Work on the £1 million Heritage Lottery Fund restoration project to save from collapse the Victorian Conservatory at Scampston has begun. William Birch & Sons Ltd have started work with the careful deconstruction of the conservatory and bothies. Key parts of the structure are being labelled and then photographed in the joiners yard before the restoration and rebuilding work begins.
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Pictured left to right: Lee Scaife, Contracts Manager at William Birch & Sons Ltd,
Sir Charles
Legard Director of Scampston Conservatory Preservation Company and Jack Klinck, Architectural Assistant at
Caroe Architecture Ltd. |
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| Protective hoarding installed in the walled garden. |
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Fiona Spiers, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Yorkshire and the Humber said:
“The Heritage Lottery Fund is delighted to have
been able to enable the Scampston Conservatory Preservation Company Ltd to
renovate the Victorian Conservatory and bring it back into use. The
Conservatory will be a base for educational and heritage activities, so encouraging
more people to learn about the relationship between the house and those who
looked after the garden, and other aspects of horticultural heritage and
skills.”
Caroline Legard, Project
Leader for Scampston Conservatory Preservation Company (SCPo) added: “We have been anxious about the stability of this building
for several years and it is only with the very generous help of the Heritage
Lottery Fund and other grant giving bodies that we shall be able to set up this
Centre; Our vision is not only to
restore this wonderful building, but to enable a wide range of people of all
ages to become involved not just with gardening, but with the wider estate at
Scampston”.
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| Conservatory deconstruction in progress |
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| Deconstruction in progress |
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| Sections carefully removed |
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| Gardener's Bothies to be converted to the Heritage and Learning Centre |
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| Conservatory doors |
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Conservatory window sections
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Base of central lantern ready for transport to the joiners yard
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Meanwhile volunteers from The Croft, Camp Hill Village Trust (CVT) have been working on deconstructing and rebuilding the minibeast hotel in the Scampston grounds. This is part of the new Scampston Explorers' trail, being developed as part of the wider heritage interpretation and education work.
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| Minibeast hotel |
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| The Croft (CVT) working on the minibeast hotel |
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| Minibeast hotel restoration |
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| Old aviary - clearing the vista line |
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| Vista line cleared by The Croft, Camp Hill Village Trust |
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| Great Bustards at Scampston |
WH St Quintin kept a collection of rare birds at the Scampston Aviaries, they included snowy owls from Norway and secretary birds from the Transvaal. He also had one Tui from New Zealand. The centre of the collection was great bustards from Spain, which he successfully bred. This bird, ironically, had been hunted to extinction in the East Riding only a few decades before. William Herbert St Quintin died in 1933 when the St Quintin name itself became extinct.
Our heritage volunteers continue the painstaking research work, focusing on materials stored in the north library of Scampston Hall, all valuable material for the first exhibitions in the conservatory bothies when work is completed in August / September.
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| Heritage Volunteers - North Library |
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Volunteer Meeting in Scampston Hall
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