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Change seems to have been the dominant theme over the past year. The heritage sector has seen its own shake-ups, including the recent genesis of the National Lottery Heritage Fund (from the former Heritage Lottery Fund), and uncertainties remain for those with responsibilities for historic buildings and sites. H+R East Office director, David Watt, has seen growing demand in the past 12 months for detailed investigations to identify defects and provide recommendations for practical remedial solutions, environmental assessments and monitoring,…

Christmas at H+R’s head office at Netley House was the usual festive sight with a 26-foot tree in the hall and the decorations and lights up.  Fires in the grates added to the atmosphere and it was a wrench for the surveyors to get out and about.  Despite the political uncertainty, the lead up to the end of the year was perhaps even busier than usual in relation to enquires for H+R’s services Further involvement at Blenheim Palace, but without…

Works are ongoing at Capital & Centric’s £250m Kampus development in Manchester city centre, and H+R were commissioned to carry out masonry moisture profiling and façade condition surveys of two former 19th century canal warehouse buildings on site: the Minto & Turner building and Minshull House, both of which are being re-purposed for residential and commercial use.  The accurate quantification of moisture in masonry masses, the plotting of moisture distribution and the location of hygroscopic salts enables the project team…

The highlight for the month of November every year is the Historic Houses Association AGM and exhibition.  This is the only event in the year that H+R exhibit and the star attraction was the debut of Pip the latest Rothound.  Pip is a 2 year old Sprocker spaniel and is now sufficiently trained to be deployed on ‘active duty’ and has already completed over twenty searches including at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst During November, the usual fascinating range of…

The property pages have been notably full of recent launches by H+R’s clients with one Sunday supplement featuring no less than four.  In no particular order these were The Apsley at Ancaster Gate in Richmond (London Square), Wilderness House in Sevenoaks (Pegasus Life), Floral Street in Covent Garden (Capco) and Gasholders in King’s Cross (Argent) The month saw the twentieth anniversary of the Heritage at Risk Register.  Historic England started the list in 1998 with 1930 buildings which had increased…

During the month the national nominees for the Building magazine award ‘Refurbishment of the Year’ were announced and H+R are proud that, out of the seven entrants, they have been very closely involved in three.  Our best wishes go to Royal Academy of Arts – David Chipperfield Architects https://davidchipperfield.com/, The Piece Hall – LDN https://www.ldn.co.uk/ and Temperate House Kew – Donald Insall Associates https://www.donaldinsallassociates.co.uk/.  In addition, Building’s ‘Project of the Year’ award highlighted the Gasholders in London – Wilkinson Eyre…

With a skyline engulfed by cranes, the significance of the transformation that Manchester is undergoing speaks for itself, and it’s no wonder that an ever-increasing volume of H+R’s work is close to home in the city centre.  In close proximity to the proposed HS2 platform at Manchester Piccadilly, we were recently appointed by Capital + Centric to undertake a range of specialist surveys at their Crusader Works mill complex.  Currently at an early stage of the works, the site is…

Long serving members of H+R staff were intrigued to return to 78 St James’s Street in London.  H+R undertook a wide range of investigative consultancy on the building back in 2001 when the old Conservative Club of 1844 by Sidney Smirke was converted for HSBC private banking.  Squire and Partners www.squireandpartners.com retained our services after an interregnum of nearly 20 years to undertake an overall risk management survey prior to conversion for new occupants.  We were pleased to see that…

As the temperatures rose so did H+R’s workload with a wide variety of new project work Martello Tower No. 4 in Folkstone which is being refurbished as a private home was investigated for moisture management.  A remedial strategy has been developed taking into account the wish to have fair faced brickwork exposed to the interior.  The last Martello tower investigated by H+R was 20 years ago in Suffolk Also relating to damp penetration issues, the fine double-height vaulted basement structure…

H+R experienced an exceptional month in June working on some of the most prestigious conservation projects in the country.  Hanging over this achievement has been the devasting news of another catastrophic fire at Glasgow School of Art.  H+R dedicated a great deal of time and effort through 2016 and 2017 contributing to the first post fire refurbishment.  It appears that our work has now come to naught and that of all the other professionals and contractors.  It seems extremely doubtful…

Quaker Tapestry Museum Kendall H+R were called in to investigate the roof structure at the Quaker Tapestry Museum and Meeting House in Kendall where current fundraising seeks to carry out much needed repairs to the roof.  The Meeting House, which has recently celebrated its 200th anniversary exhibits 77 vibrant embroidered panels made by 4,000 men, women and children from 15 countries between 1981 and 1996.  Further surveys in Cumbria included the former Ulverston Town Hall that was recently declared surplus…

Projects of interest in the month have included forensic investigations of problems at the interface of old and new construction at the Swedish Embassy and also at HMP Lewes.  H+R’s experience in working in highly security conscious environments paid dividends in both cases. The inmates at Lewes were predictably wary of one of the H+R Rothounds! A technically challenging project in the month concerned the investigation of apparent failure to wood stain finishes to oak window units on a prestigious…