Something Old, Something New
Francesca Weal, RIBA accredited Specialist Conservation Architect shares her concerns for the buildings, materials and techniques that are part of the heritage of the East of England.
The more I learn, the more I realise what I don’t know. But I can still risk boring anyone who will listen on the minutiae of capillary action through lime renders or why timber frames had such intricate joints in the 13th century compared with those in the 19th century and I could go on ... and on. My children have the joyously-uttered phrase, "Look! Square-knapped, coursed flints with gallets!" lodged in their collective memory following a family visit to Norwich.
I love accruing knowledge; gleaned from this building, or that seminar, or that incidental conversation. One particularly influential course was on flint at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. Since then I’ve repaired flint buildings but also used new flint in new buildings, changing the laying and the type of flint to suit the design. Older materials and techniques are part of my design palette for both old and new. This is another reason why I love working with historic buildings and environments. I use lime products in new buildings and modern sustainable products (woodfibre, sheepswool for example) in historic buildings.
But sometimes I think that we have lost confidence in our own solutions and wonder what we are bequeathing to the future. On a small matter I had opposition to the use of flint in a new lime-rendered, hemcrete-built Sustainable house on the grounds that no other house in the street had flint. The other houses were all 20th century and either rendered or various brick types including sand-faced, yellow, red and purple. Many of the more sustainable features in the design were also disliked.
I argued that flint was a high quality material and used elsewhere in the city’s conservation area but that argument did not work. I did succeed – but only by dint of playing my trump card, which was that the building to be demolished had a section of flint work. To which the memorable reply was “I suppose I’ll have to let you have that!”
The house won the local Civic Society Award for the year and a Sustainability Award from the local RIBA branch.
Architects with a specialism in historic buildings have a difficult path to tread when it comes to extending or altering historic buildings. It is very easy to see a building or environment as artefacts but they also cannot survive on their own. They need people to use, love and care for them. Sometimes you have to design something new, which might be viewed as compromising the historic asset.
Historic churches are a particular case in point and they are facing fierce competition from warm, comfortable, well-equipped new churches in retrofitted buildings not designed originally as churches. I am concerned about the long-term sustainability of historic churches in being used for the purpose for which they were built.
I am an inspecting architect for a number of listed churches and I am increasingly worried by the struggle the congregations have to find the resources to keep up with repairs and maintenance of their buildings. When I was in my 40’s, churchwardens were a similar age to me. Now I am in my 60’s they still are: or are a lot older. I did meet an 80 year old who shinned up a vertical ladder into the tower with ease but she was the exception. Parishes work valiantly to make their buildings relevant to the community but without new blood this great volunteer effort will cease: churches have to be attractive and comfortable. Not every church can become an arts venue or museum.
There is something special about the sense of numen inside a church building: the feeling in the bones of the structure of the spirituality of countless worshippers over the centuries. The great cultural heritage asset of using churches as places of worship should be preserved.
