Stop Press....

[Nemesis]

I note the Torygraph article is dated 2004.

The point is that these buildings are listed as being of national if not international historic and architectural significance.

I also note that most buildings can be seen by a quick scout round an area, and I suspect tht's the way most burglaries are planned.

I also note Gareths' comment... I'm not sure he meant angry...

The information is available at libraries as the listings are housed there. No trawling required.

 

[Flyfisher]

You don't have to agree, but don't bother arguing, I have work to do!

 

[Nemesis]

The Flyfisher pedant button is OFF then.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Does it matter if your house is not listed? Perhaps you could start a trend for unlisted houses?

I think the point is that such a database makes such information much more freely accessible and, therefore, easier to abuse. I'm sure all the info could already be found by going to the local library and trawling through loads of books, but it's not as easy as a few mouse clicks is it?

Yes, but the point is, what information, and what abuse? how on earth could the information that be "abused"? This is modern British paranoia run mad.

If someone can give me an example of why the information below, with a photograph taken from the public road, should not be readily available to anyone who wants to see it (or alternatively, how the information could possibly be "misused"), I'd be astonished.

SE 36 NWLITTLETHORPEKNARESBOROUGH ROAD(east side)6/49Thorpe Lodge

SE 36 NW LITTLETHORPE KNARESBOROUGH ROAD (east side) 6/49 Thorpe Lodge - II House. Early C19. Brick, painted, stone slate roof. 2 storeys, 5 first- floor windows with 2-storey, separately-roofed bay to right. 3 steps up to central half-glazed panelled door with fanlight flanked by round-arched sashes, all in projecting bay which is carried up through the first floor. Porch composed of 2 square reeded columns supporting plain entablature and dentilled cornice. 4 pilasters flank the door and side windows. 2 large sashes with twin glazing bars, projecting sills and incised keyed lintels flank the entrance, with similar but narrower windows to first floor. The central canted bay window has a 16-pane and two 8-pane sashes. Dentilled eaves cornice. Hipped roof and 2 large stacks to rear. Bay to right has similar sash windows. Interior not inspected.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I also note Gareths' comment... I'm not sure he meant angry....

No indeed, I meant the "sorry about the letter written in crayon, we aren't allowed sharp things in here / I'm having difficulty getting a telephone call through to you because my jacket fastens up the back and arms are strapped to the chair" type of "mad", not the American kind.

 

[Nemesis]

Torygraph 2002

Like Images of England, the Revenue site is a model of public access - but a potential headache for private security. Under the conditional exemption tax incentive, inheritance and capital gains tax are not paid on works of art that are made available to the public. Many of these are in private homes, and many are described on the Revenue's website, along with precise details of their whereabouts.


A prevailing theory among insurers is that the £2 million raid on Madresfield Court may have been the result of its appearance on that site

Madresfield Court:

http://www.elmley.org.uk/pages/madresfield_court.asp

Madresfield Court

Madresfield Court is the ancestral home of the Lygon family, the eldest son of which bore the title Earl Beauchamp between 1815 and 1979, when the eighth and last Earl died. The house contains outstanding collections of furniture, pictures, porcelain and objets d’art, and a wonderful library designed by C.R.Ashbee. It is particularly a centre of the Arts and Crafts movement. The Chapel, commissioned from Birmingham artists and craftsmen in 1902, is widely regarded as the most complete, and perhaps the most lovely of all British Arts and Crafts achievements. Fittings and other commissions from the period are scattered throughout the house.

The extent and quality of the collections in the house have become increasingly recognised, most recently by Simon Jenkins who rated Madresfield among the 50 best in his book on 1000 Historic Houses. The Elmley Foundation assists with conservation, research and archiving of the house’s historical records.

Madresfield Court is currently home to Lady Rosalind Morrison, a niece of the late Earl.

Visits to the house can be made, by appointment only, between April and July each year.

To book, contact

The Estate Office
Madresfield
Malvern
Worcestershire WR13 5AH

Telephone 01905 830680

madrescourt@clara.co.uk

Also:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/features/360/worcester/madresfield_index.shtml


Cos we none of us knew of its existence until IoE?

How about banning all editions of Pevsner too?

Madresfield Court has no picture on I o E.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


No Image Available

IoE Number: 153385
Location: MADRESFIELD COURT, INCLUDING BRIDGE, RETAINING WALL AND NORTH SERVICE COURT,
MADRESFIELD, MALVERN HILLS, WORCESTERSHIRE
Photographer: N/A
Date Photographed: N/A
Date listed: 25 March 1968
Date of last amendment: 25 March 1968
Grade I


MADRESFIELD CP-SO 84 NW6/70Madresfield Court,including bridge,25.3.68retaining wall and

MADRESFIELD CP - SO 84 NW 6/70 Madresfield Court, including bridge, 25.3.68 retaining wall and north service court GV I Country house. C16, on earlier moated site with later additions. Extensively restored, rebuilt and extended 1866-88 by P C Hardwick. Brick with stone dressings and tile roof. Entrance front is approached by C16 or C17 brick bridge. Four gabled bays were raised by one storey to four storeys in 1885. The two central bays project. Windows are mullioned, with transoms on the ground and first floor. At the left is a fifth gabled bay, canted back to follow the course of the moat and of two storeys with attic. The west side of the house contains servants' rooms and includes glazing bar sashes. On the north side a service court including a game larder and brew house was added in 1870 and connected to the main house by a covered bridge over the moat. To the right of the entrance front is the two-storey canted bay window of the library, with the south wall of the chapel to its right. The east side of the house has a variety of bay windows and gables. Parallel with the projecting chapel, at the north end of the east front, is the north-east wing containing the drawing room and music room, on the site of C18 extensions. Near the junction with the main house is a timber bellcote with fleche added in 1875. A retaining wall follows the line of the moat to connect the chapel with the north-east wing. In the centre of the house is a courtyard. On the south side is a wall of stone tracery with double doors opening into the dining room. The other elevations are elaborately timber-framed, with jetties on the west and north sides and an east gallery. The paving has inlaid pattern and a date "1888". Interior: the staircase hall of 1913 has three glass domes. The stair, and galleries on two sides, have carved newels and irontwist glass balusters. The dining room, on the site of the great hall, has a false hammerbeam roof and a chimney piece with re-used C17 woodwork. On the first floor the long gallery on the east side of the house is on the site of the Elizabethan gallery and contains re-set panelling of the period and a chimneypiece of 1610 removed from a farmhouse. The first floor room over the entrance has an original plaster frieze and a ceiling in three panels, and another bedroom has a ceiling of shallow pitch, with vine, rose and acorn ornament in an ogival pattern. The Japanese Bedroom and an adjoining bedroom have Deuxieme Empire panelling added in 1874. The library contains woodwork by C R Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft, including two doors, and bookstack ends carved with the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. The Chapel has a complete scheme of Arts and Crafts decoration, carried out from 1902 until 1923. Murals in tempera by Henry Payne show Lord and Lady Beauchamp and their family. The reredos is by W H Bidlake, the panels and altar frontal by G M Gere, and glass quarries by M Lamplugh. (Country Life, October 16, 1980; October 23, 1980 and October 30, 1980).

I note it was written about in Country Life. These are usually articles with interior pictures and full descriptions.

 

[Penners]

Despite the Telegraph and BBC pieces, I still find it illogical that a villain would use IoE as his source book for likely targets. It just doesn't make any sense, for the reasons I gave in my post above.

Of course, with a third of a million images on the site, simple coincidence would ensure that at least a few of the properties were burgled within a few days or weeks of appearing.

 

[Nemesis]

Apart from the theft of items of architectural interest, and that happened before IoE, the site gives no details of contents and most descriptions are very brief, to identify the building.

The conservation area appraisal (draft) for my local town has just been published. Many pictures on there!

http://www.tynedale.gov.uk/residents/docushow.asp?docid=218


Ditto in tourism guides.

 

[DaveBrigg]

Anyone looking up our home on the I of E website for a burglary would be pretty disappointed when they arrived. Even the mice have moved back to the church this winter.

 

[Gervase]

Country Life has been essential reading for your average arts and antiques thief for years now. As for the IoE piece - typical journalistic blather; the sort of speculative Sunday-for-Monday guff that I've been quilty of churning out over the years.

 

[DaveBrigg]

I've just found an even better site for those hoping to find a good target online. Check the example here- it even gives a map in case you get lost picking up their flat screen telly. Images of England is a pretty poor substitute by comparison.