46 C O N T E X T 1 1 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0 contested initiatives. A government programme to revitalise failed inner-city markets in nine of the most deprived areas in the north of England, the idea was to create land for new investment by clearing areas of existing terraced houses for new social housing development. Launched in 2003, with massive public funding, the programme was intended to run for 10 years, with some houses refurbished and up to 90,000 demolished. The local authorities who were required to deliver the programme ran into trouble from the start. There was opposition from local communities, criticism from CABE and famously, in 2006, a Trevor McDonald documentary on ITV that showed how a three-bedroom house in Liverpool due for clearance could be renovated for £18,000, half the cost of demolition and redevelopment. In that same year, SAVE published a report opposing the demolitions, and has since worked with local groups in Liverpool and Manchester to fight compulsory purchase orders and public inquiries. In this second report, commissioned from Mark Hynes Architects, SAVE takes a more unusual stance, by demonstrating how an area of terraced housing in Manchester, also scheduled for demolition, could be refurbished to high energy-efficiency standards to create an urban ‘eco-community’. In promoting this concept, SAVE challenges the former government’s eco-towns initiative, which is also unpopular with environmentalists and many local authorities. The report comes at an uncertain time, for while the new government has yet to announce its plans for the housing market renewal initiative, the proposed shift towards ‘localism’ suggests that more attention will be paid to the views of local communities. Nimbyism in turn will presumably kill off the ‘eco-towns’.Yet the Pathfinder areas face a crisis, for the economic recession has halted regeneration, leaving the targeted neighbourhoods with thousands of empty houses, while many of the developers who were intended to provide the new housing can no longer afford to get involved. This adds force to Hynes’ arguments, for the majority of the vacant houses are in public ownership, and if the government wishes to achieve a forward-looking result from the HMR fiasco, exemplar green-technology communities could provide a powerful message. The Manchester case study exploits the inherent flexibility of Victorian terraces by extending, modifying and joining units together to create a range of house types, while external spaces are transformed through an innovative approach to landscape. Energy efficiency is achieved by a variety of means, including insulation upgrades, passive solar energy, microtechnology and rainwater harvesting. It is proposed that end houses might become combined heat and power plants, providing heat and energy for each street. Cost estimates suggest that refurbishment would be substantially cheaper than new build. In the final section of the report, a framework is set out for establishing and managing eco-communities. It is a compelling vision and SAVE is to be congratulated for moving the debate onward in a positive direction. Peter de Figueiredo, historic buildings consultant Details, details Period House Fixtures and Fittings 1300–1900 Linda Hall, Countryside Books, reprinted 2007, 224 pp, line drawings and b&w ills, paperback, ISBN 1 8530674 2 3, £12.99 Most historic houses are the product of change. Succeeding generations of owners and occupants have stamped their mark on their property because of changing taste, taking advantage of new lifestyles, increased prosperity or technological advances. The detailed elements of any historic building can therefore be of varied dates, and understanding and dating those features can be important to assessing its overall significance. Indeed, much of a building’s interest can be dependent on the survival of details. Yet most guides to vernacular houses concentrate on social history and associated stylistic analysis, providing only generalised dating, and saying little about regional variations. It is because of this that Linda Hall’s book is so valuable, for the fixtures and fittings she records are securely dated and subjected to an often surprising evolutionary and comparative analysis. The pocket-sized book is the result of years of visiting and recording historic houses across England and Wales, as well as North America. Each of the eight chapters examines a different part of the house. The book has several hundred illustrations, mostly in the form of line drawings made by the author and her two daughters, of meticulous draughtsmanship and set out in a clear comparative format. Location and date are recorded, the latter based on documentary evidence, dendrochronology or inscription on the building. As a result one discovers not only distinct regional variations of contemporary date, but also nearidentical details from differing counties that may be 50 or 80 years apart. As well as the sheer number of examples recorded in the book, the range of fixtures and fittings is unexpectedly comprehensive. Conservation professionals are used to looking at stop ends to beams or glazing bar profiles of sash windows as a way of dating buildings (quite likely inaccurately, on the basis of Linda Hall’s evidence), but they will be less familiar with the variation in design of 17th and 18th century coat pegs or with the curious, but not uncommon, use of Apotropaic marks, used to protect a building from evil spirits. The evolution of turned balusters used in staircases and the inventive forms of handrails and strings are similarly revealing. Like Richard Harris’s similarly concise and authoritative book on discovering timber-framed buildings in the admirable Shire Publications series, this title from Countryside Books is one of those practical guides to architectural history that is unlikely to be surpassed. Economically priced, and aimed principally at historic house owners, with the admirable intention of encouraging them to better understand and therefore cherish the internal features of their homes, it will also prove invaluable in the pocket of every built environment conservation professional. Peter de Figueiredo, historic buildings consultant
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=