Editor Rob Cowan Editorial Coordinator Michael Taylor, ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com Editorial Board Nigel Crowe Aimée Felton Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Rebecca Madgin Duncan McCallum Fiona Newton Jonathan Taylor Michael Taylor (chair) Cartoons and illustrations by Rob Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2025 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA 01747 871717 context@cathcomm.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to corporate bodies at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £65.00 Elsewhere £100.00 Context on-line archive Past issues of Context can be viewed on the IHBC website. The archive provides a searchable database and reference for key articles. See www.ihbc.org.uk/page55/context_archive. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily held by the IHBC or the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication. While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Context themes and copy deadlines Context is published four times a year in March, June, September and December. The next three themes and copy deadlines are: Technical: roofing, September, issue 185 (11 July) Infrastructure, December, issue 186 (10 October) Regional: Wessex, March, issue 187 (9 January) Please contact Michael Taylor at ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com to discuss any editorial submissions or for information about the Context editorial board. 2 CONTEXT 184 : JUNE 2025 Briefing Leaders of conservation thought The influence of Ruskin and Morris Lord Kennet’s achievement Inspired by John Ashurst Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 184 June 2025 Cover: John Ruskin, illustration by Rob Cowan Restoration plans for Lutyens’ garden suburb church After Storm Barney, in November 2015, knocked the weathervane off the spire of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ St Jude-on-the-Hill Church in Hampstead Garden Suburb, it became clear that the tower was unstable and needed repairs. Funds were raised for this essential work, but it was only one part of a wider programme of increasingly urgent structural and conservation works required. Until recently the church, lacking a congregation sufficient to provide for its repair needs and for the cost of a vicar, was threatened with closure. The Grade-I church remains on the building-at-risk register, and after unsuccessful bids for grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2015 and 2016, the team is bracing for fresh fundraising, grant applications and support. Repairs to the church’s roof and its foundations demand immediate attention, while further investment is needed for the supporting facilities, the fine organ and the restoration of the wallpaintings. St Jude was designed by Lutyens starting in 1908 as the centrepiece of the garden suburb, the model community conceived by Henrietta Barnett in 1907. Its tower sits at the suburb’s highest point, the Central Square framed by The Institute (now the Henrietta Barnett School), the Free Church and both churches’ residences, the vicarage and the manse, all designed by Lutyens. The way forward may be in building on this as a campus. Lutyens adopted a lightweight, thin-wall and hollow-box form of construction, probably to reduce the deadload of material on the foundations, which are on clay. Its bricks, of an unusual size, were specially commissioned. When the removal of a fractured brick enabled the architects to see inside the hollow-box construction, it turned out that the brickwork of the tower was without cross bonding or cross-ties. The returns at the sides of the hollow-box corners are constructed on stacked half bricks, which were not bonded into the corner flanks. The lack of bonding meant that it was an inherently weak structure, highly vulnerable given its exposure to prevailing winds. Steeplejacks and scaffolding were needed for the work. The approved recipe for the restoration work’s lime mortar was as close as possible to Lutyens’ original: 3.5 natural hydraulic lime with grey additive, Bath stone dust and a number 28 sand mix. All materials for this work were supplied by the Cornish Lime Company. Significantly damaged, it was necessary to replace the cockerel finial with a lighter equivalent. The finial’s ball alone was 53 kilos Steeplejacks fitting the new weathervane to St Jude’s spire, with Hampstead Garden Suburb Free Church, also designed by Lutyens, visible beyond it. (Photo: WallWalkers)
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