C O N T E X T 1 1 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 1 9 the advantages and disadvantages. Readers may recall this reviewer’s first references to The Institution of Civil Engineers Proceedings on Engineering History and Heritage in the September 2010 issue of Context. Volume 164, Issue EH1 (February 2011) has now been published. It again draws widely for its subject matter, including an overview of middle eastern archaeology and the construction of the late 19th centuryWoodhead Dam to supply Cape Town with its main water supply. The principal interest to readers will probably be Graham Slade’s very interesting and well illustrated article about the refurbishment and strengthening of Span 4 at Paddington Station. The work began at the end of 2008. This terminus of the Great Western Railway was Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s masterpiece. The core of the station is his three-span arch roof. The station was much extended in the early 20th century, with the addition of a grand fourth span. This was neglected until recently. Slade explains how it has been refurbished to restore its place within the overall Grade l designation. The works complete the renovation of the station’s entire roof. The article reprises the history of the construction of Span 4; the main aspects of the investigations, structural assessment and strain testing; and the strengthening and repairs to address some of the deficiencies of the original design, completed between about 1912 and 1915. The 37 illustrations are particularly informative, helping to demonstrate the way in which the documentary evidence has assisted the approach to appropriate renovation while still meeting Network Rail’s current requirements for improved passenger information, and the inevitable retailing now deemed an essential part of travel. For those readers dealing with stonework, the January 2011 issue of Natural Stone Specialist describes recent important developments that have resulted in bringing Box Ground Bath Stone back into production for the first time in 50 years. This dense and durable stone comes from the Combe Down Oolite formation. It has been used to construct a huge number of important listed buildings, including Longleat and Laycock Abbey. The availability of the stone has created considerable interest within English Heritage and the National Trust for repair projects, and among architects for new buildings. The mine opened in the 1840s when the construction of the nearby Box Hill Tunnel by Isambard Kingdom Brunel indicated the presence of highquality stone. Although production was maintained throughout difficult trading conditions in the inter-war and immediate post-war eras, the quarry eventually closed in the 1950s. Bath and Portland Stone Ltd has now brought Box Ground back into production from their Harthan Park underground quarry just 200m from one of its original sources. Mining of stone, traditionally considered more skilful and difficult than surface quarrying, resumed in 1999 to extract Ground Stone, but extensive site investigations in 2000 proved the presence of substantial quantities of Combe Down Oolite stone beds. The most suitable location for commencing the work was identified at a point 23m below the surface, once the orientation, gradient and physical dimensions of the access tunnel had been worked out in relation to the water table. The first modern mining production of Box Ground stone left the quarry in July last year. Linked to this article is a useful summary explanation by Tim Palmer of the geology and special characteristics of Box Ground stone. As usual, your reviewer notes a calm authority and acerbic clarity to Philip Venning’s consideration of the spending cuts set out in Cornerstone, the magazine of the SPAB (Vol 31, No 4, 2010). The cuts are savage, but not, at least in most cases, terminal. It is nevertheless ‘a seismic shock’, with gaping new opportunities potentially allowing the society to have a much greater impact. Or, he muses, are we just kidding ourselves? The effects on English Heritage would have been ‘crippling’ at 25 per cent, let alone the imposed one third.While the English Heritage commissioners have said that they will stick to their core activities and statutory duties, the organisation is counting on a big rise in the amount it earns from membership and visits to its sites. Venning describes this as perilously optimistic. The number of visits to all heritage sites has increased in the past two years, thanks to ‘staycations’, but Venning thinks it is hard to see how this will continue, let alone increase. In response to the cuts, the society and the other national amenity bodies are in talks with English Heritage to see what extra support and advice they can offer at local level. They will certainly try, but without the elusive extra funding there are limits to what even they can do. The pragmatism and simple practicality enshrined in the SPAB’s philosophy, coupled with a strong sense of what is aesthetically appropriate, is demonstrated in two articles worth seeking out. One an old solution, one new. In the first, Shawn Kholucy demonstrates that good repair can be great art. He highlights the example of Muchelney, Somerset, now cared for by the National Trust, which the society stepped in to save when threatened by collapse in 1907. This led Earnest Barnsley and Norman Jewson to propose buttressing in the form of a single huge stone blade to support to the western wall. The charming, simple drawing by Barnsley illustrating the method of repair, dated 6 April 1911, is reproduced. In the second article demonstrating both protection and progress – two tenets of the radical conservation and social philosophy which architect Alan Chandler sees as underpinning the SPAB – Chandler shows how this has been interpreted in practice when refurbishing a Kentish hall house for practical family use. He draws on the as-found
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