Alnwick Castle, Northumberland: seminar on the care and repair of
masonry
Scheduling of an ancient monument does not in itself ensure its continued preservation. This can only be properly achieved if the monument is appropriately managed and its condition is regularly monitored. Only 400 of the 16,000 monuments currently scheduled are cared for directly by English Heritage and responsibility for managing the remainder lies with a variety of landowners. These include private individuals, many of them farmers, local authorities, businesses such as the water utilities, independent bodies such as Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust, and government funded agencies or government departments such as English Nature and the Ministry of Defence.
Since the late 1970s a group of regionally based Field Monument Wardens has been employed to check the condition of scheduled monuments by means of regular site visits. English Heritage currently employ 24 part-time Field Monument Wardens as out-stationed members of the Conservation Group regional teams. The core role of the wardens is to monitor and report on the condition of scheduled monuments and to advise monument owners on best management practise in cases where significant expenditure is required to improve site management; English Heritage may grant-aid necessary work and the Wardens are responsible for identifying appropriate cases. Wardens play an important role in representing English Heritage at a local level and frequently may be the only direct source of contact between our organisation and the owners or occupiers of scheduled monuments.
In recent years, increasing awareness of the importance of heritage conservation and the expansion of government environmental land management schemes have greatly increased the range of Wardens' caseload. Working in close collaboration with Inspectors of Ancient Monuments in the regional teams, they now provide advice in a variety of fora including advisory panels for National Parks, Environmentally Sensitive Areas, and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and they have made a significant contribution towards ensuring the effectiveness of the archaeological and historic landscape component of the pilot phase of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme. In addition, several Wardens play a pivotal role in a number of trial `agency agreements' which devolve responsibility for positive management of scheduled monuments to local authorities. Currently schemes are operational in Berkshire, Hampshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, the Isle of Wight, and the Peak and Dartmoor National Parks.
Wardens have also undertaken a number of special duties. In 1994, one of our Northern Region Wardens, Grace McCombie, and the agent of the Northumberland Estates organised a seminar held at Alnwick Castle on the care and repair of masonry, with technical demonstrations by Historic Property Restoration.
Alnwick Castle, Northumberland: seminar on the care and repair of
masonry
Participants included estate staff together with local architects, land agents, contractors, and representatives of the county council. As a reflection of the success of this initiative, a second seminar, examining the management of earthwork and cropmark sites, will be held in 1995.
Also in 1994, one of the Southern Region Wardens, Eileen Moss, was seconded to English Nature's regional office at Lyndhurst in Hampshire. During her secondment Mrs Moss provided advice on management plans and drafted a set of archaeological guidance notes for English Nature officers. In addition she oversaw the design of an archaeological interpretation panel at English Nature's reserve at Old Winchester Hill. The panel, which features two evocative reconstruction paintings by local artist Mike Cold and which was funded by English Heritage, is a part of a wider scheme of site interpretation on a reserve with a high public profile. The panel testifies to the increasingly close cooperation between English Heritage and English Nature which has sprung from our joint accord; fittingly, it is located on the site where the accord was launched in 1993.
Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire: Archaeological interpretation panel
Repairs to monuments are often quite limited, but nonetheless have a significant impact on their stability and appearance. Some examples in north Cornwall, where a number of monuments suffering from damage or neglect have been rescued from further deterioration and sympathetically restored, serve to illustrate the very wide ranging and important work of the Field Monument Warden at a local level. Work has been mostly organised by North Cornwall District Council's Assistant Countryside Officer, working with local craftsmen and others, and local communities and schools have also been involved where appropriate, thus helping to raise the public's awareness of their local heritage. Initially with ad hoc funding, work is now channelled through the Cornwall Archaeological Unit using the county council's monument management budget, which is jointly funded by English Heritage, the Cornwall Heritage Trust, and Cornwall County Council. A formalised procedure has been established whereby the Field Monument Warden suggests sites in need of conservation, the Unit agrees to arrange the repair work and organises any preliminary recording, and the monument is then `handed back' to the Field Monument Warden who arranges a management agreement for the future maintenance of the site as appropriate. This scheme is now being extended to the whole of Cornwall, and a number of other partners are becoming involved in this work. Examples of monuments in north Cornwall that have recently been repaired include the holy wells at Roughtor, Chapel St Breward, and St Clether, and the crosses at Whitecross near Wadebridge and St Teath.
On the stony slope of Roughtor, the second highest hill on Bodmin Moor, is a holy well with a rough dry stone chamber and a roof of massive granite slabs. Shifting of the stonework at the entrance had caused one of the roofing slabs to slip forward, thus disguising the character of the structure and hiding the actual water source. Here the displaced roofing slab was raised, the entrance rebuilt, and the slab placed in a horizontal position. The work took only one day and yet the effect has been dramatic, opening up and revealing the ferny, moss-clad chamber of a previously overlooked monument.
Removal of a tree growing out of the holy well at Chapel St Breward resulted in a hole in the roof, while piping of the water left the back wall unstable, and an alkathene pipe ran out through the arched entrance. Dignity was restored to this monument and the structure stabilised by rebuilding the back wall and rerouting the pipe. The roof was not rebuilt because there was insufficient evidence of its original form, but was merely covered with a slab. Preliminary archaeological recording interestingly revealed that this building was not a medieval structure, as had originally been assumed, but was probably of seventeenth-century date, rebuilt in the nineteenth century.
In a remote and beautiful setting above the River Inney on the east side of Bodmin Moor stands St Clether Well. This was clearly an important and frequented spot in the Middle Ages, for the well is associated with a chapel, with interesting arrangements for conducting water and directing pilgrims. The problem here concerned the stone roof of the well. Although reconstructed in the late nineteenth century this was in poor condition, as much of the corework had been washed out, causing the roofing slabs to slump. The walls were also badly cracked, and had been subjected from time to time to ad hoc repairs in grey cement. The roof was partly taken down, the corework replaced, and the roofing slabs reset in a lime putty/lias lime mix. Any defective or unattractive pointing was removed and the walls repointed where necessary.
The shaft of the Whitecross, a medieval granite wayside cross, had been broken at some time in the past. In the mid nineteenth century it was repaired with an iron pin through the centre of the shaft and iron staples in the back and front. The iron staples had rusted and broken, rendering the cross head unstable and at risk from vandalism, accidental damage, or theft. A further problem related to the fact that the surrounding verge had built up over the years and the cross had lost its original prominent stature. Conservation work here involved digging up the cross, removing the old iron fittings, and refixing with new phosphor-bronze dowels, filling the joint in the shaft with a lime mortar carefully blended to match the colour of the cross, and resetting the cross in a new granite base. At the same time, the relief-carved cross on the head was given a new coat of limewash.
In the nineteenth century, the churchyard cross at St Teath suffered ruthless mutilation. It was cut up into half a dozen pieces, the pieces of shaft were incorporated in the churchyard wall, and the head was used as a pivot for the churchyard gates. The pieces were mostly rescued in the late nineteenth century, and the cross was extremely well restored at that time. Unfortunately, not all of the head was rediscovered, and much of the lower part had to be rebuilt in brick and cement. One hundred years later, the repair to the head was failing, with sections of cement flaking away to reveal brickwork underneath. Although we prefer to use local craftspeople wherever possible, this was considered to be a difficult and delicate repair job, more suited to experts in stone conservation. The cross head was repaired by pinning, the visible ironwork was stabilised, and the defective pointing of the shaft was also replaced using a mortar which matched the texture, colour, and strength of the original granite.
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