Issue 40 winter 23 web - Flipbook - Page 89
ber. Other restoration measures included making repairs
to historic and decorative plaster, repairing 20th Century
concrete, new timber to the 1990s viewing platform,
extensive replacement stones to windows and walls,
replacing timber lintels and rebuilding chimneys.
pathway to enable sustainable maintenance of English
Heritage’s sites by prioritising repair works by significance,
vulnerability and condition.
To realise the aims of SCAMP in reality, might justify
more radical interventions to protect higher significance
elements to break an existing sequence of regular cyclical
maintenance while allowing other elements of lower
significance on the site to go into a managed decline. The
overall aims were to reduce maintenance costs as well as
operational carbon emissions.
It was often difficult to balance the ‘romantic ruin
aesthetic’ while minimising future maintenance and
preserving the historic fabric. Each stone or intervention
to the building required a bespoke approach, requiring its
own individual consideration because every instance had
a different context which made applying a consistent
approach to the entire building impossible.
At the onset of the project, the true condition of the site
was unknown with the last survey taking place in 2014.
Most of the site was highly inaccessible due to being a very
tall and very large ruin on the edge of steep sloping ground
to the west.
The condition survey carried out by Donald Insall
Associates revealed significant stone decay, failed mortar,
rusting metal, rotting timber, failing decorative plaster,
failing gypsum floors, vegetation growth, roosting bats,
saturated ground and salt movement. To help address the
way the building fabric had been compromised, the
conservation architects at Donald Insall Associates introduced a number of more radical interventions. These
included the application of new external lime render (or
harl) to the west elevation and new enlarged lead canopy
hoods over the decorative plaster to the Great Hill Cham-
Above, Hardwick Old Hall Credit Donald Insall Associates
Photography Credit t©DamianGriffiths
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