C O N T E X T 1 0 5 : J U LY 2 0 0 8 9 Remembering John Ashurst The pied piper of conservation John Ashurst was born on 14 March 1937 and died on 19 May 2008 of secondary cancer. His principal publications are Mortars, Plasters and Renders (EASA, 1983, most recent revision 2006), Practical Building Conservation volumes (with Nicola Ashurst, English Heritage, 1988), Conservation of Building and Decorative Stone (with Frank Dimes, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1990), and Conservation of Ruins (Butterworth- Heinemann, 2007). His most recent work was revising and editing the Practical Building Conservation volumes for English Heritage. Everywhere but Savile Row John was always in demand. He was a one-man research and technical advisory service, whose expertise spanned all the materials encountered in historic buildings and monuments – although his first love was undoubtedly stone. His sound, measured advice, delivered with assurance and a personable smile, was second to none. He was much sought after, and one question was frequently asked in Savile Row, where his English Heritage office was located: ‘What is the difference between John Ashurst and God?’ Answer: ‘God is everywhere; John is everywhere except Savile Row’. He was an outstanding teacher, although better at the one-off lecture than the sustained delivery of a lecture course. His brief employment at Bournemouth University, with its demands of regular lectures and inflexible deadlines, fitted him less well than opportunities for travel and for giving advice on individual buildings. It was always a privilege to work with him on site. His insight into problems, coupled with his willingness to learn from other disciplines, enabled him to give the practical, down-to-earth advice for which he was renowned. John was not a prolific writer, although he attempted to condense some of his expertise into the English Heritage technical advisory notes, which later metamorphosed into the five volumes of Practical Building Conservation, still highly regarded. His first book, Stone Preservation Experiments (co-authored with Brian Clarke in 1972), was less in demand: few people needed to read beyond the introduction with its memorable sentence, ‘These experiments have shown that none of the treatments has had any overall beneficial effect in retarding decay on any of the sites’. But the book was seminal. In its conclusions, John recommended ‘a study of methods of deep impregnation of stonework’. This opened the way for the research into deeply-penetrating consolidants that has influenced stone conservation ever since. His last book, The Conservation of Ruins, will serve as a monument to him for many years. John was an actor, and he could play to a committee just as successfully as to an amateur dramatic society. When I congratulated him once on his performance at a particularly searching meeting of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee, he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘It’s just acting’. He was never at a loss for words, and his calm confidence was convincing and assuring. At the same time, he did not seek the limelight, as was demonstrated by his involvement with the Rose Theatre. Despite all the publicity regarding the excavation and conservation of the site, there are few people who know that it was John who designed and specified the capping for the site, on a single sheet of A4 complete with drawings. John was an enormously influential figure in the conservation of buildings and monuments. He will be greatly missed, not just for his unparalleled expertise, but also for his kindliness, his Drawing by Rob Cowan
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