Professor John Beckett very flatteringly wrote at length in the last edition of the Newsletter – which as a Derby resident, I read avidly, I may say – dissecting my piece in the Derby Newsletter in which I took the Corporation of Nottingham (and other local authorities) to task for trying to cash in on the glittering prizes, dangled tantalising before them by the producers of ‘Restoration’. I averred that this was done in an attempt to obfuscate their own pusillanimity and neglect of historic buildings.
I have long held the view that local authorities and historic buildings are mutually incompatible. Having spent twenty five years working for Derby City Council in their Museum, I am familiar with the mindset of the upper tier of officers and the generally low calibre elected members (there are exceptions, of course), party being no arbiter in this. The disastrous treatment of Pickford’s House Museum in Derby when first acquired and the threats meted out to us junior officials who complained about unsympathetic alterations being made to a Grade I listed building without consent brought it home to me most forcibly.
Some local examples might re-inforce my point. Derbyshire County Council,
for instance, have an appalling record.
Around 1968, Derbyshire and Derby County Borough Councils jointly acquired
Elvaston Castle and nearly 500 acres to turn the grounds into a Country Park
under the Country Parks Act and the house and to adapt the outbuildings as
a museum. Despite Derby Borough being excluded from the arrangement under
the 1973 Local Government Act, the County went forward until 1981. By May
that year, the outbuildings had been turned into the Working Estate Museum
– done with panache, well received and very successful – the house’s
restoration had been well under way until an outbreak of rot supervened (but
was being tackled) and a start had been made on the gardens.
At that point, there was a change of control, and the in-coming council, with completely different priorities, basically walked away from the project. The working estate museum was fine for councillors to hold functions in, but otherwise the house was left the day the rot-treatment contract ended.
Thus in 2000, facing a bill for nearly £3,000,000 in repairs to the grade II* house alone (and placed on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register on the intervention of the Derby Civic Society amongst others), the County panicked and decided to sell. Five years later, after a total failure of the first selling campaign, the house, further decayed, has a “favoured partner” in Highgate Sanctuary, a subsidiary of a local developer with no particular record in historic building work. A rival bid, by Trevor Osborne, who has, was turned down. An earlier offer to buy the 99-year lease outright from Hon. William Stanhope, the grandson of the last private owner, Lord Harrington, was effectively snubbed. Elvaston appears to be in line to become an hotel and conference centre with enabling development. Predictably, it was considered for “Restoration” - but withdrawn.
St. Helen’s House in Derby is another case in point. This Grade I listed purpose built town house built by Joseph Pickford for John Gisborne of Yoxall Lodge, Staffs, in 1766-7 ultimately became Derby [Grammar] School, from the 1900s property of Derby Borough and, after “comprehensivisation”, a WEA centre, passing to the County Council in 1974 in reasonable order.
Twenty-three years later, on re-organisation, it was returned to Derby City in 1997 – already, (courtesy, once again of the Civic Society) on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register - needing over £2,000,000 spending on it just to reverse the decay, mainly stemming from roof neglect. After a change of control in 2003, the problems, long suspected, came out into the open and it was mooted for sale. This met with a storm of opposition, orchestrated mainly by the councillors who had done so little about it in the preceding six years – but, apart from the formation of a private trust which would like to take it over, nothing has happened since except that the Council vacated it in June 2004 on safety grounds.
What heartens me is how much more benevolent and well intentioned is the City council of Nottingham, for the problems of which Professor Beckett so adroitly enlists our support! If only Derbyshire and Derby City were like Nottingham, we could rest assured that all would be well.
I love the way Beckett sees Nottingham Council as a knight in shining armour, acquiring Newstead and Wollaton and saving from destruction thereby. Wonderful stuff, but the fact is, in the current era, Nottingham Council has what is today called a “duty of care” towards its historic buildings. The fact that its predecessors probably saved these buildings from possible destruction is surely irrelevant: the City Council of today – and at all times over the past 35 years – should set an example. It is no good, as happens in Derby, serving repairs notices on private individuals who have neglected listed buildings and then fail to practice what is preached.
Beckett makes much of Nottingham receiving no endowment for the buildings it acquired a rare bonus then, in any case. But in those days, civic pride counted for something and they were doubtless proud to have them. It is only in the post war years, with rising costs and competing commitments that such things began to unravel. Some councils, like several recent Derby ones, took an “anti-elitist” (and utterly misguided) view that such buildings – to quote an elderly councillor debating the future of Markeaton Hall in 1964, the year it was demolished – “were a potent symbol of the oppressive classes”.
Another Derby councillor, when debating the future of Francis Thompson’s railway cottages of 1841-42, took the view that they were built by “exploitative landlords” (the North Midland Railway) because “they had no bathrooms” and their possible loss to the planned inner ring road (to accommodate exploitative motor-cars) was to be applauded. A Tory reasonably pointed out that Chatsworth didn’t have any then, either (only partly true!). In the end Derby Civic Society and Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust saved them and won several national awards. The houses are extremely popular; bathrooms were added at minimal cost either to the DHBT or to the fabric.
Four years ago, I debated on Radio Derby the future of Allestree Hall, acquired by Derby City in 1948 for Heaven knows what purpose, with the then council leader, a Mr. Jones. Instead of giving straight answers, he went on about the opulence of the motor cars parked outside the decaying building by people come to play golf and how elitist golf was - quite forgetting that the course is municipal and the reason this James Wyatt villa was decaying is that the Council kicked the club house out into a shed at the back two decades before in order to “save money”. Even more ironically, when a short lived Conservative council proposed to sell it on 150 year lease, Mr. Jones’s men created a major fuss. When he and I had our interview, his colleagues had just decided to sell it! Needless to say, in the intervening decade, its value had slumped to a token sum!
That is why I believe that local authorities are not fit to have custody of important historic buildings in the modern age. We are all very grateful that Nottingham (possibly) saved Wollaton and Newstead in the 1920s and ’30s and Professor Beckett’s heartening account of their philanthropy and sensitive custody of these historic buildings is heart-warming indeed. We must just hope that control never falls into the hands of a clique with a mind-set like Derbyshire Council’s from 1981, for then I wouldn’t give either much chance; they’d end up like St. Helen’s House, Derby Shire Hall and Elvaston Castle: on the “At Risk” register.
The professor writes, “The problem with Mr. Craven’s view of Nottingham City Council’s attitude to Newstead is that it assumed they [sic] have an endless pot [!] of money for the upkeep of historically important houses.” I have to say that this is not my view at all. I merely suggested that if they maintained the historic fabrics for which they are responsible regularly instead of letting things slide, these problems would be correspondingly diminished. It’s quite simple. They only had to establish quinquennial inspections to keep abreast of requirements. Every Cathedral in England does this, and it works, and I speak as one of those charged with responsibility for the Cathedral at Derby. And if the council cannot manage these complex and sensitive buildings, they should set up a trust to do so – there are increasing examples around now, all very successful - or sell them on. I am sure Madame Tussaud’s would do a splendid job of Newstead, as they have at Warwick.
Beckett remarks that “the Council has a duty to tax payers, which precludes keeping a nice pot of money for historic house repairs.” Why on earth not? Such a thing is merely good housekeeping! As a Derby Council tax-payer I would be delighted to know that my City Council was budgeting for a fund to keep the historic buildings it owns in good repair. And why should they not do some “blue sky thinking” and go into partnership with private enterprise to make the most of such buildings and take some of the burden off the tax? I’ll tell you why: this deplorable mindset amongst most senior officers and some ideologically “committed” councillors that private money is somehow tainted.
There is a claim made by Professor Beckett in one place which I suspects tells us a little about his radical, bien pensant credentials. He lays the charge of “criminal neglect” against the 4th Duke of Newcastle for failing to use the £20,000 compensation he was paid following the gutting of the Castle after the 1831 Reform Riot to restore the building.
But why should he? It was compensation he was paid, according to my understanding, not a grant towards restoring the house. The analogy might be if someone attacked you and smashed up your car and you were awarded compensation by a court. That money would be for hurt feelings, taking a holiday to get over the trauma or anything, not specifically to panel-beat the motor. The Duke of Newcastle was in an exactly analogous position. And, who would blame him, as a Tory, for not wanting to risk all by resuming the use of his town house in a continuing hostile environment!
His successors dithered, but eventually his grandson sold, at a very favourable rate, to the City who sent in Mr. Hine! The good old Nottingham Council saved the day again!
The good professor ends by claiming – against all known statistics – that Councils acquiring seats through CPOs between the wars actually saved more houses than otherwise! What supreme confidence in local authorities he has! Unfortunately the statistics for all local authority acquisition of country houses were worked out long ago in a rough count we did one night after a Georgian Group AGM: local authorities by our estimation between 1920 and 1980 accounted for 1,225 seats demolished in the UK; a truly lamentable statistic.
In Derby, for instance, five seats were acquired: Osmaston, Alvaston, Darley, Allestree and Markeaton Halls. Score: four destroyed and one officially “at risk”. Osmaston Hall was cleared in 1938 to build homes fit for heroes, but was switched to being an industrial estate; Alvaston (cleared 1937) was sold to a private builder and the other two, both bequests and demolished 1962 and 1964, are now empty spaces in William Emes parks. None were properly recorded by the local authority and in neither of the post war cases was the RCHM(E) notified so they could undertake this task. But I bet Nottingham did a superb job recording Bulwell Hall and I must make a note to ask my former opposite number at the Museum for a look at the photographs and measured drawings.
Therefore I am right with Professor Beckett in heartily applauding Nottingham’s
selfless act in taking on Wollaton, Nottingham Castle and Newstead. His confidence
in the City Council and enthusiastic advocacy for the authority is heart warming
in the extreme.
In the meantime, I shall continue to prefer programmes like ‘Restoration’
to keep well clear of local authority shenanigans. Unlike Professor Beckett,
I have no real problem with private enterprise as long as the checks and balances
are working. My cynicism for all local authorities (other than Nottingham)
though, remains unabated!
Maxwell Craven
July 2005
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