ConservationWorks:Bootcamp
was inspired by a senior member of a key client's Estates team with whom I worked on a highly significant building in 2008. His enthusiastic engagement with the project, which included taking hardboard fronts off boarded up fireplaces, jemmying up nailed down floor coverings to access the cellar and acting as a second pair of hands and eyes made the project not only a pleasure but a joy as well. Highly intelligent, with donkeys' years of buildings and site maintenance behind him, he expressed genuine curiosity about the work I was doing and the discoveries being made about the buildings he had been maintaining for many years. After just one or two hours of show-and-tell, he was busy identifying and pointing out to me the shadow of a now-demolished staircase in the cellar and whipping the C20th box section off what was thought to be just a downpipe but proved to be a C18th cupboard containing original C14th material from the earliest house on the site.
This made me see that there was a real opportunity for the day-to-day first-line guardians of our built heritage to take a more active, involved, conservation-aware approach to the sites in their care. Bootcamp is modelled on the highly-successful SPAB/RICS Summer School held annually at Cirencester, but differs from it in a number of key aspects. First and foremost, it is about teaching the required practical skills, hands-on engagement with traditional materials and their proper and timely application, as well as explaining why, when and where to use them. And indeed, when to leave well alone.
Attendees
Target attendees are those with hands-on responsibility for the day-to-day maintenance and care of significant historic properties and their settings, including grounds and estate staff. There are no minimum entry qualifications.
It will be expected that attendees will have some familiarity with building terminology and the use of basic tools, especially a trowel, and are 'ladder safe'.
The Bootcamp is not suitable for entry-level maintenance staff with no building or craft skills.
Skills-based training
Training is predominantly skills-based, action learning interspersed with demonstrations. There are no 'lectures' as such although some sessions will take place indoors. Delegates will learn conservation principles and the matching practice, including the application and use of lime and aggregates for mortars, renders and internal plasters.
Education Location
Training is deliberately sited at educational establishments in historic buildings where there is plenty of scope for active involvement by the delegates to apply their newly-acquired practical expertise. The hosts get walls repointed, ivy removed, blocked drains cleared and other minor maintenance tasks taken care of for free.
Making it stick
The Bootcamp approach will be based on the carrot rather than the stick, although delegates will learn about the use and application of planning law and related PPGs to historic buildings, including the implications for their buildings and consequences to them of a failure to observe the relevant provisions.
To book:
If you would like to know how to book a place for yourself, would like to send your staff, or see further information about the Bootcamp, email please.help@conservationworks.co.uk or ring 0208 672 7877.
On-site Bootcamp:
If you have a sizeable team of 8-12 who need training, a tailored on-site Bootcamp would be more economical and can be adjusted to meet the specific needs of your team, your site and your building. It can take into account local conditions, materials and construction methods with demonstrations by local craftsmen and professionals. Ring us to find out more.
A site offer?
If you are a school or college in an historic building with boarding accommodation and feel you could be an appropriate location for a Bootcamp, please get in touch.