The Building Conservation Directory 2015

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3.5
STRUCTURE & FABR I C :
GENERAL BU I LD I NG
MATER I ALS
Early 20th-century leaded casement on the stand
of De Zonneroos of Holland at the Salvo Fair 2013,
Knebworth, Hertfordshire (Photo: Thornton Kay/Salvo)
the reuse of salvaged material elsewhere in the
same building.
For example, when the National Trust
recently re-roofed Grade I listed Tyntesfield
House near Bristol, around 1,500 clay tiles
were salvaged from the original roofs and
reused on the most prominent roof slopes,
while new tiles were used elsewhere.
THE NATIONAL TRUST IN NORTH WALES
The National Trust is responsible for one of
the largest collections of historic buildings in
the UK. The trust has made a commitment to
use 20 per cent less energy, halve its fossil fuel
use and generate 50 per cent of the energy it
requires from renewable sources by 2020. It is
also reducing its carbon footprint by making
extensive use of reclaimed materials.
In North Wales this policy has resulted
in a highly successful strategy of recycling
materials needed for the conservation and
repair of buildings across several large estates,
including approximately 80 tenanted farms
and cottages and a number of pay-for-entry
properties and townhouses. Historic materials
are only reused where there is no associated
impact on the significance of the historic
environment. Examples have included:
• thousands of random slates, ridge tiles
and hip tiles, mainly bought from farmers
who were demolishing buildings
• the purchase of complete farm
buildings in the area which had
been condemned for demolition
• the purchase of specific items from salvage
yards, such as cast iron skylights, rainwater
goods, radiators and sanitary ware.
This approach is advocated by BS7913 (2013),
the latest British Standard dealing with the
conservation of historic buildings:
The correct choice of materials for
conservation works is important…
Where possible, existing materials
should be investigated and tested so
that good performance and aesthetic
matches can be achieved. In cases
where the existing material source is not
available, reuse of suitable materials
from salvage might give better results
than newly formed materials.
PROVENANCE
Historic material belongs to a dwindling
resource that we should be safeguarding for
future generations. Where there are plans to
use architectural salvage, the first step should
be to source materials responsibly.
Heritage crime, especially the theft of
valuable components for resale, continues to be
a serious problem in the UK. While lead theft
(on the increase again at the time of writing)
tends to dominate media coverage of heritage
crime, other materials, especially building
stone, are increasingly being targeted. Cases
of large-scale stone theft have been steadily
rising over the past two years, with a focus on
areas rich in high-value building stone such as
Yorkstone, Kentish Rag and Cotswold stone.
Curtilage walls such as those around
churchyards are especially vulnerable.
While security measures may be focussed
on protecting lead roofs or valuable artefacts
inside the building, cemetery walls are often
directly accessible from the road, allowing
irreplaceable historic stone to be stripped
and loaded straight onto a flatbed lorry. In
October 2013, for example, 500 coping stones
were stolen from a perimeter wall of Earnley
Parish Church in West Sussex. The following
month 40m2 of historic Yorkstone paving
valued at £7,000 was stolen from central
Rochester by thieves posing as workmen and
using stolen highways barriers to make the
work look legitimate.
If you have any doubts about the
provenance of an item, check the theft alerts on
Salvoweb ), where hundreds
of stolen items are listed. If doubts persist it is
best simply to walk away and, if there is reason
to believe the item is stolen, use the 101 non-
emergency police number to report it.
Salvoweb also includes a list of dealers
who have signed up to the Salvo Code. There
is no legal regulation of the architectural
salvage trade but the code, established in 1995,
has encouraged many businesses to take up
voluntary self-regulation. Signatory businesses
undertake to make every effort to ensure
that items which they buy have not been
stolen or removed from protected historic
buildings without permission. Using traders
who have signed up to the code demonstrates
support not only for ethical traders but also
for the principle of regulation itself, hopefully
encouraging other businesses to follow suit.
Historically, there has been a degree of
mutual distrust between the architectural
salvage trade and conservation professionals.
Some in the salvage trade feel it has been
portrayed unfavourably despite the fact that
many of those involved, especially among the
more long-standing operations, are passionate
both about saving historic craftsmanship from
the skip and about the environmental benefits
of reclamation.
Clearly, renewed efforts are necessary to
build and extend cooperation between the
conservation and salvage camps. In 2013 a
report ‘Heritage and Cultural Property Crime
National Policing Strategic Assessment’
was published by the Association of Chief
Police Officers. Its conclusion includes the
recommendation: ‘Improve the relationship
with traders, second hand dealers, salvage
firms and auctioneers in order to improve
the flow of intelligence’. It remains unclear,
however, how far the recommendation has
progressed towards reality.
The stakes are high, both in terms of
curtailing crime and promoting a healthy
salvage sector. Surveys of UK salvage
businesses by Salvo in 1998 and 2007 showed
a large increase in the value of sales but a
general decrease in the volumes of materials
salvaged as the trade shifted its focus, selling
more new and reproduction alternatives.
USE IT OR LOSE IT
In the 2009 edition of The Building
Conservation Directory SPAB-trained
architect Mark Hines made a persuasive
and impassioned call for the reuse and
environmental upgrading of the UK’s vast
stock of unlisted Victorian and Edwardian
terraced housing. Hines’ argument was in
part a response to the destruction wrought
by the Pathfinder Programme which,
according to SAVE Britain’s Heritage,
saw the demolition of some 16,000 homes
which could have been refurbished.
Pathfinder saw the costly and often
unpopular destruction of an increasingly scarce
resource – affordable, well-built housing.
Perhaps it is now time to reconsider the fate of
the associated resource of historic materials
and components removed during demolition
or refurbishment. That they have been cast
adrift from their original contexts needn’t
render them worthless either as heritage or
as objects with useful life left in them.
Well-established conservation principles
such as maximum retention and the honesty
of modern interventions are integral to the
practical – as opposed to the legal – protection
of historic buildings. These principles, however,
may be inappropriate in the context of legally
unprotected traditional buildings where
more radical and imaginative interventions
may be needed to improve functionality and
compatibility with modern lifestyles.
Recommended Reading
R Ellis, ‘Security and Historic Buildings’,
The Building Conservation Directory,
Cathedral Communications, Tisbury, 2011
J Fidler, ‘Architectural Salvage: Right or Wrong’,
Context, 24, The Association of Conservation
Officers (now the IHBC), Guildford, 1989
L Grove and S Thomas (eds), Heritage Crime:
Progress, Prospects and Prevention,
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2014
Acknowledgements
This article was prepared with the assistance
of Mark Harrison (English Heritage),
Thornton Kay (Salvo), Rory Cullen, Elizabeth
Green and Emyr Hall (National Trust).
DAVID BOULTING PhD is the deputy editor
of The Building Conservation Directory and
joint editor of Historic Churches. He is a
former teacher and university lecturer.