Conservation Award Winner
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28-29 30/9/08 11:55 Page 28 CONSERVATION CONSERVATION AWARD WINNER he Stonewest Group has Cowdray House between Midhurst and Talready won a clutch of (looking north Easebourne in West Sussex. It’s a awards for its meticulous east). remarkable place with a long, rich conservation work at the Tudor The Gatehouse and and eventful history that can be Cowdray House ruin in Midhurst, the south-west traced back to 1284 when Sir West Sussex, and there may be corner with the John Bohun moved from his chapel and Kitchen more to come. The group, fortified manor house on St Ann’s Tower in the East Hill to a new home, ‘Codreye’ specialists in the restoration and Range in the conservation of the nation’s built background. (the old Norman word meaning heritage, drew on the skills of two ‘hazel thicket’), just across the of its operating companies, river. In 1496 Sir David Owen Stonewest Ltd and St Blaise, to inherited the estate and in 1520 preserve the ruins of what was began to demolish the house, Going, going, gone! once one of the country’s finest gradually replacing it with the one Plugging the Cintec anchor bores with a disc cut from the end of the core removed. Tudor mansions. now known simply as ‘Cowdray’. Having won the Restoration & Sir William Fitzwilliam purchased Conservation category in the the house for £2,000 in 1529 and Museums & Heritage Show’s in 1532 received a licence from prestigious Awards for Excellence Henry VIII to ‘empark and 2008, Stonewest entered the crenellate the manor of Cowdray’. project for the RICS Awards Sir William, now the Earl of 2008. Success was immediate: the Southampton and one of the most project won the Building powerful men in the kingdom, Conservation category in the completed Cowdray and went on RICS South East Region and went to make many additions and on to become the region’s Overall alterations before his death in Winner, placing it on the shortlist 1542 when the estate passed to his for the Grand Final being hosted half-brother. Cowdray, which bore by Kevin McCloud at London’s many points of similarity to Mayfair Hotel on 17 October Hampton Court Palace, entered 2008. And competition will be its heyday – considered one of the fierce: another finalist is most magnificent houses in Birmingham Town Hall, another England, it received and hosted Stonewest Group project and visits from Henry VIII, Edward overall winner in the RICS West VI and Elizabeth I. Midlands Region. But 250 years later, on the Cowdray’s ruins stand close to evening of 24 September 1793, the banks of the River Rother disaster struck. The house was where it meanders peacefully devastated by a fire caused by 28 REFURBISHMENT PROJECTS, OCTOBER 2008 28-29 30/9/08 11:55 Page 29 CONSERVATION builders refurbishing the house in the lichen and algae that had conserved by a dedicated team of carpet of lawns and hard-surface preparation for the young owner’s grown over the years to provide an skilled plaster conservators from St paths. forthcoming marriage. Worse was irreplaceable patina of time. Blaise. A sheeted-scaffold covered Cowdray is now open to the to follow. As the ruins Extensive research identified the the remains of the plaster detailing public and has been removed from smouldered, the owner, the 8th source of the materials that had in the chapel for nine months, the English Heritage ‘At Risk’ Viscount Montague, drowned in a been used during Cowdray’s long protecting it while the lime putty Register. In the words of the RICS boating accident. The remains of history and this allowed any new thoroughly set. judges, “The buildings, which one of England’s finest Tudor material needed to be drawn from The Tudor kitchen, the were previously a dangerous ruin, houses were left to rot. the same source. (A notable domain of Robert May during the are now fully accessible to the In 1908 Cowdray’s fortune exception was to ‘plunder’ further 1630s and one of the few places public as an ‘open air’ museum. changed. Sir Weetman Dickinson material from the first owner’s unaffected by the fire, has been re- All the important architectural Pearson (later 1st Viscount long-since ruined home on nearby roofed, restored and re-equipped features have been retained and Cowdray) purchased the estate St Ann’s Hill, the apparent source using details from his book, one of the ruins have clarity to the spaces and ordered a restoration project of some of Cowdray’s stonework!) the earliest English-language and structures. Conservation that saved the ruin from total To stabilise the structure, cookery books. Any remaining should be restrained in its collapse. In 1996, Midhurst Town Stonewest carefully bored holes ironwork, from the massive application and this project has Council and the 4th Viscount through the remaining masonry pintails of the main gate to the been meticulous and elegant in its Cowdray developed a rescue plan: into which they threaded and remains of the window frames and approach. The result is a an independent charity, the secured 540 metres of Cintec the hands of the gatehouse clock, worthwhile monument which Cowdray Heritage Trust, was stainless-steel anchors. Then, to was carefully cleaned and treated distinctly illustrates its previous formed, given a 99-year lease and ensure an ‘invisible repair’, the with black wax oil. The roof of the use and historical contribution to responsibility to preserve the ruin, lichen-encrusted end of each Conduit House, rotting and the area.” manage the site and turn it into a masonry core removed was sliced riddled with death-watch beetle, For further information about successful visitor attraction. But by off, the surface patina lined up has been replaced with local oak Stonewest, please contact David now, the ruin, a Scheduled and the 2cm-thick disc used to and its interior refurbished. The Manktelow at Ancient Monument and Grade I- plug the hole. Elsewhere, around 400-metre-long raised causeway [email protected] and for listed building set in grounds 5,000 micro-pins were used to running from North Street in Cowdray, please visit designed by ‘Capability’ Brown, retain individual stones and bricks. Midhurst to the stone bridge over www.cowdray.org.uk. was on the English Heritage ‘At In keeping with the the River Rother has been Risk’ Register – it was literally conservation philosophy, stone resurfaced, the bridges repaired On-line Enquiry no: 257 falling apart. was only replaced if it was no and landscaping now provides a www.sheenpublishing.com The trust submitted a bid to longer physically capable of the Heritage Lottery Fund to fulfilling its structural purpose: in finance an ambitious conservation the event, only a single cubic project. Apart from preserving the metre of Midhurst stone, quarried ruin, the project also encompassed just half-a-mile from the site, was restoring the Tudor kitchen; needed along with a similar creating a display area in a vaulted amount of Chilmark and Caen cellar; converting an adjacent stone. Handmade, clamp-fired stable block into a visitor centre; bricks were made at Pitsham landscaping to provide better Brickworks, just over a mile away, access for visitors and refurbishing individually selected to match the the Conduit House, a nearby brickwork being repaired and then building of similar age, for hand-distressed to replicate the accommodation. The Heritage passing of time. About 70 tonnes Lottery Fund granted £2.6 of sand from the Pendean Sand million, 70% of the £3.8 million Quarry at West Lavington, also needed for the project, and about a mile away, were used to significant grants and gifts from provide the mortar and pointing English Heritage, the Cowdray needed to repair and conserve the Estate, local councils and many masonry. Extensive tests on the others made up the remaining ruin’s remaining pointing resulted £1.2 million. After a decade of in a basic palette of seven mortar planning and fund-raising, work mixes which were then blended at to save Cowdray could finally their point of use with charcoal, begin. chalk, crushed slag and coloured The Stonewest Group, sand to exactly match the colour renowned for its knowledge of of the pointing being repaired. traditional building materials and Wherever possible the few original expertise in restoring and timber lintels have been preserved conserving period buildings, was and protected but most of those engaged as principal contractor installed during the conservation and started work in November work in the early 1900s had failed 2005. The project’s conservation and were consequently replaced. philosophy was definite and Finally, over 10,000 creasing tiles straightforward: ‘conserve as were especially fired and used to found’ – protect the ruins from cap the walls to protect them from further decay and preserve them further damage. for future generations to enjoy. The delicate remains of the This guiding principle covered the plasterwork, once a fine example original ruins, the conservation of 18th-century Italian attempts in the early 1900s and craftsmanship, have been REFURBISHMENT PROJECTS, OCTOBER 2008 29.