English Heritage's training centre based at Fort Brockhurst in Hampshire closed in September 1996. The facsimile ruins and walls have been carefully dismantled and recorded and are to be re-erected in a new centre at West Dean College near Chichester. English Heritage is collaborating closely with the College so that many of the unique courses taught at Fort Brockhurst will run again.
The Centre was originally designed to allow English Heritage to train its own workforce who were responsible for conserving and repairing 400 plus monuments and buildings in its care. The decision to privatise this labour force shortly after the Centre opened meant that new courses were needed to attract a much wider audience.
It was hoped that the Centre would cover its costs but it eventually proved to be economically unviable, chiefly because of the lack of paying customers during the recession in the building industry.
West Dean College
West Dean College, which is independently run by a charitable education trust, started negotiating with English Heritage in November 1996 to continue the courses.
The College, situated in the South Downs just north of Chichester, is the former home of its wealthy benefactor, Edward James, who endowed the college with his collection of surreal art and local land-holdings. The primary aim of the College is to be a centre where conservation and a wide range of traditional arts and crafts can be taught to the highest professional standards.
The College already has seven fulltime Diploma courses validated by the University of Sussex, five of which are in conservation and restoration. It also has an extensive programme of short courses mostly in crafts and practical arts, lasting from a weekend to ten days. There are nearly 200 topics offered and these range from stone carving, blacksmithing, cabinetmaking and scagliola to fine arts and sculpture.
The College is perhaps best known in the world of building conservation for the series of international summer schools in architectural conservation. its neighbour, the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, occupies part of the estate and is renowned for it unrivalled experience in early building techniques, particularly timber.
In July 1997 an Agreement was signed with English Heritage by which the College committed itself to converting some adjoining dairy buildings to house a lecture theatre, laboratory, library and working area to include the reconstructed ruinettes and facsimile walls. In exchange English Heritage would help to set up the courses and make available the requisite materials and equipment needed to run them.
Master Classes
The original Fort Brockhurst courses, together with the ruinettes, were designed by Professor John Ashurst formerly head of what is now the Architectural Conservation team at English Heritage - and Colin Burns an experienced stone-mason in the team who became the senior training officer at Fort Brockhurst until its closure. They were designed specifically for those dealing with the problems of ruined masonry - from repairing and consolidating wall tops, broken wall ends, grouting large voids, to dealing with rusting metal cramps, pinning and stitching fractured and loose masonry and rectifying damage caused by cementitious repairs. The courses were generally of four days duration with a mix of lectures, dealing with the philosophy and practice of repairs, together with demonstrations and handson repair works.
The initial range of courses was expanded to become the Master Class programme which dealt with common problems experienced with all types of traditional historic structures including roofed buildings, and particular attention was paid to contentious issues involving new materials and techniques. Several courses of two and three days duration were run on the subject of mortars, utilising many of the newly available hydraulic limes as well as non-hydraulic materials. other topics already covered stimulated purpose-designed courses, such as conservation engineering, flora and fauna on masonry, recording and nondestructive surveying tech~ niques.
Many of the courses were delivered by John Ashurst and Colin Burns supplemented by other staff from English Heritage and leading practitioners. The feedback from delegates made it clear that much of the success for the courses was directly attributable to the experience and expertise of the teaching staff. West Dean intends to use the same staff and has already commissioned Ashurst and Burns in the planning of the new centre.
As well as masonry, other materials were dealt with, such as the five-day course 'Repair of Timber Structures' and additional courses were generated by ongoing research projects managed by the Architectural Conservation team, including the use of lime and lime treatments, consolidants and cathodic protection techniques. These courses are intended to be included in the new curriculum.
The Future
There are clearly many advantages with the Master Classes being run at West Dean. The College already has the infrastructure for administering and marketing courses. There is also excellent on-site residential accommodation together with catering facilities and bar based in a splendid, Edwardianised early 19th century flint mansion.
With these facilities available onsite it should mean that more training can be carried out each day than was possible at Fort Brockhurst; courses should therefore be shorter and delegates will be able to gain from the shared experiences of other students.
The College is intending to combine with the Weald and Downland Museum to operate some of its courses as part of the Master Class programme and this should enable it to widen the range of specialist subjects covered. It is hoped that the new courses will commence by Spring 1998 and, once these are running, the IHBC will be asked to consider recognition.
English Heritage will monitor and validate its original courses as well as advise on new ones. lts Architectural Conservation team will continue to have access to the ruinettes and walls for research purposes and there remains the potential to disseminate some of its research results via new courses at West Dean. But the most important point is that these unique courses, with their emphasis on the practical aspects of conservation, will continue to run and delivered by very experienced trainers and leading practitioners.