Restoring an old property to its former glory
Who among us hasn’t felt themselves drawn to a very old property that we felt would have been the ideal place for us in its heyday?
Well, those old properties can be restored to their former glory but don’t make the mistake of underestimating the time or cost that this will entail as Becky will attest.
The history of this particular house goes right back to 1136 when it was part of a grange and owned by a monastery. Ownership passed through Henry the eighth when he disolved the monasteries and subsequently sold in 1557 to the Kemeys in 1601 who carried out some building work from then ’til they sold it in 1793. The Howard family then bought it in 1793 and kept it until 1941 when it was split into apartments before being sold to developers in 1970. By 1972 it was scheduled for demolition but subsequently saved from that fate by the McLeod family who kept it safe until it was acquired fairly recently by Becky who has completed the restoration started by the McLeods. Becky has much, much more detail on the history of the estate.
As you’ll appreciate from this lengthy history the first question that arises is simply what to restore. After all the house changed quite significantly over the period from the initial construction. Naturally, there are no plans and few drawings or paintings to guide any restoration for any truly ancient period.
Since this building was scheduled for demolition, clearly the first task is to do whatever work is required to stop it actually falling down. For example, whilst the ivy looks cute on the house, it’s destroying the fabric of the building and left unchecked will demolish it therefore it has to go and the brickwork behind it needs to be repaired. All really old buildings are unique in the problems and challenges that they present. Here it’s ivy but others may have watercourses to deal with or perhaps trees undermining the foundations.
As Becky says, the cost of restoration using period materials and methods can be astronomical. However, it’s necessary to restore the building with those older methods because old and new often don’t mix well. For example, old buildings didn’t have damp courses and therefore needed to be able to get rid of rising damp in different ways. If you use new techniques on an old building you’ll end up with all kinds of problems arising from that particular difference in approach.
That massive cost of restoration has led to a number of owners going down the DIY route and therefore there are a number of courses that are available to owners who wish to carry out the restoration themselves.
It’s important to remember that you’re not alone in taking on restoration projects like this: help is out there. To start you off, I’ll shamelessly pinch the list of links that Becky has:
- Period Property and Building Conservation have all kinds of resources for this from for sale listings, forums for owners, specialised property insurance, a directory to find the materials and lots more;
- The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and SAVE are there for a little handholding (SAVE lists some beautiful properties in need of someone to restore them).
Even if you’re not quite ready to restore a whole building by yourself you can help those who’ve got one of these properties in their upkeep and stay in a truly historic property.
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