Lets talk about Grand Designs last night. Who wants to live in a castle?

[sassy]

How mad was the bloke? How tolerant was his wife?
But that HOUSE! (swoon)

Whereabouts do you work Iriam? General region will do (or tell me to mind my own )

Since there are a few people around who know this subject, can I ask what was lost by this conversion/renovation happening? There was a lot of time given to the opinion that it was about to fall down and would be lost anyway without this work being done, but there weren't any alternative povs given to balance this. Is there really only a choice between falling down and being totally converted?

Twinklemegan, I work in Scotland, I dont suppose I could out myself any more after my wine comment!

Another option which was the favoured one until recently (I believe) was the consolidated ruin ie the structure is stabilised and made safe, but no more. But that brings the problem of finance, since there's little or no money to made from that option. As I said earlier, I have heard of cases where SAMs/listed structures that are falling into a dangerous state of repair have been made subject to a compulsory purchase order.

Twinkle, your comment 'And what sort of architect took away the soil shoring up those interior walls without securing the structure first? Doh!' defines the difference between architects and engineers IMO. It's engineers that make sure buildings actually say up, architects who do the pretty bits. (I'm not in either profession, btw)

'stay' up

I'd say architects do more than just 'pretty bits', wouldn't that be an interior designer or similar?

Bran - just to add as well. That argument that it'll fall down unless you give me carte blanche to do x, y and z is very often used and rarely completely true.

Well, yes, Hana, being serious. But engineers do mutter this line when they think the architects can't hear... and this particular architect clearly wasn't that bothered about making sure his walls didn't fall down.

i thought he should be struck off after what he thought about it all!!

sorry, posted that too quickly. he came across as quite naive ....I didn't realise he was an architect as I had missed the first part of the programme. was quite mind boggling

Well, I was taking everything that was said on the programme with a pinch of salt as it seemed to be very firmly on the side of the 'brave, lone-knight architect' against the big, bad English Heritage. But on the other hand there was no denying that it had considerably decayed in the relatively short time since it was last occupied so the estimate that it would fall completely in a couple of decades seemed possible. The ideal time to protect it seemed to have been while the roof was still intact, and in a way what was done to it did sort of preserve it in the sense that a couple of centuries from now experts would still be able to distinguish the original parts of the building from the new.

Oh yes, you're quite right Bran. Some people on this thread have been arguing that the archaeological requirements were too onerous/unjustified. But it's precisely that work that enabled the different phases of building to be identified and the important structural details preserved.

Bran, given that it had gone from being a perfectly functional, beautiful, sturdy looking home to a barely there total ruin in around 70 years I think saying it was going to be nothing but half a wall and some bits of stone in the near future was hardly unrealistic. And it hadn't gone from being an intact medieval castle to a ruin, it had gone from a private house, with various additions through the centuries to a ruin. From what I saw the restoration was very faithful to how the building had been before it fell down.