At last!

[Anonymous]

Someone who not only had exactly the right sort of skills and enthusiasm all laced with humility, but the most fascinating accent I've ever heard on telly.

Lady F nearly reduced me to tears of rage. This chap made me go all misty-eyed with pleasure.

 

[Anonymous]

no mention of the huge intervention of underpinning, new plinths and concrete floors. yet another over restored house. the series is doing more harm than good.

 

[Anonymous]

I read that Charlie Luxton was the thinking woman's babe, but I'm no judge of that.
Nice oak joints, shame about all the concrete. Why do they do it?

 

[Anonymous]

and why don't the 'experts' comment on it? dpm and concrete.... into the plinth...... into the frame blah, blah, blah...........................

 

[Anonymous]

Oh dear. I missed that bit. I take it all back - except for that wonderful accent. He really was a most delightful bloke, who was doing his best to respect the building and was obviously keen to take all the expert advice that was on offer.
What's the matter with all these 'experts' (and I include the 'conservation architect' who, I suspect, must be held responsible for the concrete etc)?

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew
Shouldn't you have been at county this morning, arguing about bollards with highways?
I was the only CO there - You were missed!

 

[Anonymous]

Well, the "conservation architect" was James Boutwood, who wrote the SPAB guide to repairing timber frames.
I'm not condoning everything that was done in last night's show, but modern materials do have a part to play, sometimes.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, the experts all conceded as much. But it seems to be the concrete et al that's the bone of contention here, and if there was any discussion about its appropriateness I missed that as well.

 

[Anonymous]

What sort? Where? How intrusive? In my backyard? Should I add them to my list of Things To Worry About?

 

[Anonymous]

1. plastic
2. in Norfolk
because the cast iron ones are:
a. too heavy
b. too expensive
c. liable to shatter if one drives into them at speed, leading to -
i. shrapnel lying about and proving an attraction to the local yobbery as handy missiles.

This is how highways engineers view the world.

Mind you, I was in St Stephens St last night and there's some truly awful street furniture recently appeared down there.

 

[Anonymous]

You are right about the accent
It switched back and over between 100% London and 100% Italian
No in between, no compromise.

 

[Anonymous]

It sounds as though you watch TV programmes the way I do, Moo - through the eyelids!

 

[Anonymous]

Does Sir allow that word on PPUK?

 

[Anonymous]

Underpinning with concrete I presume - looked like cement pointing on that plinth - and yes, more concrete flooring. All that talk about why buildings needed to breathe was good, but then other things were not mentioned which weren't good.

Curate's egg!

Maybe we should all log on to the BBC website and say these things...

 

[Anonymous]

I do agree about St Stephens. Had to venture up it the other day to get those 99p reading specs from Poundland. The whole street is so irredemiably awful that a few extra horros don't make much of an impact. But I have a nasty feeling that those strange metal climbing frames are destined to spread further.

 

[Anonymous]

The tragedy is that here they had a man who was really hungry for advice and who would have followed it to the letter, if only it had been forthcoming. Then they would have had a programme that would have had some real value.
Evelyn, you seem to know most people - is there any chance that you could take one of the experts aside and ask some pertinent and searching questions about all that concrete?

 

[Anonymous]

Wish I did know most people as well as that! It would be good, however, if there is to be a follow up series, if the format was changed. Maybe all the owners should be sent on a SPAB course! Certainly, they could have mostly done with better advice at the outset, although I think some would not have accepted it.

Too few people also really want to 'conserve' their properties - only up to a point, only what suits them. We are losing so much so rapidly. It's interesting isn't it that the one building which has been treated really with the greatest kindness, and the 'experts' enthused wholeheartedly over, in this series is Gervase's - unlisted? It's the main one so far which seems to have retained some feeling of age, which to me is an important part of a historic building.

The listed buildings all had to have consent. It's difficult to fault in some ways the fact they received it, when you consider the current system and the fact so much is only guidance, not law. Not all, and I include many at EH, believe SPAB approaches to be the right ones, and in many ways at times they have to be diluted and interpreted in varying ways.

Getting tough with Lady F may have only involved the local authority in hassle and planning challenge. She could clearly afford that, the local authority is having to watch every penny as it's public money. The house still stands, it's one fewer at risk... yet such a lost opportunity. Clearly, lack of money wasn't the reason for all the destruction - rather too much to spend.

The little railway house too has been done with care and thought, although the chimney work was avoidable and the strange wall treatment... well. That is able to be redeemed, however.

However, it did seem to me that the programme series has been flawed in many ways. The 'experts' only get to see the place once a great deal of work has been done. They aren't there really to give advice at the outset, but to comment on how well the owner has carried out work.

I bet when they are off camera and out of hearing they explode!

It would be interesting to know what the 'conservation architect' on Thursday's programme actually input into the building. That wasn't at all clear. Sadly, for such a distinguished architect, so much seemed to be done not as it could have been.

I appreciate so much was done well, the I appreciate the philosophy behind so many decisions - the boarding for example - but why, oh why the new brick plinth, why concrete underpinning, why the concrete floors?

There is a forum for the series - maybe that's the place to ask!

 

[Anonymous]

I will now find the series forum and see if I can put in my two-pennyworth.
But before I do that, guess what I saw when I passed Dragon Hall in King Street this afternoon and pressed my nose the glass in a downstairs window: cans of an Osmo product (wood-coloured, to go by the dribbles down their sides); more cans of vinyl emulsion, and lots and lots of Dulux exterior wall paint. Dragon Hall is one of the most ancient and notable buildings in Norwich, and is now undergoing extensive restoration and extension. Perhaps the paint was for use in the extension, but it was in a room at the opposite end of the building, so I doubt it. Anyway, the exterior walls all look as though they've been thoroughly sandtexed.
Any comment, Gareth?

 

[Anonymous]

I'm now a member of the BBC message board (what a rigmarole!) and I've duly posted a question about the concrete. I'll report back if there are any responses.

 

[Anonymous]

Aaah, Dragon Hall. One of the trustees is a former boss of mine (partner in a local firm of architects which trades on its reputation for conservation, having seen what they actually do I'm not sure it's a deserved reputation), and I know the place rather too well.

Dragon Hall is one of the great conservation disaster stories of Norwich. My own feeling is that it should revert to being five terraced houses and a pub, its last viable use (up to about 1975). Unfortunately because there's a nice mediaeval hall running the full length of the first floor, someone got terribly enthusiastic about stripping it back to that form and let the archaeologists do their worst. Once that had happened there was the question of how to keep the place standing and what to do with the big empty spaces they left behind. Answer, apparently, obviously "modern" (i.e. shoddy 1970s) insertions to prop up the exposed bits of archaeology.
Result, completely useless building, too far from the main tourist area to be a success as a visitor attraction, and too lacking in charm or a sense of history as well (makes no sense for the exterior to retain the appearance of six seperate three-storey units with 18th and 19th century windows, when the whole of the top two floors is now one huge empty space). Costs and maintenance headache, etc. etc.
I'm not sure what the current plan is, but the moral of the story is leave well alone, go slowly, don't rush for the earliest form of the building and if you must do so, at least go all out for a brutal and robust Victorian "restoration" to the mediaeval ideal with no compromise.

Popped into the new hotel across the road from you today - what do you think about it?