Public Information on Period Properties

[biffvernon]

I posted a couple of pictures of places I visited yesterday at http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13033 and it reminded me of something I've been thinking about for a while.

There seem to be a lot of pretty old buildings open to the public where there is very little information about the buildings themselves. Take Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton's birthplace. It's been owned by the National Trust, since 1942 I think, and, as ever, they have done a great job of conservation. The place has become a popular visitor attraction and the science exhibition in a nearby barn is excellent.

But.

Going round the house yesterday there was very little to tell me what was old, how old, what had been repaired and what replaced. There was little displayed about the house's construction or history, beyond mention that the staircase was not where it was in Newton's day and one room used to be a hayloft. A couple of things that particularly interested me were the upstairs lime ash floors and some oak doors. The lime ash floor is probably the best example of its kind in any publicly accessible building yet there was no mention of it and it is almost completely covered in National Trust protective rush matting. The doors are curious; three vertical planks with ledges on the room interior sides but with planted mouldings on the exterior side to give an impression of panelling. I don't know, but would like to know, whether they were originally constructed this way or whether the mouldings were added later to make the doors look posher.

I suppose one might argue that there's only so much information that the visitors can take in. There were good displays for children, and I'm all in favour of making our heritage sites attractive for young folk, they being the future custodians, but that should not mean everything needs to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.

And if there really is no space for technically informative display boards (and there's plenty of space in the outbuildings) then at least the information could be available on line. I spent a while googling this morning and came up with almost nothing about (well, lot's about an apple tree and gravity). The only website discussing the lime ash floor was one I'd written myself about six years ago! Nothing about the doors. Eventually I tracked down a short paper written in 1947 by Robinson and Richardson thought that was behind the Royal Society's paywall. The National Trust really aren't very good at putting their information on line. And it's not just the NT - my experience at John Clare's Cottage was similar, despite the large amount of Lottery Fund they have received (and done excellent work with)

So where is this leading? I'm not having a rant against the NT (I'm a member) but I do think that if we want our building heritage cared for in the long term, a bit more public education wouldn't come amiss. A few months ago I posted some comment about the museum in Pendle, Lancashire, where there is a really great display, explaining just how and why conservation measure were taken on an old building. It can be done.

But before I launch a crusade at the custodians of old buildings, I wonder if others here have had similar experiences. Can anyone provide examples of good museum practice, and of opportunities missed, from other period properties that are open to the public?

 

[Flyfisher]

The Guildhall in Lavenham has a lot of displayed information about the renovations carried out on various buildings in the village (town?), as well as the maintenance of the Guildhall itself. In fact, it was one of our inspirations when thinking about taking on our house - on the basis that it was nowhere near as bad as some of the buildings in Lavenham that had been restored to glory (to use a popular phrase).

I think the challenge is to engage with widely differing visitor audiences, from those with an expert eye, those with a passion to learn, perhaps to work on their own period project, right through to those just a vague interest and amusing themselves on a Sunday afternoon with how primitively people lived in the past, before returning to their modern house with central heating, plastic DG and all mod cons. Each to their own.

Perhaps the advent of the online world will go a long way towards achieving wider availability of the history and conservation measures taken with historic properties. Many PPUK members have created their own websites documenting such things and the LBC process must collect loads of similar information, albeit it not particularly well-indexed perhaps.

Perhaps it's the online indexing of such information that's the real challenge?

 

[biffvernon]

The Guildhall in Lavenham has a lot of displayed information about the renovations carried out on various buildings in the village (town?), as well as the maintenance of the Guildhall itself. In fact, it was one of our inspirations when thinking about taking on our house - on the basis that it was nowhere near as bad as some of the buildings in Lavenham that had been restored to glory (to use a popular phrase).

That's good to hear, but again the website doesn't give any information, just the tease, "Learn about timber-framed construction".

 

[AMc]

Open online information, mobile internet connected devices, QR codes and GPS can all offer interesting opportunities.

Monmouthpedia sounds like a really interesting idea, with the Wiki approach and tagging you could (potentially) add as much information as there is available.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/17/monmouthpedia-wikipedias-very-own-qr-coated-welsh-town-video/

If only QR codes themselves were slightly less ugly

 

[Penners]

There were good displays for children, and I'm all in favour of making our heritage sites attractive for young folk, they being the future custodians, but that should not mean everything needs to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.

A big "hear, hear" to that. I'm afraid the National Trust is increasingly turning its houses into "visitor experiences", which are decidedly dumbed-down. Lots of "how many frogs can you see in this room?" or "try on a knight's helmet!" and "what do you think it felt like to be the Duchess's chambermaid?" but precious little in-depth adult information.

The laminated cards in each area will sometimes give you a certain amount of background about the room, particularly the pictures which always seem to attract the lion's share of descriptive information. But in my experience there is rarely much available about the architectural detail and the physical structure.

 

[biffvernon]

Yes, I abandoned the laminated card and pinched the volunteer's ring-binder. But it only had a printed version of what the volunteer had just said (plus a page of what to do is someone dies/steals something).

 

[essexbearhunter]

Capturing and understanding what you see on a visit can be very difficult. With the relaxation of photography rules at some houses it becomes a bit easier - and in others I have started making notes on my very NT-friendly (ie no built-in camera or 3G ability) iPod.
Even that has sent mental alarm bells ringing with some security personnel..Althorp** being a horrible example (..they seemed under the illusion that I could take really detailed notes of every nook and cranny...oh if only I could enter info on a tiny touch screen that fast :roll: ) - A great shame, since trying to describe even one object succinctly in words really focuses the mind and makes you analyse what you see....getting so much more out of each visit.

To get back to Biff's subject:
I have started to augment notes and photos for each building with the Listing material
http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/
This brings up http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-193262-woolsthorpe-manor-house-colsterworth on Woolsthorpe Manor


**A bouquet goes to Wilton House for being the total opposite

 

[biffvernon]

Yes there's always the listing description. But that's just what somebody saw and noted down as he toured the building. Take this bit:

The staircase, which has been inserted into the central room is late C18 with column newel and stick balusters. To the first floor are 4 C17 doors with chamfered and stopped surrounds.

It mentions the curious doors I described earlier, but my description is more detailed. More importantly, although the four doors are described as C17 only three doorways existed until the house was remodelled in the 18th century when the staircase was inserted and the hayloft, which previously had only an exterior door and no access to the house, was converted to a room and a doorway to the stair landing inserted. Now I suspect that the NT has a record of what really happened but it's not in the listing description and not published anywhere else that I have found.

 

[essexbearhunter]

Totally agree that the Listing info is showing its' age - listings are often 60 yrs old and scholarship has moved on in that time, exposing inaccuracies and mis-attributions in the original (sometimes hurried) Listing. The Listing information remains the most obvious depository for structural analysis - though how we can get it updated, I don't know. Unlike information from the owners/trustees of the plethora of buildings, it does try to give a consistent approach and level of detail - and covers surrounding buildings beyond the interest-range of the core buildings' custodians.

The other major surveys - Victoria County Histories and Pevsner's architectual guide are both actively being updated - and the shear size of the former (Wiltshire alone has now got 18 volumes) puts it in pole position . However, the scope of the VCH is almost exclusively historical rather than architectural - and several counties (including Lincolnshire) are currently dormant. The interest lies in its' web-based extension British History Online which has taken the paper-based resource and brought it into the 21st century, suddenly bringing it to potentially vast (and profitable?) new audience.

Whether anyone can turn the EH Listing into and a "British Architecture Online" and fuse the updatability of Wikipedia with the more rigorous content control of the originals is anyones guess.