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Tackling buildings at risk in Wales

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SAVE’s work in Wales

David Plaisant (Save Britain’s Heritage)

Calcott Hall, nr Welshpool

Wales has been integral to SAVE’s work since the organisation’s inception during European Architectural Heritage Year (1975). SAVE’s rescue work began with Barlaston Hall, a Staffordshire Palladian mansion bought for £1 in 1981 and subsequently restored through a charitable trust. The organisation receives no public funding, ensuring its independence and a capacity to be outspoken – whether it is developers, local or central government who deserve criticism. We aim to provide advice and take action ourselves where appropriate, to identify economically viable solutions for buildings and sites that are threatened. Our approach is hands-on and uninhibited.
    SAVE has been described as the most influential conservation group to have been established since William Morris founded the Society for the Protection Ancient Buildings over a century ago. Through press releases, lightening leaflets, reports, books and exhibitions, SAVE has championed the cause of decaying country houses, redundant churches and chapels, disused mills and warehouses, blighted streets and neighbourhoods, cottages and town halls, railway stations, hospitals, military buildings and asylums.
    From the start, SAVE has always placed a special emphasis on the possibilities of alternative uses for historic buildings and, in a number of cases, it has prepared its own schemes for re-use of threatened buildings. On repeated occasions SAVE proposals have been instrumental in giving threatened buildings a renewed lease of life. SAVE is also very active on the broader issues of preservation policy.
    Our first report (in the Architects’ Journal for 17/24 December 1975) stressed:

“Architectural Conservation should be accorded the same consideration which is already being shown to the conservation of other resources for the same reasons. Buildings represent energy, labour and materials, which either cannot be replaced or can only be replaced at enormous cost. The fight to save particular buildings or groups of buildings is not the fancy of some impractical antiquarian. It is part of the battle for the sane use of all our resources. The visible link with the past that old buildings give us is important both as a fascinating insight into history and as an expression of the relative permanence of civilised society. Conservation to the architect and public alike is not a fad, fetter or curse: it is a necessity which should also be seem as a stimulating challenge.”

“The three major issues which determine the life and death of a building are the cost of its restoration, the powers which local and national authorities have to enforce and encourage conservation and, more subtle, the role of imagination in conservation.”

Imagination is essential in addressing these issues.
    In 1986 we published Lost houses of Wales by Tom Lloyd, a survey of country houses demolished since 1900 and a history of those that have been lost. Meanwhile the restoration of 6 Palace Street, Caernarfon, like that of Barlaston Hall, represents a major achievement that reflects SAVE’s ethos.
    This grade II building, in a conservation and what is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site had become neglected. In 1994 the former Arfon Borough Council decided it was unsightly and dangerous and decided that it should be demolished. Yet this was, aside from the castle, the oldest building in the town, with medieval timberwork dating from the fifteenth-century and roof timbers that showed signs of being part of a medieval solar cross wing to a lost hall. Additionally, the layout of the site denoted a double burgher's plot, which is the only original site laid out in medieval times in Caernarfon.The outcry against demolition (scheduled for 2 January 1995) was fuelled by a SPAB condition survey which argued that this was not a dangerous structure. SAVE got an injunction against the council at the last minute, forestalled the demolition contractor, and bought the building with the intention it should be restored for a new use.
    Ymddiriedolaeth Treftadaeth Caernarfon (The Caernarfon Heritage Trust) was formed to run this project. During restoration the building was securely dated to 1400-50 and a number of features were uncovered, such as a range of fireplaces, rare sections of wattle and daub and enough timber framing to explain how the building once looked.
    In December 1998, 6 Palace Street was sold to its present owner who runs a tearoom and antique shop. Its transformation has helped reinvigorate the whole of Castle Street, which is now hardly recognisable from the run down condition it was in when SAVE began their battle back in 1994. It sparked off a regeneration of Caernarfon's old town which will help to bring back visitors to a delightful and historic place.
    This project stands out from the rest as one of the most dangerous and rash SAVE have ever undertaken, on a par with Barlaston Hall. It shows how SAVE puts itself on the line like no other charitable organisation.
    SAVE continues to work to raise public awareness of buildings at risk through research and publication. A team of two maintains an online register of buildings that are unoccupied or in a poor state of repair. There are currently 750 properties on the register, accessible through a £25 subscription, and designed as a resource for potential  buyers and saviours. Once a year we compile and publish a catalogue of buildings at risk. This year's BAR catalogue, Heaps of Delight, contains a selection of 100 threatened buildings in England and Wales and can be obtained from SAVE for £12.00.
    We have a report on Welsh historic buildings in the pipeline, which will consider the problems associated with some 200 buildings, mostly unlisted. Amongst these properties will be Calcott Hall, near Welshpool in Powys, a grade II house of ca 1725; Pen y Pye Farmhouse, Grosmont, Monmouthshire, also grade II and dating from the later sixteenth century; and Sir John Soane's magnificent Piercefield House, near Chepstow, which is listed grade II*.

All illustrations copyright©SAVE

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