House Magazine Spring 2007

Landscape Conservation Plan will examine visitor centre site

As reported in the Autumn 2006 Museum magazine, our application for outline planning permission for new visitor facilities was submitted in September, and it came before Chichester District Council on 15 November.

The committee held a long discussion, and several councillors spoke passionately in support of the application, which was to establish the principle of development of new visitor facilities on the northern edge of the site, west of Gonville Drive. When a vote was taken, a majority of members voted in favour of approval, but Steve Carvell, Head of Development Control, told the committee that the officers felt the application contravened established planning policies and would be referred to the council’s Planning Applications Referral Committee (PARC).

The officers then moved to arrange the PARC meeting as soon as possible, for 20 December. However, council policy is that PARC considers the application afresh, with whatever new material the applicant, consultees or public want to submit. We argued that such a short timescale did not give us time to prepare new material, and the officers agreed that the PARC meeting would be called when we were ready.

A further complication then arose, in that English Heritage, who are statutory consultees on planning applications within registered historic parks (of which West Dean Park is one, Grade II*), were not consulted until after the committee meeting on 15 November, and we were informed of their response just before Christmas. Subsequent discussion with them has convinced us that the best course of action is for us to join forces with the Edward James Foundation to commission a Landscape Conservation Management Plan for West Dean Park, and we are preparing an application to English Heritage to grant aid this process.

Everybody seems to agree that we need to do something to improve ourvisitor access facilities, but not everyone is yet convinced that our proposed site is the right one, despite the careful feasibility studies that we have already carried out. The planning officers, for example, have stated that “a building located adjacent to the core of the Museum buildings, closer to theexisting access and car parking areas, would be more likely to achieve a positive recommendation”. One of the aims of the Landscape Conservation Management Plan will be to examine all possible sites for development and set out a clear appraisal in terms of the Park landscape – past, present and future.

If the Landscape Conservation Management Plan can be completed by mid to late summer, we will hope to have the application finally determined in time to include a full report in the Autumn Museum magazine. All documents relating to the planning application can be seen on the Chichester District Council’s web site.

Richard Harris
Museum Director

Museum Friends’ makes largest ever grant

The Friends of the Museum makes a vital financial contribution to the Museum’s day-to-day operation and a variety of projects and activities. Last year a total of Ł178,135 was granted to the Museum – the highest annual amount ever.

Since its establishment in 1970 the Friends has grant-aided the Museum to the tune of some Ł1.2 million. It remains one of the largest Museum Friends groups in the country, with some 4,700 members, representing more than 11,000 individuals. Independent charitable museums like the Weald & Downland receive no direct Government funding and the Friends’ help is vital in supplementing revenue income from visitor admissions, the shop, catering and training courses. The Friends’ funding comes in two ways. A substantial grant is made towards the costs of essential activities at the Museum. This grant, for

Ł100,000 in 2006, was paid in four quarterly instalments to assist the Museum with core activities, including exhibit improvements, historic gardens development and maintenance, marketing and publicity, horses and livestock, site maintenance, schools service, staff and volunteer training and support for curatorial and collections activities.

The second tranche supports a variety of individual projects and last year totalled Ł78,135. It comprises:

	Ł
Thatching of Cowfold Barn	22,000
Dismantling the South Wonston Church	9,000
Forklift truck	7,000
Site survey for future development	4,723
Health and safety consultancy	3,772
Fitting out building for use by research team	3,736

Waste compressor to reduce cost and improve recycling efficiency	3,552
Interpretation of the Timber Yard	3,435
Upgrade to the network server	3,229
Romani Roots event development	3,045
New site paths	3,000
New trailer and repair to horse-drawn trailer	2,856
Library shelving to take new material	1,962
Toll Cottage gates renewal	1,649
Bookshop shelving to improve access and presentation	1,443
Installation of fuel tank to meet environmental requirements	1,415
Research on Tindalls Cottage timbers	1,125
Additional till for shop	993

In addition to its membership income, the Friends runs fund-raising events such as the Barn Dance and Proms by the Lake planned for this year, a programme of day trips and an annual Spring tour to interesting historical sites.

As a charity the Friends is able to claim Gift Aid on membership subscriptions which enables it to attract an extra 28p in each Ł given by members.

In 2006 the tax reclaimed amounted to over Ł31,000.

To join the Friends contact the Friends office on 01243 811893 (manned part-time) or email friends@wealddown.co.uk.

Full details of grants and Friends’ activities are included in the Friends’ Annual Report and Accounts.

Farm management at the Museum

A new post of Farm Manager has been created at the Museum, and Chris Baldwin, already
well known to us for his work with the working cattle, field strips and market garden, has been appointed.

Following the departure of the Museum’s horseman, Lee Harrison, to take up a job at Beamish, the North of England Open Air Museum, as groom in the town stables, we are also currently
engaged in recruiting his successor. Chris came to the Museum originally to work in the Woodland Craft Centre, but moved from there to establish our six field strips and then started training our working oxen. He has been very active in developing the strips by obtaining and growing on old varieties of arable crops, and he is now patiently training two pairs of Sussex cows which will become our working team in a couple of years time when they are fully
grown.

Chris and Museum Director Richard Harris will be working with consultants over the next few months to establish a new basis for Museum policy in respect of our displays of historic farming. This will involve reviewing a report written by Stephen Hall in 1988 on livestock
displays, and commissioning parallel reports on arable farming and the museology of farming displays. The field strips established by Chris are in two groups of three, one group on a rotation with a fallow, the other with a break crop; and in the immediate future we will establish four small fields on which we can explore Victorian farming methods on a four course rotation. As much field work as possible will be done using horses and cattle.

Chris Baldwin with the two young cows being trained to the yoke.

Wooden scaffolding for Cowfold Barn re-thatching

Today we are so used to steel tube scaffolding that it comes as a surprise to learn how recently wooden scaffolding was still used. As late as the 1930s building textbooks were still being published that contained no mention whatsoever of steel scaffold.

Newbold’s The Modern Carpenter and Joiner published in 1926 says: “Whilst new forms of scaffolding in materials other than timber are being placed on the market and growing in popularity for certain kinds of work, especially for works of repair, . . . it may be doubted if
the old-fashioned timber scaffolding will ever be entirely superseded for new construction.”

There are still many people with memories of using wooden scaffolding in their youth. Pete Betsworth, who works at the Museum, remembers that one of his first jobs on a building site was watering the scaffold ropes – they should never be allowed to dry out! In Eastern
Europe, and many other parts of the world, wooden scaffolding is still used.

The Museum has erected wooden scaffolding as a demonstration in the past – the late Geoff Kent undertook the task here in the early 1980s – and we have been on the lookout for an
opportunity to do it again. In January this year, Chris Tomkins needed scaffolding to re-thatch Cowfold barn. Charlie Tyrrell, a stonemason and member of the International Guild of Knot
Tyers, agreed to erect the scaffolding. Charlie’s father was a builder and kept a set of oiled scaffold poles at his yard, and Charlie learned the basic techniques from him. He tightened the knots using an antique ‘heaving mallet’ that was originally used in Portsmouth dockyard, an implement the shape and size of a long-handled mallet, with a brass exterior around a wooden core.

We obtained the wooden poles, and Charlie ordered 1,150 metres of rope for the lashings. The larch poles measure about 6in diameter at the butt and came from woodland thinnings from
Abingdon, Berkshire, while the rope is made of manila (from the abaca plant) rather than true hemp, for the sake of economy. Charlie and helpers Nicola Tyrrell and Sam Brown started work on 2 January, and the scaffold was soon completed. Scaffolding safety rules are very strict, but as a result of conversations with the Health & Safety Executive a safety regime for the wooden scaffolding was agreed for its erection and dismantling and for its safety in use.
The scaffold caused a great deal of interest among visitors and it will be left in place until Easter. Then it will be taken down and stored carefully ready for re-use.

Matching old lime mortar in historic buildings

By Bob Bennett

One of the most important elements of the Museum’s work is its extensive training programme, and research in building conservation skills and techniques. Several of our tutors and suppliers have been connected with the Museum for many years and have made a vital contribution to the continuation of their own craft skill. The Museum Magazine will be bringing specialist articles from some of these people over the next issues.

The Weald & Downland Museum was opened in 1970 and it was at about this time that I became aware that if we were to save historic buildings and look after them appropriately, I would need to have a better understanding of lime mortar, the use of which dates back more than 12,000 years. Portland cement on the other hand, was patented by Aspdin in 1824 and is less than 200-years-old. Unfortunately, modern cement has been used in the repair of historic buildings and, in many cases, has caused irreversible damage.

Having spent the last 30 years caring for and repairing historic buildings, I am particularly conscious of the need to match the original masonry elements as well as the mortar, plaster and render used in the construction. Apart from being visually obtrusive, an inappropriate mortar repair has the potential to cause a great deal of further damage to the structure.

A simple guide line is to try to match the original mortar in colour, texture and strength. At the Lime Centre we take about 100 grammes of the original mortar, usually from several locations, in order to obtain an average reading, and make an initial examination under a low-powered microscope. This may identify a large range of items including the presence of both silica and natural stone aggregates, cinder and ash from the firing, and fibre including straw, reed and animal hair used to reinforce the mortar.

Having recorded the observations the sample is then divided, with a proportion retained as a ‘control’ and the remainder usually subjected to disaggregation. This method of analysis involves recording the weight of a dry sample, (two decimal places of a gramme), before immersing in a dilute solution of hydrochloric acid. Once the binder, usually lime, has been dissolved and washed away, the remaining aggregate is dried and weighed. The resulting weights are used to calculate the binder to aggregate ratio, bearing in mind the differing relative bulk densities.

The report on the findings of the analysis identifies an aggregate that matches the original in colour and texture, (texture being the size and range of the aggregate particles), and the binder ratio. Quite simply, the colour of the aggregate determines the colour of the mortar, the texture of the aggregate determines the appearance and the binder ratio determines the strength of the mortar.

Matching an original mortar is not difficult and there no reason why an effort should not be made to get it right, rather than make the mess we see in the picture here.

Bob Bennett MBE is proprietor of The Lime Centre, near Winchester, Hampshire and supplies the Museum with lime products.

Dating the Museum’s buildings by tree-ring analysis

Museum Carpenter Roger Champion has been obtaining dendrochronology cores from the Museum’s historic buildings to enable accurate dating by tree-ring analysis. The aim is to obtain samples from every timber building in the Museum over the next few months, and a full report of the results will be published in the Autumn magazine. We do, though, already have preliminary reports from two of our buildings.

Crawley Hall

Fifteen samples were analysed and cross matched. The resulting sequence has 124 rings and matches several regional master chronologies extremely well. A few of the samples have sapwood rings, and the felling date is certain to be in the period 1494-1526. Further analysis will pinpoint the dates more accurately and we expect an eventual terminal date of about 1515 or even earlier.

Hall house from Boarhunt

This is much more difficult than Crawley Hall, as few original timbers have survived. Eight timbers were sampled. Four have been analysed, and these have been shown to be matched pairs. In each case two timbers had been taken from a single tree: they are the two internal tie beams, and the two corner posts at the east end of the building. The tie beams yielded a sequence with only 66 rings and could not be successfully dated. However, the corner posts have 102 rings, and end at the sapwood boundary, so a full sapwood allowance has to be added. The result is that the felling date would have been in the period 1355-1390. This accords well with the evidence of the building, and in particular the special form of saw marks known as ‘see-sawing’ which in our region seems to have been common in the 14th century. We have known for some time that Boarhunt is our earliest rescued building, but we will now have to start referring to it as being ‘late 14th century’ rather than ‘about 1400’ as hitherto.