8.00pm tonight on BBC2

[Anonymous]

I dont know. As with all programs like this, you wonder what went on and was said off camera. Presumably to keep making the program they need to be polite and not too negative otherwise they get told to bog off.

The sandblasting and angle grinding !

 

[Anonymous]

i am tempted to contact the makers of the programme to complain. the works which were undertaken to the building were wholly unnacceptable - surely l.b.c was not granted for sandblasting/angle grinding/concrete flooring/double glazing? - the result was akin to a pub in a theme park. this programme has, in my opinion, put the conservation movement back 20 years. what made matters worse was the 'jolly giggle critique at the end of the programme; they should have been made to realise the error of the ways. t o t a l l y d i s g u s t e d. if i were the c.o on that job............

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew - I agree it was terrible, and some complaint should be made. There is a website and God help us a book of the series... it should be pulped NOW. I dread to think that 'rescuing a BaR' is going to become a lifestyle thing and more ghastly progs like this may follow.

I think http://www.bbbc.co.uk/lifestyle

may get us more.

But I do know how these things work, and the I supect some clever editing of a great deal of adverse criticism has gone on. The three stooges could hardly slam everything, could they? Or they'd have been criticised as well. The couple doing it hadn't a clue - more interested in decorating fabric than historic fabric. Thankfully, the house did look as though it was mainly a shell before they began, but so much was inappropriate.

Also, you don't actually know if the LBC was for angle grinding - it possibly just said 'removal of cement pointing and replacement with lime' and as for the blasting, well, maybe no permission was given, or it was but the over-enthusiasm of the blaster was not under the control of the CO. Builders - weeell, we all have had those who know better than the CO - I've been doing this job fifty years mate and no chit of a girl armed with a university degree is going to tell me how to do it... I understand the angle grinding was stopped. The CO can't be there every minute. Possibly the CO did stop the work... we don't know. Enforcement is, in my authority, not a public thing.

There is a dire shortage of suitably qualified people to take on CO's jobs, look at the authorities without one...

The floor stuff was disgusting, but once the flags had been lifted (and remember the justification may have been damp, and the insistence of the mortgage company for a damp proof membrane and injection...) then there was little that could be done, but the over enthusiasm for how things looked (re the underfloor heating) rather than the history and NOT disturbing historic fabric was shocking. When they were pumping in the cement the other half groaned and left the room.

The crack in the lintel was hardly a surprise - I'm only surprised the poor old house is still standing.

But - in my local authority, despite having a very, very good CO frequently her input is simply ignored, as local councillors know best. And she is vastly overworked - and once the job has been done badly there's little you can do. Enforcement was not very realistic here! What could be enforced once the builders had buggered it up? I doubt in reality very much.

You cannot, as CO, act as architect and builder as well! The fact they were going it alone apparently (no idea who prepared the plans and justification etc - there was no mention of that) can hardly be blamed on the CO, as they couldn't be forced to hire someone appropriate. I rather suspect that engaging an architect part way through was as a result of horror on the part of the three experts, and a realisation from the producer that the programme couldn't be shown if the horrors continued.

Still, they are probably happy - it looks sort of vaguely olde-worlde. And without any soul.

The doorway that David mentioned - it was only filled in with breezeblock - presumably as part of the consent - and actaully was better unblocked. So changing minds here was hardly a matter of enforcement either.

Still, the CO will be pleased - one more crossed of the BaR list.

Actually, must check and see if it's on there. Don't think we will be doing it as a case study for the 2006 BaR book though!

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew - have another look at David's post, and direct your quite justifiable anger towards the Local Authority, the producer of the programme and, to a lesser extent, the experts.
The couple in question bought the house because they loved it, and it was evident throughout the programme that they wanted to do the right thing by it. All they needed was good advice and guidance, but they got precious little.
The wrecking of the outside was an innocent and quite avoidable mistake; if someone had told them what not to do I'm sure they'd have willingly taken the advice and saved themselves a great deal of money. Ditto with the windows.
It was yet another case of not getting the answers because of not knowing what questions to ask.

On the plus side, at least some rude things were said about damp treatment (I think the UFH was instead of a membrane, just to keep the planners happy), the message about angle-grinding and sand-blasting came over loud and clear and lime was mentioned, though not explained.

I agree, it was a very flawed programme indeed. But at least it raised awareness of some of the issues involved in restoration, and got across some nuggets of information to a very wide audience. A lot more people will now know some of the questions.
I am thankful for small mercies.

 

[Anonymous]

yes, everything could and should have been slamed. the '3 stooges' should have retained control over editing and the local authority should have had a full specification /drawings/method statement for the works. the 'general public' should be in no doubt of the severity of such failings.... also, there was far too much reference to how 'they' wanted the building... how long will they actually own it? when the programme first started and they discussed dpc, i thought 'great'.... but then matters quickly turned for the worse. i think the '3 stooges' should be more forthright... especially as one is from e.h. the overall approach was far too 'nice' - site discussion needs to be firm.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I arrived in the office this morning hopping with rage, and found that our other CO was in a similar mood.

BUT:

We all know that well-intentioned ignorance is a huge threat to historic buildings and I think the message "know what you're dealing with before you reach for the powertools" had come across quite well by the end of the programme.

Lots of people think they're doing the right thing and don't know where to go for advice, if this show makes just one of them think twice and find out, it'll have done a service (pity a historic building had to be sacrificed to achieve it). I wonder if the building was in one of the local authority areas without a CO? It was evidently in the North, and (pace Evelyn) conservation is generally about 20 years behind normal best practice in large parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Merseyside, "restoration" "renovation" "renewal" and "modernisation" all being seen as the same (desirable)thing, with "conservative repair" a largely unknown idea, thought to be rather fey and not sufficiently no-nonsense in dealing with damp, draughts, leaks etc. "As good as new" still a term of approval.

Another plus is that the experts, for once, didn't come across as either monomaniacal stormtroopers or ridiculously precious and arty-farty about every little thing (Ian Constantinides' overall tone of contained, schoolmasterly exasperation, especially his gentle explanation that the windows were wrong, and that it wouldn't have cost any more to get them right, was masterly)

The angle-grinding was disastrous (though I understand the intention was to repoint but they hadn't got round to it by the time they'd "finished" the interior, which seems a slightly odd order to do the work in). The stone cleaning was even worse and underlined how much better sandstone looks when it's dirty.

I missed the first 15 minutes or so, so I'm not clear how much of the interior had survived in an unstripped state at the start - from the few flashbacks at the end it looked to have been pretty completely gutted before the couple bought it?

The series is going to make painful viewing, but it seems to take a *little* more care in putting across the pro-conservation argument, and the reasons for it, than La Beeny, and not to make it into a staged confrontation between the poor innocent homeowner and the nasty experts.

As for whether Ptolemy and Marianne would have presented it better, if you mean "more accessibly and understandably from the viewing public's point of view", the answer, I'm afraid, is "no". As a colleague remarked after the first series of Restoration, "I didn't know 'tosser' was spelled with a silent 'p'"

 

[Anonymous]

Well, simply being from EH isn't always a guarantee that everything will be OK either!

It's an unwieldy organisation, and I agree with Philip Venning in the latest 'Cornerstone' that there is no accepted overall conservation ethos there. So much also is up to individual interpretation.

The programme, however, was only a fraction I'm sure of untold hours of footage, edited to make a programme, not be educational. It's entertainment (of a sort).

I have beside me a set of plans passed for works to a listed building. Then the builders set to and as it was clear they were barely literate, did not understand the plans and the writing which accompanied it, the plans had been drawn up by a local who was NOT an architect and who was NOT engaged to supervise the work, and the absentee owners only in it for the dosh, the building was wrecked. Once I realised what was happening (and only because it was in a public place and I saw what was going on, rather too late) and complained to the LA a stop was put on the works. I was thought to be an interfering busybody by some of course.

However, after a very long delay and a number of enforcement meetings, giving the owners time to rectify the work, enforcement was reduced to the minimum - a coat of paint really - as the local councillors on the enforcement committee thought it was a great improvement on the 'untidy eyesore' the historic building was. Well, it's all new and smart now, you see. All that nasty old joinery replaced by straight and new, layers of lime now a coat of placcy paint etc.

The CO's list of things to be put right (although as she said you can't replace history...) was wise and scholarly, but ignored. You can't penalise people, you see, when they are only doing their best.

Grrr.

I suspect the CO is horrified by the whole thing here, if indeed there is a CO. The CO may have been off ill, off on maternity leave, with cover from a colleague in planning who knew little and cared less about conservation. I can name a few CPO's like that!

 

[Anonymous]

Eek! We're one of the next ones, having endured the cameras arriving every couple of weeks since February.
I don't know much about the Biddulph Hall project other than anecdotally through the production crew and Ian Constaninedes, but I do know that a lot of the damage was done before the experts' visit and was the cue for much growling and berating which didn't make it to screen.
What also didn't make it to the final cut was the huge uPVC conservatory that had the experts grinding their teeth!
That sais, I'm now apprehensive about the way our project will be portrayed. Over 60 hours of folming goes into the final porgramme, and that doesn't include all the CGI trickery. As such, we are totally in the hands of the director, who can edit to portray us in any way she likes. I just hope that the assurances of sympathetic treatment and adherence to old-fashioned Reithian values actually meant something (fingers crossed)!
In our case, we agreed to have the BBC on site because (a) it would give me a kick up the arse to get moving with the work and (b) because of the usefulness of having expert advice on tap.
(a) worked well, but (b) was a mixed blessing, because there's a different opinion from each expert!

 

[Anonymous]

The book of the series is actually rather good. The houses used merely serve as illustrations, and the concept of restoration is treated rather more seriously than on the programme itself. It even has a warm endorsement for this website!

 

[Anonymous]

Very unfair on silent P I'm afraid - not a telly presenter, an architect and former SPAB scholar who does a great deal for conservation, but not a tosser I can assure you. And a man whose scholarship cannot be denied. Published on Soane for heaven's sake - an authority!

By the second series (I'm told a third is planned) they had far more input and there was a great deal of sound conservation message put across.

The house last night was Manchester way - I'll have a delve...

 

[Anonymous]

BUT - it's repair, not restoration!! Gentle, sensitive, conservative repair! Not much of that went on, did it?

SPAB HATED the title of the series!! (Restoration I mean!) And if anyone else says 'returned to former glory' they will be throttled.

A ringing endorsement of this site? I seem to recall we were all rude to the researcher who touted for punters for the show, pointing out a sensitive repair would or should take years, not the short time scale a TV prog required - we wuz rite!!!

I'll have a look at the book then and write a critique possibly...

 

[Anonymous]

That's exactly the problem with silent P. He is exceptionally knowledgeable and a likeable chap, but in front of a camera (rather like whispering Dan Cruikshank) he doesn't come across as "normal" in a way the great unwashed can relate to except as yet another cartoonish TV eccentric.

The t-ss-r comment actually came from someone who knows him rather better than I do and was meant (mostly) in fun, but I bet it was the automatic response of any Mr Bodgit the Builder who tuned in to Restoration to see what all the fuss was about, and might, without the slightly precious air of the presenters, have stayed with it and maybe even learned something.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I like em both on telly - DC is exactly the same off screen as on. I like barking eccentrics, prefer their presenting style to that I think of Maxwell Hutchinson (although he can be forgiven because of his love of real ale) and as a barking eccentric myself I relate to them all!

Better than Kirsty n Phil... grrrr!

 

[Anonymous]

Jake - that quip about the weather closing in etc is perfect - exactly what it's like in these progs - made me laugh! I needed it!

I think it will become a catchphrase in our household...

 

[Anonymous]

The book has little to do with the series, other than piggy-backing on the title and publicity. It was written by Sally Bevan, with a foreward by Charlie Luxton, and should make ideal reading for anyone contemplating doing up an older house. Had it been there for the Manchester couple to read, I hope the end result would have been more sympathetic to the building. Maybe, for those who haven't seen it, it might be better to have a look at the book before rushing to judgement?
As for the time scale - that was something the production team had to swallow quite early in the process. None of the seven properties was started and finished in the course of filming - in fact I believe only one was finished, and that was because it was already under way and had humungous amounts of money lavished on teams of professionals.
The production team certanly got used to slow progress with us - in fact it became a standing joke after three successive visits and I was *still* raking out and repointing.
The problem is, as with any aspect of the media, one of simplification and mass appeal. 'Grand Designs', 'Restoration' and 'A Place in the Country' have all had me ranting at some point for just those reaons; just as trainspotters will rant at anything featuring a railway and anoraks everywhere will sigh and tut because the media doesn't do justice to their particular area of obsession.
Calm down, take off the anoraks and look at the programme objectively and at the series as a whole. My own hope (and it is certainly shared by Charlie Luxton and the trio of experts) is that those watching the series will end up appreciating the need for research, to respect the building and not to inflict damage in the name of restoration.
For me, there's no point in restoring an ivory tower in which to sit there silent and smug in your own rectitude if around you others are knocking nine bells out of beautiful buildings. If it's demeaning to appear in a dumbed-down television programme to shout that message, I'm happy to be demeaned. That's why I didn't tell the researcher not to waste her time and send her off with a patronising flea in her ear.

 

[Anonymous]

'whatever is good of its kind ought to be preserved in respect to antiquity as well as our present advantage for destruction can be profitable to none but such as live it i argue for the preservation of ancient durable buildings that are strong and useful instead of erecting new fantastical perishable trash or altering and wounding the old byby unskilful knavish workmen' - nicholas hawksmoor 1715

 

[Anonymous]

Oh God, poor you!! I do hope they don't portray it to suit themselves! Oh, you must be soooo apprehensive!! Do they not run through it with you first for you to OK it? If not, it does seem very wrong somehow. I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you. Good luck! )

Jaqy

 

[Anonymous]

I just found a link to a news story about it that gives the name, if it helps.


http://www.cumberland-news.co.uk/business/viewarticle.aspx?id=287276

 

[Anonymous]

Excuse me but we aren't trainspotters and anoraks - we are railway enthusiasts! My own obsess sorry passion (amongst the many) is railway architecture, trainshed roofs in particular. And nowt wrong wi' that. Esp when it's Span 4 at Paddington, Grade I Listed, which MUST NOT BE DEMOLISHED... but I digress.

Possibly the programme last night should not have been the first in the series, and I suspect that promises made to treat you all gently (we may not be so kind you know...brace yerself! ) have made it very difficult for the expert opinion stuff to be at its worst.

I do seem to recall at the very beginning of the prog one of them standing in the stripped building saying something about how no building should be treated like that...

A great deal of what what is not good it is possible to put right, and although a placcy conservatory is not really what I'd expect on a listed buildings it's possibly reversible.

Devil and deep blue sea though for 'experts' - I recall another telly prog not so long ago where the CO was on saying what should and shouldn't be done. She came across as a little humourless poss, but she's a CO not a telly personality. Yet she came in for a great deal of criticism. So I suppose there was much wailing and teeth gnashing but it couldn't be shown on screen. You can't win whichever way.

I only hope that the pointing has now been completed over the summer, but it's so sad as the blasting will mean accelerated erosion is inevitable, and the pointing is going to be rather the main feature of the external elevations.

You cannot drive a car without showing competence (although I did manage to fool the examiner rather) and you should not be allowed to work on our national heritage without proving comptent ether.

Still, the building is still standing, unlike some historic buildings which are simply demolished as 'historic buildings experts' without any sense of shame are hired by developers to say they are rubbish - and local authorities agree.

Then there's Easington Colliery School, listed Grade II and it's been granted demolition consent by the local authority against EH and the CO's advice - but that's a gripe for another day. It's been called in, which will be an interestin inquiry.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes - I remember now reading it at the time - they aren't far from here -a t Warwick Mill (a splendid re-use of a historic building I add) and thinking then what a load of probs for historic buildings that one will cause. So many floors dug up, so much concrete poured...

Underfloor heating is going to destroy a great deal of history I fear. But we've been there before on this forum and I can't be bothered to argue again!