C O N T E X T 9 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 6 15 The Morton Partnership was appointed by the National Trust to act as engineers for the project. A conservation architect was available to advise us when necessary. I was advised that it was likely that the National Trust’s own workforce would carry out the work to the building. This I very much welcomed because it was going to be a project that would be very difficult to cost, as so much of the work would depend on what was found as the floor beams and roof beams, particularly, were exposed. I suggested that the way forward was for me to prepare a very detailed schedule of work, estimating as far as possible the extent of repair necessary to elements of the building. Following my initial inspection at this stage, I satisfied myself that the building’s problems simply related to the water penetration above the front and rear walls, which had affected all the timber supported on those walls to varying degrees. I felt that we should support the central structure of the building so that we could splice on new ends to the substantial principal beams. However, before that we would need to check and structurally strengthen the principal trusses, working from the top down. The schedule of work was carefully costed by a quantity surveyor who arrived at an overall figure of about £650,000, based on my schedule, with professional fees to be added. It was on that basis that the National Trust acquired the building and asked me to act as engineer, guiding the National Trust workmen through the project. This was an ideal situation. We gradually opened up the roof, and put forward initial proposals for repairing the ties to the roof trusses and the principal rafters.We were able to further work with the National Trust workforce, providing details of strengthening necessary to the internal birdcage scaffold, so that the trusses could be hung from this scaffold during the repair process. This suspension system was also used to lift the trusses and ultimately the floor beams, thus dealing with the compression of the timber beams that had occurred at their ends due to water penetration, allowing them to settle over the period when the building was unoccupied. One of the problems associated with the original construction and the subsequent deterioration related to the outward spread of the roof. We dealt with this by various specially configured stainless steel brackets. These ensured that the wall plates were restrained and the rafters were fixed adequately.We quickly established the principles of the repair to the timber trusses and beams, allowing the carpenter/joiner foreman to follow the same principles all the way through the project, dealing with urgent matters by telephone and fax. The building control section of the government accepted that we were simply repairing the building, so building control consent was not required for our work as long as we sent to them details of our proposals and we ultimately confirm our satisfaction with the finished project. The conservation officer accepted the approach that we had taken, and apart from his casual visits to carry out inspections we were able to proceed without any difficulty. The methodology used to carry through these repairs successfully was related to our detailed inspection of the building and our realisation that the problems were simply associated with the front and rear walls, and the water penetration in those areas. Although this had affected the internal structure, dealing with the end of the principal beams provided a good basis for the remainder of the project. Our original view that the cracks in the structure were due to defective timber lintels was clearly correct, there being no evidence during the building work of any current subsidence. A conservation architect appointed by the National Trust is now carrying the project through to a satisfactoryconclusion,basedaroundthearchaeological studies and his assessment of the extent of repair and replacement necessary to the panelling. The National Trust has been acting as a very enthusiastic client, with a very experienced hands-on site agent working with a small team. Brian Morton MBE is a consultant to the Morton Partnership, a practice he formed in 1966. The original state of the roof timbers Water penetration had affected all the timber supported on the front and rear walls. The repaired roof trusses
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