C O N T E X T 1 1 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 0 11 more important in the digital era. The latest issue of RICS Building Conservation Journal (January– February 2010) has not been published separately, being bound within the institution’s Building Surveying Journal. It runs to rather less than eight pages. Nevertheless, the aim is to attract new audiences. The chairman of the Building Conservation Forum highlights recent concerns voiced by the SPAB about the lack of awareness of some RICS surveyors about the scope of listing (‘…only the front’). This is being addressed in part by a new best practice guidance note by a number of authoritative contributors, intended to define a more common purpose for chartered surveyors. The guidance note is downloadable free, but only to RICS members. The November 2009 issue of Natural Stone Specialist reports on the repairs that Nimbus Conservation is undertaking to stonework at Westminster Abbey’s Chapter House. This is undergoing its first major programme of repair since Sir Giles Gilbert Scott effectively rebuilt the outer skin of the walls in 1870. Although the abbey is a ‘Royal Peculiar’, the Chapter House is the responsibility of English Heritage. The Chilmark stone Scott used has held up sufficiently well for less replacement to be used in the £4 million project than initially anticipated. The December 2009 issue of Natural Stone Specialist highlights repairs to the Grade ll listed Compton House, Liverpool, which in 1865 started life as the world’s first department store. Mutilated in the early 1970s when the original entrance and ground floor stonework were hacked off to accommodate a modern shopfront, the store (now a branch of Marks and Spencer) has recently been restored. The original buff sandstone with a pinkish tinge was sourced from a quarry inWarrington, now closed. The best current replacement (sold as ‘Wild Pink’) is from Peakmoor Quarry. TheVictorian (No 32, November 2009) highlights Victorian architectural ceramics. A good place to start is the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sonia Solicari, curator of 19th-century ceramics and glass at the V&A, discusses the riches of the museum’s holdings and the recent redisplays in the first phase of extensive new Ceramics Galleries. These return to rooms designed by AstonWebb that were originally opened in 1903. The second phase, due to open this summer, will include a gallery dedicated to the preservation of Webb’s display cases. TheVictorian also features the current work of terracotta manufacturer Shaws of Darwen, whose products have been used to undertake extensive terracotta repairs to the listed Kentish Town Sports Centre, London (the old St Pancras Baths), replacing facings originally manufactured by Doulton and Co of Lambeth. Theatres Magazine (No 22,Winter 2009), published by the Theatres Trust, gives a brief history of fibrous plasterwork in theatres. This art perhaps reached its apogee of ornateness in the Edwardian era. The article describes typical recent reinstatements which, for example, allow electrical services to be concealed. It commends the acoustic properties of fibrous plaster and glass-reinforced gypsum (GRG). The issue also explains the thrust of the trust’s new three-year project Ecovenue. This will to provide specialist theatre environmental advice and undertake free Display Energy Certificate assessments with 48 smallscale theatres in London. This aims to reduce energy consumption, harness renewables and design sustainable capital projects in the light of the Climate Change Act 2008. The article does not say whether any of the theatres are historic, but some are likely to be. It will be interesting to see how or if the heritage and sustainability objectives will be reconciled. Finally, as I customarily report from time to time, the Newsletter of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (Issue 29, December 2009) lists recent research awards that may eventually lead to publications of interest to conservation professionals. Publication grants were awarded to author Martin Cook (and his publisher) for Edward Prior (1852–1932): architect, scholar and gentleman; to Hilary Grainger on The Architecture of Sir Ernest George and Partners; and to Albert Grimstone for Building Pembroke Chapel:Wren, Pearce and Scott. Publication grants were also awarded to RIBA Publishing for a book on Sir Basil Spence by Louise Campbell, Miles Glendinning and Jane Thomas; and to Spire Books for Christopher Webster’s RD Chantrell (1793-1872) and the Architecture of a Lost Generation. A research grant goes to Roy Kozlovsky for research in the UK on Architecture of Childhood: English modernism and the welfare state. Bob Kindred MBE
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