Work on the £1 million Heritage Lottery Fund restoration
project to save from
collapse the Victorian Conservatory at Scampston continues. The restoration work is being led by Caroe Architects, with project management from Buro Four, and building contractors William Birch & Sons Ltd. The superstructure of the conservatory has been minutely researched and removed to a warehouse for restoration. This will be returned to site in autumn 2014.
After deconstruction work involving carefully labelling and taking photos of all key parts of the structure, William Birch & Sons Ltd are now moving onto constructing the foundations, drainage work and restoration of the bothies. These will become the heritage learning centre, interpretation rooms and volunteer room.
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| Conservatory restoration in progress |
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| Digger moves in to start foundations |
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| Conservatory foundations |
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| Bothies - roof removal |
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| Inside the bothies |
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| Man at work... |
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| Inside the bothies |
Meanwhile our heritage volunteers continue to
work on the oral history project and research work, as well as helping develop education and interpretation materials for the first exhibitions. The volunteers and Liz Smith (Oral Historian), have been piecing together stories
of Scampston: Indoors and Out and finding out what life was like on a
country estate during the latter half of the last century. They have talked to
gardeners, gamekeepers, woodmen, household staff and villagers, all of whom
have kindly shared their memories with us.
Some of the research material will be used to develop our first heritage guided walk around the Scampston hall ground, on Weds 14th May 2-3.30pm. These walks will become a regular event held on the 2nd Wednesday of each month.
One of the most recent and
exciting discoveries followed an interview by
Di Ford (Heritage Volunteer) with Helen
Nesom the great great granddaughter of the conservatory designer,William Richardson. This research has uncovered several photos of Richardson and his family, as well as extracts from Richardson's diaries. More on William Richardson and his conservatories as part of the 1st exhibition later in the year.
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William Richardson
Photo courtesy of Helen Nesom |
In 1894, W. Richardson & Co. of Darlington provided William H. St. Quintin Esq. of Scampston Hall with a set of working drawings for a ‘Range of Glasshouses’. It is clear from the surviving drawing that Richardson always intended to incorporate existing buildings, including the gardener’s cottages (bothies), into his plans. However, Richardson’s design would substantially extend the facilities by providing late and early vineries, a stove house and an elegant ‘projecting conservatory’ at the centre of the range.
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| Richardson Conservatory design |
School tulip bed designs
Part of
the more colourful display in the walled garden this year are are tulip beds. These were designed and planted last November by local School groups from Rillington Community Primary
School, Settrington All Saints' Church of
England Primary School and West Heslerton CE Primary School.
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| Add caption |
Their team of volunteer gardeners have also been working hard to develop the education and interpretation points, helping to install new signage and with general gardening / path work around the heritage trails.
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| Volunteers from The Croft planting tulips |
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| Tom testing a new stile.... |
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| George installing trail signs |
Enjoy Scampston
Finally get ready to enjoy Scampton this spring as the Walled Garden and new explorers' trail open this Friday (18th April). There’s an Easter quiz for the family to do together in the Walled Garden. Explorer packs are also available to help children discover more whilst on the hunt for Scamp the mole or other wildlife.
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| Scamp |
Immediately after the Easter weekend we will be launching a new Walled Garden Trail and we also have several new family friendly events coming up during the school holidays this year. The first of these is a short Family Activity Walk on 29th May.
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| Natural art.... |
