What to do with a house like this?

[FamilyWiggs]

Sorry, I was meaning open into the room, so it could be touched, not to the outside elements.

Oops sorry

Yes it is totally unprotected. But how could I protect it? Short of a slab of perspex! :roll:

 

[Gareth Hughes]

CADW have just "completed" a full resurvey for Wales (which has added a huge number of new list entries), but the absence of houses like Robin's - which from the photos looks like an dead cert for Grade II - suggests that there's still a problem with persuading the investigators to venture up even moderately remote cart tracks

Really? When I first read that Gareth, a massive smile spread throughout me - very quickly followed by a sudden fear that my responsibility to the building is perhaps much greater than I thought.

I'm off to learn about listing...

Current listings are, for some reason, being taken at much more pernickity level than before, and I've been surprised by one or two recent rejections by English Heritage where, as with your house, there was at least as much of immediately-visible interest as there is in quite a lot of buildings that were listed in the 80s.

But then the new PPS5 introduces the idea of the "Heritage Asset", which can be "Designated" - listed, scheduled, a registered landscape, or "undesignated" - ie something the planning authority suddenly decides is of interest even if it isn't formally protected - and with no apparent guidelines on what these might reasonably be, or any formal proceedure for identifying them.

This has already been used by a planning inspector at appeal as the sole reason to refuse a windfarm (a Cold War missile site was accepted as being a "heritage asset" whose setting would be compromised).

Although it's potentially a useful tool for those of us who like to micro-manage everything that anyone can do, I feel very uneasy at the prospect of this being abused (and therefore being diluted and rendered worthless), especially when it comes to the attention of elected members who aren't usually qualified to express an opinion about such things but who can look around for any reason to refuse some applications...

 

[Tom]

The mellow views posted here are all very well, if you really can't be bothered to care that much about conservation, taste, or architectural coherence.

However, if you all believe that the opinion of a unskilled person, who has no architectural training, little understanding of history, historical fitness for purpose, or conservationist approaches to sensitive adaptation of a period building - that that opinion carries the weight of a Gareth, a Gervase, a Nemesis, then I'm afraid we part company.

In the decision of how, or if, to remove render off my house - DWB or Gervase? No contest at all.

Apart from the lack of render on my house (of which there is no evidence that any, other than cement, ever existed), just what is it that you so abhor that I've done to my house, that can't so easily be undone? What drives you to keep having a dig at me?

 

[lou]

FamilyWiggs
I can hardly believe your wonderful house is not listed. Mine is listed and while it has lots of interesting features characteristic of its age, it doesn't look as grand as yours. Have you read Richard Suggate's book (see link) Houses and History in the March of Wales: Radnorshire 1400-1800. It's fascinating to read through and compare your own house with those in this publication. I suspect from some photos I've seen of yours that it's a two-bayed gentry hall house?

http://www.rcahmw.gov.uk/HI/ENG/Publications/Bookshop/?book=3