Case Study: Hopwood Hall, Rochdale

Site description and context

This Grade II* building is largely 17th/18th century, incorporating a 16th-century timber-framed structure from an open-hall and with various 19th and 20th century alterations.

The Hopwood family resided on-site until the 1920s. From the 1940s to the 1980s, it was a teacher training college which then came under the ownership of Rochdale Borough Council. In the 1990s, Hopwood Hall College Middleton Campus was built on the site, but the Hall remained vacant.

The ‘Hopwood Foundation for Heritage, Arts, Education & Inspiration’ was created in 2020 with Hopwood DePree, a descendant of the original Hopwood family, as one of its trustees. The community volunteers transformed the garden and helped in the restoration of some of the windows.

Historic England has been supporting the Council which owns the building, by funding some essential repair works, principally to the roof, masonry, and leaded windows, through its Heritage at Risk grant.

Taking inspiration from a site’s significance to deliver practical training

No contractor was expected to be on-site in the summer of 2023. Rochdale Borough Council gave Historic England approval to work with the community and Hopwood DePree to run the Summer School at the Hall.

For this two-week long Summer School, Historic England organised the workshops, commissioned the trainers, and booked the accommodation, travel and subsistence for the Heritage Building Skills programme’s Summer School trainees. Community volunteers took part in the workshops. Apprentices from the National Trust and construction college lecturers attended some of the classroom learning.

The condition of the building enabled participants to get a good appreciation of the structure behind the historic finishes and of the damage that can occur to a building that has remained vacant for several years. In this case, this led to water ingress and the outbreak of wet and dry rot.

Historic England delivered training in surveying and recording alongside lectures supported with site visits by architectural investigators, architects, an archaeologist, and an ecologist.

As with all Summer Schools delivered as part of this programme, understanding the significance was at the core of the training. The site provided good opportunities to support the teaching of the level 3 award in 'Repair & Maintenance of pre-1919 Traditional Building', including looking at defects and teaching on lime mortars.

During the Summer School, some of the activities delivered included using zinc profiles and silicone moulds to make, with Keith Langton, replicas of fibrous plasters and casts of decorative elements found in the Hall. With Saena Ku, trainees carved in timber a replica of decorative features based on originals from Hopwood Hall’s ceiling, and they also made some leaded glass work with Elizabeth Hippisley-Cox.

What have we learned?

• In the absence of a contractor and ongoing repairs, the Summer School programme was organised entirely by Historic England. This allowed for greater control over the day-to-day delivery of the learning programme. Not having to align to a programme of repair work meant that the delivery of the learning activities was easier.
• This Summer School relied on support from Rochdale Borough Council and community volunteers. The wood carving workshop took place at Hopwood Hall College, just a short walk from Hopwood Hall, where woodworking workshops are available for hire during the school holidays. As always, effective partnership-working was essential as was communication, which clearly outlined what the Summer School would involve from the outset.
• The two-week Summer School was well received by the trainees and organisers. Whatever the duration, some of the logistics and preparation remain similar, but the attendance during the Summer School is intensive for all.