, at that. The fact that roofs were never grouted with lime, and that hydraulic lime was pretty much an alien material in West Wales until the end of the 20th century clearly didn’t register.
In theory, however, it should have worked. After all, grouting the roof in lime, trowelled on in three, keyed coats like any other render, is little different to rendering an upright wall in hydraulic lime. It didn’t work, however. The coats delaminated, the lime failed to carbonate properly and large sheets of render/grout came slipping down over the eaves.
It all made for great car-crash TV. Cue the anxious pieces-to-camera and the scramble to allocate blame. After all, the fault must lie somewhere, and none of those involved in specifying or applying the stuff was going to say, “It’s a fair cop, I got that wrong – the whole thing was a daft mistake.”
From the view of a detached observer – me – it appeared that the workmanship was at fault. Lime, even hydraulic lime, needs to be kept damp and away from direct sunlight and wind to cure fully. Each coat needs to be applied to a damp background if the suction isn’t to strip the water out of the render before it can go off. If it dries too fast the lime won’t bond to the aggregate and will simply crumble. If it’s worked to hard with a steel trowel the mix will start to change, with the lime coming to the surface leaving a layer of sand underneath which won’t key to the underlying coat, however well scratched it is.
All of that, it appears to me, seems to have happened on the roof at Strumble Head. I’ve seen it happen on walls before – lack of wetting, inappropriate trowelling and no protection gives exactly the result seen on Griff’s roof. But no – the builder insisted that somehow the lime was to blame. It had somehow failed to do its job, and the allegation was broadcast in the television programme.
For 90 per cent of the viewers it probably meant little; just another hiccup in a make-over programme, and don’t we all love dramas?
But the allegation was important because it would seem to be unfounded and highly damaging to the hard-won reputations of the two companies involved in its supply. The lime came from Ty Mawr in Brecon, a company which has done more than any other in Wales to promote proper practice in the conservation and repair of traditional buildings. Ty Mawr runs courses for anyone interested in learning how to use lime, and will give advice on site as to how to overcome problems. It sources its lime from Singleton Birch in Lincolnshire, a company which has been making lime since 1815, and which makes thousands of tons of the stuff every year. I use their hydraulic lime and it’s the best you can buy; kilned from chalk to give a lime which makes a soft, very sticky mortar and render which cures beautifully. Beautifully, that is, if you know how to treat it properly.
Both companies were effectively defamed by the allegation that they supplied ‘dodgy’ materials. Word spread. On the grapevine there were mutterings that Singleton Birch lime wasn’t up to standard, that it didn’t ‘go off’ properly. There were mutterings that Ty Mawr must have questionable quality control.
For Singleton Birch the episode was an annoyance – the company supplies tens of thousands of tons of lime to the steel and civil engineering industries each year, and the building limes branch is but a tiny part of its operations.
For Ty Mawr, however, the episode was devastating. Here was a company which had built an enviable reputation on supplying the highest quality materials and the expertise to use them to the best, and on national television it was being accused of delivery sub-standard stuff.
Sadly sides have been taken and battle-lines drawn up. There are those on the side of the builder at Strumble Head who now refuse to use Singleton Birch lime and who will not order from Ty Mawr. They cannot accept that there is nothing wrong with the lime that was supplied - a fact proven by expensive analysis of some of the failed grouting, which shows that the lime supplied was perfectly fit for purpose.
Interestingly, I understand that the analysis did show that some gypsum appeared to have been added to the mix. Gypsum – a constituent of modern skim plaster – is sometimes gauged in with lime plasters for indoor use to help them set quicker with less shrinkage. It should only be used in a situation where the plaster will remain completely dry once it has carbonated. If a plaster gauged with gypsum gets wet it will start to break down. It should never be used for an external render. Ever.
It goes without saying that there is no gypsum in Singleton Birch lime when it’s put into its sealed bags in Lincolnshire.
The television programme was broadcast over a year ago, and the rumbles from Strumble are still being heard around the Building Limes Forum and beyond.
Ty Mawr can’t afford to go to court to fight an expensive defamation action, and Singleton Birch hasn’t been hit hard enough to warrant consulting m’learned friends, but the affair is an object lesson in the cost of careless talk.
Following the success of a television series about Griff Rhys Jones’s project to restore Trehilyn, a farmhouse on Strumble Head in Pembrokeshire, Griff produced and presented a second television series about the restoration of the farm's outbuildings.
It followed the now-familiar formula of TV building programmes, with idyllic shots of natural scenery intercut with anxious pieces to camera about slipping deadlines and minor crises. All very cosy and formulaic, but pretty undemanding telly for a September evening.
Unfortunately, however, one of the ‘disaster’ vignettes has proved rather damaging to the world of building conservation and to the reputations of two companies who should be celebrated as the 'good guys' rather than cast in the role of villains.
Griff wanted to restore two derelict buildings on the farm and convert them into holiday lets. This being Pembrokeshire, he wanted one of them to have a common feature of many buildings in that part of Wales, a grouted roof.
A what?
Grouted roofs are an oddity; a classic example of bodging that has now become part of the vernacular, but one which is as ‘authentic’ as a Derbyshire goitre or bowel cancer in Scotland, if truth be known.
The practice stems from the way roofs were built and the parsimony and poverty of the farmers in the region. Pembrokeshire roofing slates are heavy, lumpen things, more than twice the weight and thickness of the more widespread Welsh slate. Traditionally they were fixed to the roof using square oak pegs forced through a round hole in the slate and simply hooked over the battens. To keep them from lifting, the slates were then ‘torched’ into position from below with a fillet of lime mortar.
It’s a simple and effective method of fixing, but one that requires regular maintenance. The roofs are incredibly heavy, and if allowed to decay, the structure suffers. The pegs shrink and fall out of the holes, allowing the slates to slip, and the sheer weight of the roof can pull the battens loose, resulting in the roof parting company at the ridge and slumping towards the eaves. To remedy this takes skill and money – and money was in short supply in Pembrokeshire in the latter years of the 19th and the early 20th century.
So, as a classic bodge, the farmers came up with a solution. A bag of the new miracle material, portland cement, was stirred up with water and sloshed all over the roof in a slurry so it would set and hold the loose elements in a hard shell of cement. To stop the roof slipping down over the eaves, that other new wonder-material - barbed wire - was used, with lengths nailed into the wall plate and taken up over the ridge and down the other side to secure the loose courses in a cradle of wire. The grouting was sloshed over the top, resulting in a roof that looked like a flat slab with regular vertical ridges where the wire ran up and over.
It was simple but not terribly effective. Every few years another load of wire and cement was tied and sloshed over the top, and the grouted roof became a common sight. An annual coat of limewash over the cement gave the roofs a brilliant white appearance, and a thousand picture postcards were born.
However, after a few decades of repeated grouting, the roofs became dangerously weak from the sheer mass of cement, while the barbed wire inside crumbled away. It was an object lesson in the folly of short-term, penny-pinching repair, but the look was established as unique to Pembrokeshire; the grouted roof had become a part of the vernacular and was ‘authentic’.
So when Griff wanted a new roof for his barn conversion, it had to be a grouted roof. Forget the fact that a new slated roof would have decades of healthy life in it before any repair became necessary, forget the fact that grouting a brand new roof in the name of ‘authenticity’ is about as absurd as taking a healthy child to a Victorian reenactment and breaking its legs to give the appearance of rickets. Forget even the fact that grouting was done with cement and barbed wire in a desperate attempt to save money and defer proper repairs; the roof had to look ‘authentic’.
Of course, being a conservation project, cement was out of the question – the roof had to be grouted with lime. Modern hydraulic lime, at that. The fact that roofs were never grouted with lime, and that hydraulic lime was pretty much an alien material in West Wales until the end of the 20th century clearly didn’t register.
In theory, however, it should have worked. After all, grouting the roof in lime, trowelled on in three, keyed coats like any other render, is little different to rendering an upright wall in hydraulic lime. It didn’t work, however. The coats delaminated, the lime failed to carbonate properly and large sheets of render/grout came slipping down over the eaves.
It all made for great car-crash TV. Cue the anxious pieces-to-camera and the scramble to allocate blame. After all, the fault must lie somewhere, and none of those involved in specifying or applying the stuff was going to say, “It’s a fair cop, I got that wrong – the whole thing was a daft mistake.”
From the view of a detached observer – me – it appeared that the workmanship was at fault. Lime, even hydraulic lime, needs to be kept damp and away from direct sunlight and wind to cure fully. Each coat needs to be applied to a damp background if the suction isn’t to strip the water out of the render before it can go off. If it dries too fast the lime won’t bond to the aggregate and will simply crumble. If it’s worked to hard with a steel trowel the mix will start to change, with the lime coming to the surface leaving a layer of sand underneath which won’t key to the underlying coat, however well scratched it is.
All of that, it appears to me, seems to have happened on the roof at Strumble Head. I’ve seen it happen on walls before – lack of wetting, inappropriate trowelling and no protection gives exactly the result seen on Griff’s roof. But no – the builder insisted that somehow the lime was to blame. It had somehow failed to do its job, and the allegation was broadcast in the television programme.
For 90 per cent of the viewers it probably meant little; just another hiccup in a make-over programme, and don’t we all love dramas?
But the allegation was important because it would seem to be unfounded and highly damaging to the hard-won reputations of the two companies involved in its supply. The lime came from Ty Mawr in Brecon, a company which has done more than any other in Wales to promote proper practice in the conservation and repair of traditional buildings. Ty Mawr runs courses for anyone interested in learning how to use lime, and will give advice on site as to how to overcome problems. It sources its lime from Singleton Birch in Lincolnshire, a company which has been making lime since 1815, and which makes thousands of tons of the stuff every year. I use their hydraulic lime and it’s the best you can buy; kilned from chalk to give a lime which makes a soft, very sticky mortar and render which cures beautifully. Beautifully, that is, if you know how to treat it properly.
Both companies were effectively defamed by the allegation that they supplied ‘dodgy’ materials. Word spread. On the grapevine there were mutterings that Singleton Birch lime wasn’t up to standard, that it didn’t ‘go off’ properly. There were mutterings that Ty Mawr must have questionable quality control.
For Singleton Birch the episode was an annoyance – the company supplies tens of thousands of tons of lime to the steel and civil engineering industries each year, and the building limes branch is but a tiny part of its operations.
For Ty Mawr, however, the episode was devastating. Here was a company which had built an enviable reputation on supplying the highest quality materials and the expertise to use them to the best, and on national television it was being accused of delivery sub-standard stuff.
Sadly sides have been taken and battle-lines drawn up. There are those on the side of the builder at Strumble Head who now refuse to use Singleton Birch lime and who will not order from Ty Mawr. They cannot accept that there is nothing wrong with the lime that was supplied - a fact proven by expensive analysis of some of the failed grouting, which shows that the lime supplied was perfectly fit for purpose.
Interestingly, I understand that the analysis did show that some gypsum appeared to have been added to the mix. Gypsum – a constituent of modern skim plaster – is sometimes gauged in with lime plasters for indoor use to help them set quicker with less shrinkage. It should only be used in a situation where the plaster will remain completely dry once it has carbonated. If a plaster gauged with gypsum gets wet it will start to break down. It should never be used for an external render. Ever.
It goes without saying that there is no gypsum in Singleton Birch lime when it’s put into its sealed bags in Lincolnshire.
The television programme was broadcast over a year ago, and the rumbles from Strumble are still being heard around the Building Limes Forum and beyond.
Ty Mawr can’t afford to go to court to fight an expensive defamation action, and Singleton Birch hasn’t been hit hard enough to warrant consulting m’learned friends, but the affair is an object lesson in the cost of careless talk.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Taking the piss
A client wanted to do a spot of plastering and fancied trying his hand himself. Nothing wrong with that - I'm all for spreading the word about proper materials as well as hogging work for myself.
He wanted to mix his own plaster, and saw from Ty Mawr's website that a local branch of Jewson's stocked tubs of their lime putty. How very forward-thinking of Jewson's. And then he asked the price.
£24.45 per tub, plus VAT!
That's seriously taking the piss. OK, as a trade customer, I could get that from Jewson's for around £13 a tub, but Nigel at Ty Mawr sells the stuff direct for £8.40 - or a tonne for a shade under £200. By contrast, a tonne of putty from Jewson's would cost my client nearly £800. Is it any wonder that people are put off doing the job properly because of the cost?
He wanted to mix his own plaster, and saw from Ty Mawr's website that a local branch of Jewson's stocked tubs of their lime putty. How very forward-thinking of Jewson's. And then he asked the price.
£24.45 per tub, plus VAT!
That's seriously taking the piss. OK, as a trade customer, I could get that from Jewson's for around £13 a tub, but Nigel at Ty Mawr sells the stuff direct for £8.40 - or a tonne for a shade under £200. By contrast, a tonne of putty from Jewson's would cost my client nearly £800. Is it any wonder that people are put off doing the job properly because of the cost?
Now where was I?
...before I was interrupted by a vulgar little myocardial infarction? Probably ranting.
Anyway, it would be nice to say that I'm back with lots to report, but if truth be known, the chill hand of the recession has gripped this part of the world to the extent that very little is ongoing. In some cases that's a blessing; I was beginning to despair of the number of "renovation" projects that involved stripping out as much original fabric as possible and replacing everything with either plastic or imported hardwood before giving everything a liberal coating of cement and gypsum. thankfully most such projects are on stop, and the speculative cowboys and ignorant second-homers seems to have retreated for the time being.
The second-homers are a bloody pain, though. This year many houses have remained empty and unkempt as the absentee landlords forsook their two weeks in the rain and cut back on the gardener and the part-time housekeeper, and some villages around here are looking rather shabby as a result.
Even before this summer's abandonment I ground my teeth when I heard Lord Hindlip's lumpy daughter on the Today programme. She said that as the owner of two holiday homes she did her bit to support the local communities; nevertheless, "communities have to save themselves," was her blithely Thatcherite prescription.
I'd love to plonk her in the middle of a village near me where two thirds of the houses are empty for much of the year and see how she sets about galvanising that community in helping itself.
Anyway, it would be nice to say that I'm back with lots to report, but if truth be known, the chill hand of the recession has gripped this part of the world to the extent that very little is ongoing. In some cases that's a blessing; I was beginning to despair of the number of "renovation" projects that involved stripping out as much original fabric as possible and replacing everything with either plastic or imported hardwood before giving everything a liberal coating of cement and gypsum. thankfully most such projects are on stop, and the speculative cowboys and ignorant second-homers seems to have retreated for the time being.
The second-homers are a bloody pain, though. This year many houses have remained empty and unkempt as the absentee landlords forsook their two weeks in the rain and cut back on the gardener and the part-time housekeeper, and some villages around here are looking rather shabby as a result.
Even before this summer's abandonment I ground my teeth when I heard Lord Hindlip's lumpy daughter on the Today programme. She said that as the owner of two holiday homes she did her bit to support the local communities; nevertheless, "communities have to save themselves," was her blithely Thatcherite prescription.
I'd love to plonk her in the middle of a village near me where two thirds of the houses are empty for much of the year and see how she sets about galvanising that community in helping itself.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Johnny Collins
A nice obituary in the Guardian today for Johnny Collins, a superb singer and a thoroughly nice chap.
Johnny was on tour, singing in Gdansk, when he had a heart attack and died just hours after finishing a performance last weekend.
A great bear of a man, I found Johnny slightly intimidating when I first encountered him some 15 years ago, but he was one of the warmest, kindest individuals you could hope to meet. Here's an interview with him from 1998 which gives a flavour of the man.
Johnny was on tour, singing in Gdansk, when he had a heart attack and died just hours after finishing a performance last weekend.
A great bear of a man, I found Johnny slightly intimidating when I first encountered him some 15 years ago, but he was one of the warmest, kindest individuals you could hope to meet. Here's an interview with him from 1998 which gives a flavour of the man.
Abdication crisis (again)
According to the Architects' Journal, the Prince of Wales has stomped away from SPAB in a huff because the society doesn't agree with his rather hardline views on conservation.
The AJ reports:
It strikes me that HRH was rather clueless to accept the post in the first place if he failed to find out tht SPAB has nothing against new work, and has its own award to promote good new design in the context of historic buildings.
Perhaps SPAB will seize the opportunity to appoint a patron who actually knows about the society's work and who can actively work to promote it.
Whoever does get the job would be advised to spend just a couple of minutes reading what SPAB says about its aims:
Although, to be honest, I would have thought that that a body like SPAB would be grown-up enough to be able to enter the 21st Century without a patron to, er, patronise it.
The AJ reports:
The falling-out centres on a foreword Charles wrote for a handbook on the restoration of old houses. The heir to the throne used the opportunity to express his belief that buildings should always be restored in their original style. The society, which frequently uses modern architecture and design, asked Charles to amend his conservative views. The Prince refused and subsequently resigned from the Society.
Philip Venning, secretary of SPAB, said: ‘We agree with so much of what he says, but on the issue of new design there are occasions when we disagree, and we don’t disguise the fact. We were pleased he was our patron.’
Charles was asked to write the foreword to The Old House Handbook by its authors, Roger Hunt and Marianne Suhr. After his work was rejected, Philip Venning provided the introduction himself.
The SPAB, founded by socialist architect and writer William Morris, is the world’s oldest environmental campaigning group. It is understood that Charles resigned from the Society several months ago when his five-year term as patron ended - before his very public row with Richard Rogers over the Chelsea Barracks development.
SPAB has yet to appoint a new patron.
It strikes me that HRH was rather clueless to accept the post in the first place if he failed to find out tht SPAB has nothing against new work, and has its own award to promote good new design in the context of historic buildings.
Perhaps SPAB will seize the opportunity to appoint a patron who actually knows about the society's work and who can actively work to promote it.
Whoever does get the job would be advised to spend just a couple of minutes reading what SPAB says about its aims:
Our work is guided by these principles:
Repair not Restore
Although no building can withstand decay, neglect and depredation entirely, neither can aesthetic judgement nor archaeological proof justify the reproduction of worn or missing parts. Only as a practical expedient on a small scale can a case for restoration be argued.
Responsible methods
A repair done today should not preclude treatment tomorrow, nor should it result in further loss of fabric.
Complement not parody
New work should express modern needs in a modern language. These are the only terms in which new can relate to old in a way which is positive and responsive at the same time. If an addition proves essential, it should not be made to out-do or out-last the original.
Regular maintenance
This is the most practical and economic form of preservation.
Although, to be honest, I would have thought that that a body like SPAB would be grown-up enough to be able to enter the 21st Century without a patron to, er, patronise it.
Friday, 15 May 2009
As the storm clouds gather...
...and the future looks ever more uncertain, sometimes one stumbles across something that raises the spirits.
We could all learn, I think, from Archibald Clark-Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel.
As British Ambassador to Moscow in early 1943 he could be forgiven for feeling gloomy. Nevertheless he found time to write a letter to Reginald Herbert, 15th Earl of Pembroke and 12th Earl of Montgomery - a panjandrum of some note at the Foreign Office.
The world was falling around them, Hitler was still untamed and things looked decidedly bleak. Yet Archie, I feel, hit the spot:
God bless the Freedom of Information Act.
We could all learn, I think, from Archibald Clark-Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel.
As British Ambassador to Moscow in early 1943 he could be forgiven for feeling gloomy. Nevertheless he found time to write a letter to Reginald Herbert, 15th Earl of Pembroke and 12th Earl of Montgomery - a panjandrum of some note at the Foreign Office.
The world was falling around them, Hitler was still untamed and things looked decidedly bleak. Yet Archie, I feel, hit the spot:
God bless the Freedom of Information Act.
A remarkable sale...
The sale of a Victorian village at the Shambles Museum, Newent, Gloucestershire: http://www.simonchorley.com/dedicatedsales.aspx
Some remarkable things there, from coffin handles to taxidermist's equipment. And the chance to place a bid online. The temptation is too much...
Some remarkable things there, from coffin handles to taxidermist's equipment. And the chance to place a bid online. The temptation is too much...
Monday, 11 May 2009
An alloyed success
I've always been a huge fan of the Open University. It's one of those legacies of the Wilson years that really seemed to catch the spirit of an age and to have gone on to make a truly positive long-term contribution to the country. Only a churl or some embittered whey-faced academic, too long in his ivory tower, could dare say anything nasty about such a cuddlesome concept.
Then I enrolled as a student, one of the 180,000-odd people being churned through the machine. And now, three years into a history degree and nearing the end, I have to wonder if the OU really does cut the mustard as a 'proper' university.
From the start the OU has had an open entry policy - hence the name - whereby students' previous academic achievemnts (or the lack thereof) are not taken into account when enrolling for courses. For someone like me, who chucked away the chance to do a Botany degree many moons ago, that's probably irrelevant - a reasonable crop of A levels would have done the job regardless - but for many who left school without qualifications, the policy is the only key to the door of higher education.
Once through that door, though, the open policy appears to continue in a way which does little credit to its much-vaunted status as a pukka university. I have no idea what the courses were like in 1969, but in 2009 they seem to be too bloody easy.
The OU states that one of its 60-point undergraduate courses requires 14 hours a week of study to master. Currently I'm signed on for two concurrent 60-pointers. By rights I should be spending pretty nearly a full working week just on the university work. Am I buggery.
Yet, on the basis of the results I'm getting, it would seem to be perfectly feasible to trouser a 2:1 with about three hours' study a week.
The material - beatifully produced, it has to be said - is effectively spoon-fed to the students and the essays (tutor-marked assigments in OU speak) are set about with so many notes, guidelines and hints that it would seem to be impossible to fail.
The pass mark is 40 per cent, but one would have to be monumentally dim to fall even anywhere near that level. Even among the Desperate Housewives who twitter on the online OU conference forums, there is never a mention of failure, and if the semi-literate, solipsistic and frankly stupid level of writing on the boards is any indication, then failure bloody well should be an option.
Yet a simple regurgitation of the materials you have seems to be adequate for a second, and it appears possible to complete a degree entirely without once looking something up in a library.
I can't help but feel I'm taking the piss. Someone like me, with a cavalier attitude to the course, who never attends tutorials (they would involve five hours of travel, for Pete's sake) and who stuffs his study into odd moments in the week, surely shouldn't be able to get away with it?
So, the OU is undoubtedly a good thing. But does it have to be quite so dumbed down? Certainly it's hardly surprising that was rated the top university in England and Wales in the 2005 and 2006 national student satisfaction survey, and second in 2007. Who's going to grumble when things are quite so soft?
Anyway, enough wittering. I've got an essay to hand in today, so I'd better get started...
Then I enrolled as a student, one of the 180,000-odd people being churned through the machine. And now, three years into a history degree and nearing the end, I have to wonder if the OU really does cut the mustard as a 'proper' university.
From the start the OU has had an open entry policy - hence the name - whereby students' previous academic achievemnts (or the lack thereof) are not taken into account when enrolling for courses. For someone like me, who chucked away the chance to do a Botany degree many moons ago, that's probably irrelevant - a reasonable crop of A levels would have done the job regardless - but for many who left school without qualifications, the policy is the only key to the door of higher education.
Once through that door, though, the open policy appears to continue in a way which does little credit to its much-vaunted status as a pukka university. I have no idea what the courses were like in 1969, but in 2009 they seem to be too bloody easy.
The OU states that one of its 60-point undergraduate courses requires 14 hours a week of study to master. Currently I'm signed on for two concurrent 60-pointers. By rights I should be spending pretty nearly a full working week just on the university work. Am I buggery.
Yet, on the basis of the results I'm getting, it would seem to be perfectly feasible to trouser a 2:1 with about three hours' study a week.
The material - beatifully produced, it has to be said - is effectively spoon-fed to the students and the essays (tutor-marked assigments in OU speak) are set about with so many notes, guidelines and hints that it would seem to be impossible to fail.
The pass mark is 40 per cent, but one would have to be monumentally dim to fall even anywhere near that level. Even among the Desperate Housewives who twitter on the online OU conference forums, there is never a mention of failure, and if the semi-literate, solipsistic and frankly stupid level of writing on the boards is any indication, then failure bloody well should be an option.
Yet a simple regurgitation of the materials you have seems to be adequate for a second, and it appears possible to complete a degree entirely without once looking something up in a library.
I can't help but feel I'm taking the piss. Someone like me, with a cavalier attitude to the course, who never attends tutorials (they would involve five hours of travel, for Pete's sake) and who stuffs his study into odd moments in the week, surely shouldn't be able to get away with it?
So, the OU is undoubtedly a good thing. But does it have to be quite so dumbed down? Certainly it's hardly surprising that was rated the top university in England and Wales in the 2005 and 2006 national student satisfaction survey, and second in 2007. Who's going to grumble when things are quite so soft?
Anyway, enough wittering. I've got an essay to hand in today, so I'd better get started...
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Quem pastores
The last ewe finally lambed a full two weeks after the others. Oddly the raddle mark on her bum showed that she had been tupped at the same time as the others, but biology and calendars have a habit of confusing the unwary. Or perhaps she was just the ugly one, and the ram deliberately left here until the last (she looks attractive enough to me, but maybe that's rather more information than one should put in a blog post!).
There's always a slight pang of reget when the lambing comes to an end. The long, chilly evenings spent in the lambing shed are tiring enough, admittedly, but there is also something magically atavistic about seeing a new life arrive. Sitting there in an old chair, cat dozing on the lap and just a dim light from the lamp and the sounds of rustling,breathing and cudding, there's a feeling of a bond shared with every shepherd back to the dawn of time.
They're out on the pasture now, though; the ewes happily working through the fresh grass and the lambs alternately running in packs up and down the hedge-line and dozing in untidy heaps in the sun. The swallows have returned and the days are longer, so (for now) all is at its best. And I'm finally catching up with sleep.
Work continues to come in, thank goodness; thus far the recession doesn't seem to have deterred people from wanting work done on their houses, although the new builds around here are nearly all on stop, and lay-offs are continuing. Interestingly the website stats show that around a quarter of the hits over the past month have come from searches on 'penetrative damp'. Has the Daily Mail done a feature on this lately? I'm intrigued to know the reason for the sudden surge in interest for penetrative damp.
Meanwhile the conservation project work seems to have settled into a routine of 10 per cent 'useful' work and perhaps 90 per cent bureaucracy, with seemingly endless paper-trails to be laid and followed. Today's exercise is 'branding'. To quote, 'In accordance with Annex VI of EC Regulation 1974/2006 it is a requirement to acknowledge and promote the assistance from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development also known as “EAFRD”.' and so on, for 16 bloody pages, until the clincher; 'It is important to adhere to these European requirements. If they are not met, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) payments to beneficiaries may be withheld or “clawed back”.'
That's telling me.
There's always a slight pang of reget when the lambing comes to an end. The long, chilly evenings spent in the lambing shed are tiring enough, admittedly, but there is also something magically atavistic about seeing a new life arrive. Sitting there in an old chair, cat dozing on the lap and just a dim light from the lamp and the sounds of rustling,breathing and cudding, there's a feeling of a bond shared with every shepherd back to the dawn of time.
They're out on the pasture now, though; the ewes happily working through the fresh grass and the lambs alternately running in packs up and down the hedge-line and dozing in untidy heaps in the sun. The swallows have returned and the days are longer, so (for now) all is at its best. And I'm finally catching up with sleep.
Work continues to come in, thank goodness; thus far the recession doesn't seem to have deterred people from wanting work done on their houses, although the new builds around here are nearly all on stop, and lay-offs are continuing. Interestingly the website stats show that around a quarter of the hits over the past month have come from searches on 'penetrative damp'. Has the Daily Mail done a feature on this lately? I'm intrigued to know the reason for the sudden surge in interest for penetrative damp.
Meanwhile the conservation project work seems to have settled into a routine of 10 per cent 'useful' work and perhaps 90 per cent bureaucracy, with seemingly endless paper-trails to be laid and followed. Today's exercise is 'branding'. To quote, 'In accordance with Annex VI of EC Regulation 1974/2006 it is a requirement to acknowledge and promote the assistance from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development also known as “EAFRD”.' and so on, for 16 bloody pages, until the clincher; 'It is important to adhere to these European requirements. If they are not met, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) payments to beneficiaries may be withheld or “clawed back”.'
That's telling me.
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Anyway
Where was I? Yes, that. And then lambing started. Hell but it's been bloody tiring this year. It must be because I'm getting older, as there weren't any more complications than usual, and only one lamb has ended up on the bottle - a runty triplet that arrived late and was promptly rejected by the mother. Still, one or 10, the buggers still have to be fed, so it's up at three every morning to stagger out to the lambing shed, get butted and splashed with milk (which always smells appetising the first time you smell it - like fancy ice cream - but which soon cloys after a few night feeds).
Just two ewes left now, both bloody huge, like sagging zeppelins, and both doing little more than eat, crap and pant. In their position I'd be hard put to do anything more, I'll admit.
Anyway, that's my whinge/excuse. I had sorely hoped to get lambing finished by this weekend to enjoy a break in Devon, but it wasn't to be. Arse.
Just two ewes left now, both bloody huge, like sagging zeppelins, and both doing little more than eat, crap and pant. In their position I'd be hard put to do anything more, I'll admit.
Anyway, that's my whinge/excuse. I had sorely hoped to get lambing finished by this weekend to enjoy a break in Devon, but it wasn't to be. Arse.
Friday, 20 March 2009
There's tidy!
Yes, I know I'm playing straight into the hands of the advertisers by promoting a viral video, but this one is too good not to share:
Now, if only Wales can show some of the same flair against Ireland tomorrow...
Now, if only Wales can show some of the same flair against Ireland tomorrow...
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Brilliant Noise
Having been rather busy over the past fortnight, there's not a lot to add. Save, that is, for the sun and everything under it.
I found this to be rather remarkable and, in its own way, even quite moving. It's the sun, as seen in raw data from countless satellite images, with the sound supplied by the shifting energies of the sun itself. In the great scheme of things we really are quite puny and insignificant...
Brilliant Noise from Semiconductor on Vimeo.
I found this to be rather remarkable and, in its own way, even quite moving. It's the sun, as seen in raw data from countless satellite images, with the sound supplied by the shifting energies of the sun itself. In the great scheme of things we really are quite puny and insignificant...
Brilliant Noise from Semiconductor on Vimeo.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Apropos nowt in particular
Nothing to do with buildings, but I offer this as received from a friend. It made me chuckle:
Apparently, everyone's favourite knuckledragging halfwits, the British National Party, have launched a campaign to return Eastern Europeans back whence they came rather than 'taking all our jobs' here.
They illustrated their posters with a stirring, patriotic image of a Supermarine Spitfire. The machine, Romeo Delta Foxtrot, had an illustrious career with the fabled 303 Squadron.
You can see what's coming next...
303 was a Squadron of Polish pilots.
More here, including the picture the BNP seems to have half-inched.
Apparently, everyone's favourite knuckledragging halfwits, the British National Party, have launched a campaign to return Eastern Europeans back whence they came rather than 'taking all our jobs' here.
They illustrated their posters with a stirring, patriotic image of a Supermarine Spitfire. The machine, Romeo Delta Foxtrot, had an illustrious career with the fabled 303 Squadron.
You can see what's coming next...
303 was a Squadron of Polish pilots.
More here, including the picture the BNP seems to have half-inched.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
A suitable case
Credit crunch, downturn,depression; call it what you will, it seems we're saddled with the bloody thing for the foreseeable future.
Of course, it's an ill wind. The serious shoeing the banks have had over the past year has put paid to some of the more ludicrous and grandiose building schemes that would have seen yet more of the old East End put to the bulldozer, while the horrible Caltongate scheme in Edinburgh has thanfully been shelved, as Nemesis reports elsewhere.
Notwithstanding that, however, in a more parochial sense, the recession is already turning out to be a bit of a bummer for the conservation and 'heritage' sector.
The building trade as a whole is already feeling the pinch, with clients reluctant to spend money in the current climate. New builds are worst hit - most of the sites near me are already on stop, and one local contractor that I know of has laid off five staff since Christmas. But now even the limestone cowboys are exposed. I'm fortunate enough to have work booked up until the end of summer, but thereafter? Who knows?
Certainly it does look as though one source of work for the conservation sector is about to take a kicking. Wearing my other hat, as a conservation project officer, I'm trying to encourage clients to take up large amounts of grant money to have conservation work carried out. The snag is that they have to provide some of their own money.
Understandably, most don't feel in a position to do this at the moment. We may call it match funding, they simply regard it as an unnecessary extravagance.
And 'they' are not just private clients. 'They' are also large public bodies and local authorities. I had a chance to secure £60K a year of grant money for domestic properties in one conservation area on my patch. All that was needed was for the local authority to agree to match this with £60K of its own money.
The issue went to committee and then to cabinet. The answer that came back this morning was a flat 'No'.
Coming on top of the Iceland debacle (in which my authority was one of the losers), and the general pulling in of horns, a grant of £60K would be hard to justify when education and social services were facing cuts.
As a result a total of £120K a year will not now be going into the conservation and restoration sector in my area alone. Arse!
Of course, it's an ill wind. The serious shoeing the banks have had over the past year has put paid to some of the more ludicrous and grandiose building schemes that would have seen yet more of the old East End put to the bulldozer, while the horrible Caltongate scheme in Edinburgh has thanfully been shelved, as Nemesis reports elsewhere.
Notwithstanding that, however, in a more parochial sense, the recession is already turning out to be a bit of a bummer for the conservation and 'heritage' sector.
The building trade as a whole is already feeling the pinch, with clients reluctant to spend money in the current climate. New builds are worst hit - most of the sites near me are already on stop, and one local contractor that I know of has laid off five staff since Christmas. But now even the limestone cowboys are exposed. I'm fortunate enough to have work booked up until the end of summer, but thereafter? Who knows?
Certainly it does look as though one source of work for the conservation sector is about to take a kicking. Wearing my other hat, as a conservation project officer, I'm trying to encourage clients to take up large amounts of grant money to have conservation work carried out. The snag is that they have to provide some of their own money.
Understandably, most don't feel in a position to do this at the moment. We may call it match funding, they simply regard it as an unnecessary extravagance.
And 'they' are not just private clients. 'They' are also large public bodies and local authorities. I had a chance to secure £60K a year of grant money for domestic properties in one conservation area on my patch. All that was needed was for the local authority to agree to match this with £60K of its own money.
The issue went to committee and then to cabinet. The answer that came back this morning was a flat 'No'.
Coming on top of the Iceland debacle (in which my authority was one of the losers), and the general pulling in of horns, a grant of £60K would be hard to justify when education and social services were facing cuts.
As a result a total of £120K a year will not now be going into the conservation and restoration sector in my area alone. Arse!
Monday, 16 February 2009
Victorious viewing
To be honest, the box usually leaves me cold, but last night I caught the first of Jeremy Paxman's programmes on the Victorians and was wowed by it.
The Victorian era is not a hugely popular one in the British consciousness, as is witnessed by the uphill struggles of the Victorian Society and SAVE to preserve and protect so many of its buildings. Paxman makes a persuasive case, however, and one can only hope that his splendidly Reithian series goes some way to instilling a new sense of pride and wonder in the achievements of the era and does something to sweep away the misconception of the age as one of ugliness cloaked under cloying sentiment.
He makes his own case rather well in a piece in The Times.
One reason for me to like the programme was the lavish attention paid to Ford Madox Brown's social-realist painting Work, long a favourite of mine. In a sad, spoddy way, its details appeal to the builder in me; the sand-screen in use for grading the aggregate, the shallow wooden barrow, the hod with the leather shoulder-pad and the intense, almost homo-erotic physicality of the workers in the pre-machine age of civil engineering. Wonderful stuff (And Heath Street is still largely recogniseable today, thanks in part to the actions of the effete intellectuals being subtly slighted in the painting...).
Brown wrote in his own 1865 catalogue notes,
'At that time extensive excavations, connected with the supply of water, were going on in the neighbourhood, and, seeing and studying daily as I did the British excavator, or navvy in the full swing of his activity (with his manly and picturesque costume, and with the rich glow of colour which exercise under a hot sun will impart), it appeared to me that he was at least as worthy of the powers of an English painter as the fisherman of the Adriatic, the peasant of the Campagna, or the Neapolitan lazzarone. Gradually this idea developed itself into that of Work as it now exists, with the British excavator for the central group, as the outward and visible type of Work.'
Quite why Carlyle and FD Maurice are standing by so idly is anyone's guess - if one didn't know better one would think Ford was having a dig at them as well.
But back to the prgramme. If nothing else. Paxman's series certainly makes for a bracing antidote to the mawkish travesty of Flora Thompson's wonderful trilogy that precedes it - the execrable Lark Rise.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Two cheers for English Heretics
We've had three years of harrumphing since the last raft of Approved Documents - the "Building Regs" - came into force. Overall, a jolly good thing they were too; a real commitment to meeting our Kyoto targets and cutting energy use in the UK. Apart, that is, from the way they have been implemented.
If an old building was not listed, in a conservation area or a scheduled ancient monument, then one could pretty well guarantee a long and frustrating debate with the Building Control Officer over what historic features could be retained and what had to be smothered or removed to satisfy the perceived demands of Part L of the Regs. Some BCOs would listen to reason and treat a case on a 'whole house' basis, offsetting one element against another, others simply dug their heels in and risked becoming landfill as tempers rose.
Now, however, English Heritage has published the fruits of its discussions with the government on part L.
The full text of the suggested ammendment has been posted by our friendly neighbourhood conservation officer here.
He argues that the whole exercise has been pretty much a waste of time, given that the net result would seem to be 'no change'.
I'm inclined to agree, up to a point. Nevertheless I'm also inclined to give two cheers for the revision for the simple reason that at last there seems to be a recognition that traditional buildings behave in a different way to modern buildings, even when they don't have the magic protection of listing, being in a conservation area or as ancient monuments.
The bit that slightly warms my cockles is:
"There are three further categories of buildings where special consideration is encouraged:
a) buildings which are of architectural and historical interest and which are referred to as a material consideration in a local authority’s development plan; or
b) buildings which are of architectural and historical interest within national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, registered historic parks and gardens, registered battlefields, the curtilages of scheduled ancient monuments, and world heritage sites; or
c) buildings of traditional construction with permeable fabric that both absorbs and readily allows the evaporation of moisture."
The particularly welcome bit is section 'c'.
I've lost count of the number of times I've encountered Building Control Officers who simply cannot see that there is a significant difference in behaviour between a modern house and a traditonally-built, solid walled and breathable building. All too often they simply regard Part L as published as Holy Writ, leaving me grinding my teeth in frustration and the client bewildered.
Specifically, the new wording asks BCOs to seek advice in "making provisions enabling the fabric of historic buildings to ‘breathe’ to control moisture and potential long term decay problems."
I do hope this is adopted, for anything which encourages BCOs to take off the blinkers is welcome.
If an old building was not listed, in a conservation area or a scheduled ancient monument, then one could pretty well guarantee a long and frustrating debate with the Building Control Officer over what historic features could be retained and what had to be smothered or removed to satisfy the perceived demands of Part L of the Regs. Some BCOs would listen to reason and treat a case on a 'whole house' basis, offsetting one element against another, others simply dug their heels in and risked becoming landfill as tempers rose.
Now, however, English Heritage has published the fruits of its discussions with the government on part L.
The full text of the suggested ammendment has been posted by our friendly neighbourhood conservation officer here.
He argues that the whole exercise has been pretty much a waste of time, given that the net result would seem to be 'no change'.
I'm inclined to agree, up to a point. Nevertheless I'm also inclined to give two cheers for the revision for the simple reason that at last there seems to be a recognition that traditional buildings behave in a different way to modern buildings, even when they don't have the magic protection of listing, being in a conservation area or as ancient monuments.
The bit that slightly warms my cockles is:
"There are three further categories of buildings where special consideration is encouraged:
a) buildings which are of architectural and historical interest and which are referred to as a material consideration in a local authority’s development plan; or
b) buildings which are of architectural and historical interest within national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, registered historic parks and gardens, registered battlefields, the curtilages of scheduled ancient monuments, and world heritage sites; or
c) buildings of traditional construction with permeable fabric that both absorbs and readily allows the evaporation of moisture."
The particularly welcome bit is section 'c'.
I've lost count of the number of times I've encountered Building Control Officers who simply cannot see that there is a significant difference in behaviour between a modern house and a traditonally-built, solid walled and breathable building. All too often they simply regard Part L as published as Holy Writ, leaving me grinding my teeth in frustration and the client bewildered.
Specifically, the new wording asks BCOs to seek advice in "making provisions enabling the fabric of historic buildings to ‘breathe’ to control moisture and potential long term decay problems."
I do hope this is adopted, for anything which encourages BCOs to take off the blinkers is welcome.
Friday, 6 February 2009
An appropriate message for the day
A lovely, simple poster, recalled here.But what's the font?
I've been arguing the toss for a couple of days now with fellow typography nerds, and almost had it nailed as a version of Gill Sans, but on closer inspection it clearly isn't . Neither is it Johnston, nor the great P22 Underground typeface.
All I know is that the original commission for the poster stipulated that it should be in a "special and handsome typeface" to make it difficult for the enemy to counterfeit it. As such, it appears to be a 'one-off'. Some unknown graphic designer missed his or her chance to make a mark on history with 'Blenkinsop Sans' or 'Fothergill Futura'.
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