Webinar on Building Crafts Skills: The King's Foundation

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:34:01

Speaker 1

And good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to those of you who haven't attended one of our technical Tuesday webinars before. You're very welcome. And I also should add that it's National Apprenticeship Week this week. And so it's very apt that we're talking about one of these training programs. I think Matt will put a link. Yeah, he's put a link up there so you can have a look at some of the training programs on apprenticeship programs that Historic England supports.

00:00:35:11 - 00:01:03:15

Speaker 1

So if I can just introduce myself. Yep. My name is Clara Willett. I'm a senior building conservation advisor in the Technical Conservation Team at Historic England. I specialize in stone and terracotta conservation. I'm an accredited ICON, ICON, accredited conservator. And before joining Historic England in 2003, I worked in private practice. For six years I ran a national training scheme for building crafts.

00:01:03:23 - 00:01:25:17

Speaker 1

So this is a particular interest for me, this topic, and I'm really pleased to welcome my co-presenters. Michael Goodger, The Building Crafts Education manager and three of this year's cohort of trainees Francis Brittin, Jamie Roberts and Karen Skeats. Michael, would you like to introduce yourself?

00:01:26:15 - 00:01:45:07

Speaker 2

Yeah, thank you very much. So, yeah, Michael Goodger. As I say, I'm the built environment education manager with the King's Foundation and I'm currently based at Dumfries House in Ayrshire in Scotland, and that's where a lot of our education programs are currently running. But I'll speak a little bit more about that as we go on.

00:01:46:07 - 00:02:31:00

Speaker 1

Thanks a lot, Michael. And we'll be hearing a lot more from Frances, Jamie and Karen shortly. I'd just like to highlight some of Historic England's initiatives for building craft skills. We understand the need for skilled work force to look after the heritage environment, and we're proactive in supporting and advocating numerous training and skills development opportunities. We play a leading role in identifying and addressing heritage skills shortages in the construction industry, and we undertake research into skills needs in England for construction trades to understand the supply, demand and training offers that exist.

00:02:31:20 - 00:03:01:14

Speaker 1

We've recently commissioned a new skills needs analysis for England for the repair and maintenance and retrofit of traditional buildings, and that's due to be completed in spring. We work collaboratively, collaboratively with sector partners through the Historic Environment Skills Forum, and we also advise on educational standards which support occupational standards and qualifications, such as National Vocation Qualifications, NVQs, in heritage skills.

00:03:02:06 - 00:03:29:22

Speaker 1

And we also provide technical support on the content of training courses such as those of West Dean College. We also deliver training ourselves through initiatives such as the Heritage Building Skills Program, and we support and fund other organizations to deliver craft skills such as the SPAB Fellowship and Scholarship, and the one we're talking about today, the King's Foundation Building Craft Skills Program.

00:03:30:18 - 00:03:52:01

Speaker 1

Matt, put some of those links that I've mentioned before in the in the chat there and they'll be available at the end as well. So don't worry, you don't have to write them down. But now let's go on. We'll talk to we'll turn to one of the most established and renowned heritage skills programs that Historic England supports. And I'll hand you over to Michael and he's going to tell us more about that.

00:03:55:08 - 00:04:24:15

Speaker 2

Thank you very much. So, yeah, just to give you a bit of context, really, we are the King's Foundation and we are His Majesty King Charles III charitable foundation. And we were first formed in 1986. We have obviously had a recent name change, as you would expect, but we are inspired by His Majesty's vision and values for creating harmonious communities with a focus on people, place and planet.

00:04:25:12 - 00:04:48:13

Speaker 2

We do that in quite a number of different ways. So one of the areas which we focus on is heritage led regeneration and that being examples like Dumfries House. So the house itself has been restored as well as the estates providing a lot of employment for the kind of surrounding communities. But we also have practicing architects within the team who are involved in regeneration and kind of urbanism projects.

00:04:49:01 - 00:05:15:17

Speaker 2

But one of my areas is obviously the education side of things. Our education programs are really vast, everything from textile training to food, farming culture, traditional skills. But me personally, I look after the building crafts and the building arts and some of the more traditional building and building skills programs. So the building program, that's one of the foundations longest running programs.

00:05:15:24 - 00:05:45:10

Speaker 2

We're heading towards our 20th year. It's a full time, eight month course, which really aims to support those currently working in the construction sector and to move more towards heritage conservation and the use of traditional skills. It's not an entry level programme, so students will often have been to a construction college or may have worked on construction sites or just kind of gathered experience over a number of years through a portfolio.

00:05:45:18 - 00:06:10:18

Speaker 2

They may not already have a qualification, but the program is very much kind of an intense eight months, which exposes them to many different aspects of the heritage sector, with the aspiration of them continuing to work in the sector for years to come. As I say, it's a full time, eight month course and it is fully funded and was supported by a huge number of different organizations around the UK, one being Historic England.

00:06:11:13 - 00:06:35:00

Speaker 2

And this covers all of the tuition and the any of the fees and also provides the students with a monthly bursary which is there to kind of help assist with some of the living costs, which you might expect if you are kind of stepping away from employment to kind of focus more on education. So the course is made up for key parts which are on the screen there: the summer school placements, a business course and a live build project.

00:06:35:19 - 00:07:00:14

Speaker 2

And just to touch on some of those. It really kicks off with the summer school here on the Dumfries house estate. And that's not just an opportunity for the 12 craft students who are taking part in the longer program. But we also bring on boards and students from our All Ireland Craft Programme. We have students from all over the world, including architects, planners and engineers and other heritage experts, all kind of working together.

00:07:01:05 - 00:07:23:11

Speaker 2

And really, those three weeks are just an opportunity to kind of pass on some of the broader thinking of the Prince's Foundation and also encourage people to kind of really focus on the built environment. So lots of architectural drawing, life drawing, sculpting and trying their hands at lots of different crafts from masonry to blacksmithing to stained glass work and so on.

00:07:25:07 - 00:07:44:01

Speaker 2

But in the last few years, we've also introduced the kind of small scale design and build projects where we've had tutors come over from Spain, who taught the students about traditional tiles vaulting. So that kind of really pulls together some of the kind of physics sense of structures, but also the kind of practical making and craft side of things.

00:07:44:01 - 00:08:19:20

Speaker 2

I guess I should say something which I've missed is the program does bring together, it only takes on 12 students each year. And really we're trying to promote that kind of interdisciplinary practice. So across those 12 students, we typically bring on board plasterers, blacksmiths, timber framers, bricklayers, stonemasons and decorative painters and so on. And we're trying to kind of explore that the built environment isn't necessarily made up of these kind of individual silos, and we want to try and encourage people to work more kind of interdisciplinary and collaboratively across the sector.

00:08:21:20 - 00:08:46:19

Speaker 2

So when the students are on the program, we do give them the opportunity to work towards the heritage skills NVQ. This is an entirely on site assessed NVQ there is an element of kind of writing and paper work, but it's not an exam based qualification. And the joy really is that by doing the work and participating in the program, they're very much covering the evidence that will enable them to achieve the qualification.

00:08:47:10 - 00:09:10:15

Speaker 2

So, following the summer school, the students will take part in industry placements. This tends to be on a more kind of individual basis, but we've got a huge network of placement providers around the UK who continue to support the students year on year by providing them with access to their companies and their projects and getting them involved in some really exciting, exciting heritage work.

00:09:10:15 - 00:09:38:20

Speaker 2

So it's some of the images that I think the roofing project there might be. Manchester Town Hall, I could be wrong actually that could be in Scotland, but it's just a flavour of some of the projects that students have been involved in. And for many of the students, this these projects that they might not necessarily get involved in until years down the line, having not been involved in the course so it kind of does really intensify, you know, what could have been, you know, numerous years of experience.

00:09:38:22 - 00:10:10:05

Speaker 2

And so yeah. And by I think the next slide just shows you some of the placement providers are working with. It's perhaps a little bit small, but we are trying to kind of cover the length and breadth of the UK. And we do also have our All Ireland Programme now, which works across the Republic and Northern Ireland. So we are kind of really building upon network and it's actually really exciting to see that many of the students from over the years are now kind of acting as placement providers themselves.

00:10:10:05 - 00:10:38:14

Speaker 2

So anyone's listening and wants to be a placement provider in the future please give us a shout. The final stage of the course and something that really kind of focuses on that interdisciplinary practice side of things is the live build. And so for the last two years, we expect the live buildings to sections. And at the beginning of the program we now spend two weeks kind of looking at the design of a project which the students will ultimately then go on to build.

00:10:38:14 - 00:10:53:14

Speaker 2

And by spending those two weeks at the beginning, we've kind of really been able to kind of go into a little bit more depth around what it is to design, what it is to respond to a design brief. You know, how do you speak to a client? How do you survey the site? You know, how do you kind of work with different materials and space?

00:10:54:09 - 00:11:19:14

Speaker 2

So it's obviously not teaching all of the elements of what, say, an architectural student might know, but it's just a little bit more in depth and gets, you know, kind of encourages that different way of thinking. Whilst the students are away on placements. The idea really is that the designs that come out of that design week are kind of brought together, hopefully in a cohesive way, so that there's all of the students trades and skills that are represented.

00:11:20:03 - 00:11:36:19

Speaker 2

And now at the end of the program, kind of January to March, the group are back on site on the Dumfries House Estate Building that project. So the image on the screen is last year's project and that was a bird hides and it really did kind of draw on the strengths of the group, which was roofing, blacksmithing, timber framing.

00:11:37:16 - 00:12:02:18

Speaker 2

And there was a real sense of ownership of the build from the students. And you know, what was really exciting was the kind of the attention to detail that they could go to because of that ownership. They could have conversations around how the roof interacted with the walls and how the sunlight interacted with the kind of guttering. And, you know, it's a peculiar looking building, but actually the level of thought and detail that's gone into it is quite unique.

00:12:02:18 - 00:12:27:17

Speaker 2

And just to kind of finish up, we do, we incorporate a lot of business skills into the program because we're mindful that, you know, we want students to go on and continue working in the sector that might be self-employed, that might be setting up their own companies, that might be working with different placement providers that they've met, but, you know, we've done surveys in recent years of our kind of numerous alumni that have gone through the program.

00:12:27:17 - 00:12:44:18

Speaker 2

And that's just some of the statistics on the screen there, which shows the kind of impact that the program's having. We're not a huge numbers of students, but, you know, for the last 20 years, we have built up quite a quite an alumni kind of database and, you know, you can see that many still working in the heritage sector.

00:12:44:18 - 00:13:01:24

Speaker 2

Many are now passing on their skills, you know, either directly working with us or hosting their own apprentices. And then there's a huge number of heritage projects that are very benefiting from, you know, having our students involved in them. And so I think that is me. Yeah.

00:13:03:08 - 00:13:29:10

Speaker 1

Thanks, Michael. And it's really clear from what you're talking about, but it's such a rounded and holistic program. I must say the success rate of the trainees who are continuing to work in the sector, which is exactly what it's aimed at. So that's brilliant. So I'd now like to introduce three of this year's trainees from the program, Francis Brittin, Jamie Roberts and Karen Skeats.

00:13:29:22 - 00:13:50:17

Speaker 1

Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. I know you're currently at Dumfries House in Scotland undertaking a live build project. Perhaps if we can start with each of you telling us a little bit about your craft and your background, so Karen could have to start with you.

00:13:50:17 - 00:14:15:01

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hiya. So I am a lime plasterer. My background is actually something quite different, so I've been kind of working in mental health and changed into plastering about a year and a half ago. Yeah, so quite a big change. But I've always been quite creative and kind of hands on and now really enjoying being a plasterer.

00:14:16:18 - 00:14:22:14

Speaker 1

Thanks, Karen. Jamie, can you just tell us a little bit about your craft and your background, please?

00:14:23:10 - 00:14:52:14

Speaker 3

Shure. Yeah, I'm Jamie. I'm one of the stonemasons on the program and I actually live locally to the estate at Dumfries house. Um, I left school and went straight into university to do a business degree, so I've kind of changed towards this trade. I kind of stumbled across it through working alongside the stonemason. I was asked to labour to stonemason on a restoration project, which is kind of where I fell in love with the trade.

00:14:52:16 - 00:14:59:04

Speaker 3

So since then I've been building my experience and construction and stonework.

00:14:59:04 - 00:15:13:00

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jamie. And it's really interesting that you both say that you've come to this almost from another career and that's often the case as well. Thank you. Francis, can you just tell us a little bit about your craft and your background, please?

00:15:14:01 - 00:15:39:21

Speaker 2

Hello? Yeah, I've been doing carpentry on and off for the last ten years or so, but like the others, I did something else and I've only been doing it full time for the last few years. Um, I work mostly on kind of site carpentry and did quite a lot of furniture repair and installation within heritage buildings. And that kind of sparked my interest in heritage carpentry.

00:15:41:01 - 00:15:52:23

Speaker 2

And I applied to the BCP because I wanted to specialize and learn more about traditional and heritage building.

00:15:52:23 - 00:16:19:14

Speaker 1

Sounds like you found the right place. Francis That's great. So if we can move on now, I'm going to stay with you. Francis, if you could just tell us a little bit more about the placements you've undertaken while you've been on the program. And I should just add to for anybody who has got any questions for any of the trainees, then please put them in the chat room and we'll hopefully have a chance to answer a few of them at the end.

00:16:19:20 - 00:16:24:14

Speaker 1

But if I can hand over to you, Francis, and you can tell us more about your placement.

00:16:24:21 - 00:16:50:07

Speaker 2

Yeah, thank you, Clara. And so during the placement time this autumn, the autumn just gone, I was lucky enough to do three placements, all quite varied and all teaching me. I'm very interesting things. The first was with Mccurdy's near Reading and that was on the barn pictures, which I'm going to talk about in more detail doing various repairs.

00:16:51:03 - 00:17:24:02

Speaker 2

And the second was with Carpenter Oak down in Devon, and that was new build timber framing and was lucky enough to go on site with them. I was only there for four weeks, but it was really intense in a good way and was luckily enough to go on site and do a like a put up a frame with them in Somerset, which was quite a different experience to the McCurdy placement, where it was all repair that was a large extension to a house and then my final placement was more joinery, focused with Adam Lynch and outside Birmingham.

00:17:24:11 - 00:18:01:05

Speaker 2

And that was brilliant for me because I hadn't had a huge amount of experience with architectural joinery. And yet Adam was brilliant. He uses a lot of hand tools in his craft and he knows a lot about heritage joinery. So that was a really good opportunity to learn from him. And I'm going to talk in a bit more depth about my first placement and talk about this barn repairs that we did to this barn pictured. It’s an 18th century barn, although there was some debate as to the exact age of the building, no one had any firm records.

00:18:02:11 - 00:18:48:21

Speaker 2

But with alongside some of the other carpenters, we decided that it was probably 18th century because of the use of the type of joints on the purlins and the wall plates, bridle joints, which I was told were only really came into use in the 18th century. It was originally thatched and before we got to it had an asbestos roof which was safely removed by another team and it's now going to be clay tile to match some of the other barns in the courtyard, which actually meant that a lot of the perlins had to be reinforced as well because they were worried about the extra weight.

00:18:48:21 - 00:19:27:02

Speaker 2

And before Mccurdy's got to it, a local carpenter without any kind of heritage or traditional training had done their best to do some repairs to it. And quite a lot of the initial work was spent undoing some of those repairs because, you know, they weren't up to the standard that a barn like this needed, I don't believe it was listed, which I think is also why they were able to get someone in who hadn't been wasn't a specialist and various things.

00:19:27:02 - 00:19:50:07

Speaker 2

They're doing it. We did a gable end frame repair, which I'll show you in a bit more depth and a tie beam patch repair on the on the South Gable end, which is on the right of that picture there. We had new rafters, a full round of new rafters on the bottom level. And a lot of the top rafters needs replacing as well.

00:19:51:22 - 00:20:22:23

Speaker 2

And the bottom run of purlins was a complete replacement. And the client wanted to match the kind of curvature of the roof as you ran along it. So we had to describe all of those purlins, the whole run of purlins, all the joint were scribed in situ, which was quite complicated and a brilliant experience for me. And the porch had a tie beam repaired, all the purlins were supported to allow for the tiles.

00:20:23:10 - 00:20:58:01

Speaker 2

They were general post patch repairs, studs, scuff repairs and wall plate patch repairs as well. I've probably missed some as well, but it was a lot of work. This is the tie beam repair. So this is a patch repair I should say. It's entirely oak framed barn. And on the left you can see we're making a template. So they've already we'd already removed the rotten material on the tie beam using a jig and a drill in a force in a bit, which took quite a while.

00:20:59:04 - 00:21:25:16

Speaker 2

And so we were making a template out of I think it's just plywood. And then we transferred that onto a huge slab. And then on there on the right, ripping it down. It was about I can't remember exactly, but I think it was a five or six meter span, maybe more so it was a huge piece of timber and we cut it slightly oversize so that we could scribe it more accurately in situ.

00:21:27:08 - 00:21:55:12

Speaker 2

There you go. That's it fitted. And we've already taken the old gable end frame out of there because that was completely rotten and there was also a fair amount of pests problems. So that was quite a woodworm and deathwatch beetle in the frame. And it was really interesting learning from the guys about which timbers were able to stay and which needed replacement because it wasn't always entirely obvious just from looking at them.

00:21:57:05 - 00:22:26:22

Speaker 2

So the principle rafters there although they looked a bit rough, they were deemed sturdy enough to to remain. This is the patch repairs. So planing it down to size to match the original match the existing tie beam, we had to put blocks in the original mortises because they held water in them and they kind of rotted through.

00:22:26:22 - 00:22:59:10

Speaker 2

So a lot of them were much larger than the tendons on the on the upright studs in the gable end frame. And then we once we blocked those out, so filled them in, we remortised them and then scribed in a new gable end frame and we did that in situ so that we did that up on the scaffolding. Actually, a lot of the joints are cut up there, which is quite interesting because compared to when we were working at Carpenter Oak that was all done in a workshop incredibly quickly and efficiently.

00:22:59:10 - 00:23:32:24

Speaker 2

And this presented new challenges because we were doing it in often the rain on a scaffolding and what else we got. Yes. So that's the gable end frame that's finished on the right and that's scribing in some of the collars on the left there, using levels to scribe the timbers and a think. Yeah I think that's that's about it.

00:23:32:24 - 00:23:51:00

Speaker 1

Thanks Francis. That's given us some really nice sort of snapshots of some of your placements and some interesting points there. And I just wanted to ask you, with the onsite work you did there, what did you use to fix the timbers?

00:23:51:00 - 00:24:19:24

Speaker 2

Right. So the tie beam had, I think, 36 coach bolts tying it to the original tie being the patch and 36 coach bolts in it. You can see some of them on the on the left there. And then the gable end frame was mortise and tenanned and pegged with oak pegs. So, you know, totally traditional. And all the timbers was from France.

00:24:19:24 - 00:24:30:22

Speaker 2

It was all French oak. Yeah, but it was, it was green timbers. So it will shrink as well over time.

00:24:32:13 - 00:24:34:15

Speaker 1

Lovely. Thank you, Francis.

00:24:35:01 - 00:24:35:17

Speaker 2

Pleasure!

00:24:36:09 - 00:24:42:06

Speaker 1

If we can move on now. Jamie, if you'd like to tell us about your placements, that would be great.

00:24:43:14 - 00:25:00:24

Speaker 3

Sure. Hello, everyone. I thought I might be. I thought it might be of interest to share an overview of both my placements. So the first of these was at Rosslyn Castle, which is a short walk away from Rosslyn Chapel in Edinburgh. The oldest parts of the castle date back to the early 14th century and the building is grade

00:25:00:24 - 00:25:27:22

Speaker 3

A-Listed. The castle is looked after by the Rosslyn Chapel Trust and was partly developed into holiday let accommodation through a partnership with the Landmark Trust. The work carried out during my placement involves treating the ruinous part of the building, which was previously the Great Hall and Tower and first task we were given, which consumed quite a large part of this place, was dressing stone, which can be seen in the first image.

00:25:28:17 - 00:25:53:06

Speaker 3

There are two different types of stone that we were applying finishes to and this image in the left, the stone was called Hazeldean which was used for the lintels and rybats. The surface finish used on the stone was a boasted or droved finish, and we were instructed to do this only on the sides that were going to be visible inside the building, which I think was just a decision to save time and to be honest.

00:25:53:06 - 00:26:16:03

Speaker 3

And on the right is an image of the stone that we used marked with numbers, which helped us identify where in the building they were going to go. And the slide, you can see how the riven stone was to be dressed using a technique called a picked finish. Again it was just to side of the the stone that would be visible.

00:26:16:03 - 00:26:46:11

Speaker 3

That was and to be dressed. This type of storm was called Wattscliffe and was supplied by Cumbrian Stone. I'm actually unsure why this type of stone was chosen and why Cumbria Stone was the supplier. But anyway, I felt that this was a really good way to get started on the placement that allowed me to get to know people on site who could then in their own time observe what I was doing and offer different techniques I could adopt to improve my own.

00:26:47:11 - 00:27:19:06

Speaker 3

I hadn't had any experience of applying either of these finishes, so once I'd spent a couple of weeks doing as I got quite confident at it and on this image on the left, you can see me sending the stone to correct elevation via block and tackle. This wasn't necessarily as easy as it as it looks in the picture with the positioning of the scaffolding, it meant that pulling the stones in was quite tricky due to the weight and having to communicate with people on different elevations was a bit trickier at times as well.

00:27:20:03 - 00:27:53:24

Speaker 3

Um, quite a lot of work was needed to actually get these stones dressed and their positions highlighting to me the speed in which these projects can go sometimes. The stone was delivered on palettes but didn't come in an organized order. They were mixed, matched, so it was important to not only to dress the stones needed for where people were working, but to also get them and reorganize them and then get them on to the only the one elevation that could take them.

00:27:54:23 - 00:28:23:22

Speaker 3

They would then be carried round or moved on a bogey around the block and back and then sent up and down. So it was quite a process, to be honest. And on this next slide, I want to show an example of some of the stone work carried out inside the castle. So on the image to the left, it's clear there is brick work that needs removed and that it's not stable or being supported properly at this point and leaving a fair amount of work needed.

00:28:24:24 - 00:28:43:02

Speaker 3

The image in the left was taken at the start of my placement. The stones that are sat on top of the brick just left. They needed to be taken off to allow the brick to be removed. What you can't see in this picture is also that there's roots growing from underneath it, so they would need to remove it anyway.

00:28:43:02 - 00:29:08:03

Speaker 3

A decision was made at one point which I wasn't consulted on. These stones would get built in lower down, which you can vaguely see on the image to the right. That's meant that the section could be built up quite quickly. But at the risk of not keeping some of the originality of the structure which led to some drama later on in the build, however, the stone I used to build up the middle was just rubble from inside the castle, which was originally from the building.

00:29:09:03 - 00:29:38:21

Speaker 3

Something I took away from this place was some of the challenges that these types of projects incur. The people higher up, more behind the scenes per se, in the build, have in mind they want to keep the building as original as possible. In this case, that meant the placement of the stones, whilst the men on the ground are under pressure to get areas built up and time which caused a bit of problems when finished work could be looked at and either be told to get pulled back down and redone.

00:29:39:12 - 00:30:04:11

Speaker 3

And in that case, the new stone was actually ordered to be used further up. Um, there were in 15 to 20 stonemasons on this site and about half working through agency. So of course this helped with speed. But on the other side that meant sometimes there's was a little bit less care and attention to detail to the heritage.

00:30:05:10 - 00:30:05:14

Speaker 2

And.

00:30:05:19 - 00:30:35:15

Speaker 3

The side of things and created a little bit of friction. But ultimately the work got done with some compromises just being made. As far as the mortar goes, I wasn't actually involved in making any batches, but I knew that was an NHL five mix throughout the building being used. And this next slide takes me to my second placement, which was at Pollock Stables in Glasgow, which is another great A-Listed site.

00:30:35:15 - 00:30:55:02

Speaker 3

The stables are situated close to the main house, which was built in the 18th century and we were tasked with firstly rebuilding two of the chimneys. I had it quite easy in this case in some regard though, because the chimney had been taken down before my arrival. A crane was used for this just from where the site was and where the storm was to be kept.

00:30:55:14 - 00:31:19:06

Speaker 3

And it was all photographed at the time and documented. So when it came to building and we actually knew what storms were to go where, which kept it quite simple for me. Anyway, um, there were only a couple of stones that needed replaced between the two chimneys. And, uh, I know that these stones that were bought were BGS matched, which means it was done by the British Geological Survey.

00:31:20:20 - 00:31:44:10

Speaker 3

I'm told this is used quite often in these projects and actually provided an option of three different types of stone. And the two stones that were used were Witton Fell and Black Star. In these images you can see the copes being added to the chimneys. On the first image some brickwork was needed and this was to separate the flues.

00:31:44:10 - 00:32:03:09

Speaker 3

It's to my knowledge that there was no plans to have working fireplaces but the chimneys are built so that if they decide that as what they want then that would be possible. So this placement went on during the month of December, so it was getting quite cold at one point and that was one of the reasons why Prompt was used to bed

00:32:03:09 - 00:32:38:10

Speaker 3

the copes. And for those that don't know, to the best of my knowledge, prompt is a entirely natural cement and is produced from limestone but carries no free limb. The benefit it had was that it had an incredibly quick set time, which was ideal in these conditions. On this slide, once the chimneys were finished to be moved onto this wall. The stables have a history of dating back to a Castle, which was built on the grounds in the 16th century, and this wall was part of that.

00:32:38:10 - 00:32:57:18

Speaker 3

So the decision was made to rebuild the wall without rebuilding it. This meant that we were going to stabilize the wall without taking the stones down and building it back up essentially. As you can imagine, there are a few factors in this decision, one being to keep the stones in their original positions and also created a lot less work than what was actually needed.

00:32:58:14 - 00:33:22:14

Speaker 3

A deep void consolidation was used to replace washed out bedding mortars and pinned to stone pillars to bulk and strengthen the larger voids. We removed the repair pointing, which wasn't holding up too well from the ground up and inserted wooden wedges to take pressure and stop the wall from collapsing. On the left actually, you can see the wall's being steam cleaned as well.

00:33:23:06 - 00:33:44:13

Speaker 3

Unfortunately, my placement came to an end point as I was late to have seen the flash point in this going to be done. But the scratch finish the mix used on site was a dry slake of two part concrete sand and one part quick lime I think as claimed doubles in volume. That ratio was worked out 1 to 1.

00:33:45:03 - 00:34:10:08

Speaker 3

Just enough water was used as well to reach the temperature of 120 degrees. We then mixed the dry slake with NHL 5, one to one, with one part sharp sand and one part building sand. That meant for the chimney we could then reduce the quick lime and increase NHL. And the best match for the aggregate was from Hanford Quarry, just 30 miles away.

00:34:12:09 - 00:34:33:20

Speaker 3

I felt like I got quite a bit of that second placement just due to there being more 1 to 1 working and a smaller team being used. But both placements were great for me to expand on my experiences and skills so far in that that brings me to the end of my presentation. So thank you for listening.

00:34:35:01 - 00:35:02:04

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jamie. Sounds like you had a lot of great experience on site and as you said, the variety of work was really great for you. I think you've also highlighted the importance and you've mentioned the British Geological Survey and their involvement. I think you've highlighted the importance of selecting replacement stone, identifying and the careful selection to make sure it's a suitable replacement.

00:35:02:04 - 00:35:13:23

Speaker 1

So there's a lots of interesting technical aspects that you've really highlighted. So thank you for that. And Karen, if we can move on to you now and if you could tell us a little bit about your your placements, please.

00:35:15:12 - 00:35:47:12

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hi, everyone. So so I did three placements, one back in my home town of Stroud, one down with Heritage Cob and Lime, and then nine weeks at the end with Phillip Gaches kind of in and around Lincolnshire. So the first project to talk about is this timber frame which you can see in the images. So it's a 17th century timber frame and the first image is actually it finished.

00:35:47:12 - 00:36:21:00

Speaker 2

So yeah, slightly at the wrong order of photos, but I think it looks really lovely. So we were rendering onto wood wool boards and we used a non-hydraulic lime which had an argical in as a pozzolan. Sharp sand mix fibers and lots and lots of horsehair and in the image on the right, the first step was to put quite a thin path of plaster onto the wood wool boards and then put it in a plastic mesh and then go back over that with a second thin coat of plaster to cover the mesh.

00:36:22:11 - 00:36:52:16

Speaker 2

So we worked kind of panel by panel around the building and as quite time consuming kind of working in that way because the timber frame was actually really it's also really lovely doing that much kind of precise work. So after that we the next couple of images so that kind of the image on the left shows it scratched up and that's me on the right promoting the BCP in a bucket hat sponge floating the render.

00:36:53:07 - 00:37:16:07

Speaker 2

And the building was really it was quite exposed so we added a sheltered coat onto the render to give it a really good key and a really good texture for our lime washing and also for any kind of feature lime wash coats that would be needed to be done. And that was a watered down version of the same render mix with some extra putty and as well.

00:37:16:07 - 00:37:48:21

Speaker 2

Yes. So we then did, we lime washed then as you can see then kind of first image which was lime putty, argical and some pigments. The next images. So this yeah, this wasn't a conservation project as such, but it used kind of all the heritage skills and I actually really enjoyed it because I got to have a go at like bricklaying and timber framing and kind of other trades that I wouldn't normally get an opportunity to get involved with, which is quite similar to the live build on the program at the moment.

00:37:50:04 - 00:38:17:14

Speaker 2

So yeah, we did some bricklaying with reclaimed bricks and that was a lime based mortar that we used. And you can see the timber frame was put onto the onto the plinth. The image on the left. So we installed the treated timber batons as a version of lath to save money actually. So that's me using a nail gun to install those onto the frame and yeah, on the right.

00:38:17:14 - 00:38:40:14

Speaker 2

So we then rendered onto the lath you can see in the picture on the right and the mix was really experimental. It didn't follow a kind of exact recipe like lime would normally. It was a bit of a kind of mix of leftovers and some perlite and some hemp for the insulating properties. So it had kind of eight or nine different ingredients.

00:38:40:14 - 00:39:04:17

Speaker 2

And then we, we really kind of went on instinct and it felt like when we were gauging the mix. So that was a really good experience for me. So we rendered to the outside and made sure that the snots were kind of fairly pushed through the lath, which you can see in the next image. So you can see in the bottom of that image that the nips or the snots of kind of being pushed through.

00:39:04:17 - 00:39:26:07

Speaker 2

And once it worked our way around the outside, we then plastered inside. So we smoothed out the spots and the nibs so that they would latch fully over to the lath. So we were kind of doing the building in one externally and internally. The image on the right shows it being lime washed and we finished the render using the stick to create the texture.

00:39:27:12 - 00:39:54:17

Speaker 2

As you can see, the roof isn't on but that's yeah, that was kind of the next step in that project and that was just a really, really exciting project to be part of building something from scratch like that. So these images, this next few slides are an 18th century grade two listed property and Brothertoft and we did three different sections of work here.

00:39:55:17 - 00:40:20:12

Speaker 2

So the first few slides show the internal plastering that we were doing. What you can see on the left is I've learned a kind of really, really easy but effective way of kind, getting the walls nice and flat, which is we kind of installed battens to the left hand side of the wall and again to the right hand side of the wall, and then straighten them or level them out with the string line.

00:40:21:07 - 00:40:44:01

Speaker 2

And we could then kind of apply the plaster and then rule off across the battens to get things super flat and then remove the bottoms and kind of filled in, filled in the holes essentially. So that was the float coat going on. And in the middle image you can see that that's pulled back a bit and we've double floated that to give it the key for the skim.

00:40:44:01 - 00:41:09:22

Speaker 2

The mix that we used for the float coat was a non-hydraulic lime which had kind of medium sand and fibre in as well. So yeah, that was double floated. And then for the skim it was a lime putty and silver sand mix which we applied in two really thin passes. We then sponge floated it and used a flexi trowel to kind of close off the surface ready for painting.

00:41:10:09 - 00:41:35:13

Speaker 2

So that's the final image showing the skim. The second part of work that we did was on the Orangery and the first step was we actually used prompt, which Jamie had talked about earlier, to reshape the capitals on the pilasters. And as Jamie said, it's got a really quick workability time of roughly about 4 minutes if you don’t add the retarder.

00:41:35:19 - 00:42:02:01

Speaker 2

So we were kind of putting that on and then shaping it back with like busts and joint rules. And so that was at the top of the pilasters that you can see. And the second part of the work on the Orangery was to, to render with ashlar on the walls. So we used a dry pre-mixed hydraulic lime which had a really fine sand and also pigment in the mix.

00:42:02:13 - 00:42:29:21

Speaker 2

And you kind of added water to it and it gave it quite a quick kind of jelly like set initially before you applied it to the wall. This was applied and two quite thin passes and then sponge floated, which we also finished with like a horizontal movement, I guess to give the suggestion of the stone beds that you might find in stone. Ashlar was something that I've done once before.

00:42:29:21 - 00:42:50:05

Speaker 2

So it was really good to kind of experience that again. But we then used a joint rule and a spirit level to run in the ashlar lines. Yeah, that, that mix dried really quickly. It was hydraulic based and we were working outside towards the end of the year so it needed to have quite a quick initial set and to be able to tolerate quite wet weather.

00:42:51:06 - 00:43:16:06

Speaker 2

So that's the kind of final images that you can see there. Yeah, and I think all my placements really, I mean, they helped me really kind of accelerate my learning and, you know, make networks and great kind of mentors with people, which I really needed being kind of newer to the trade. So they were all really supportive environments to be working in and I think that's me.

00:43:17:10 - 00:43:31:03

Speaker 1

Thanks, Karen. Some really interesting materials you were using there. You mentioned prompt for those pilaster capitals. Were, what were those pilaster capitals, the originals made from.

00:43:32:05 - 00:43:39:14

Speaker 2

I think that they were made from Roman cement. So that was the most similar really to kind of match material wise.

00:43:40:18 - 00:43:55:05

Speaker 1

I see yeah, we have had a question, but I had I had the same question. In your first project, you mentioned about a mesh going into the wall as well as the fibres in the render. What what was the mesh?

00:43:56:02 - 00:44:03:07

Speaker 2

So it was a ten mil plastic mesh that we used back in the in the timber frame.

00:44:04:12 - 00:44:11:11

Speaker 1

So that was that was applied. And then you applied the render to that as well. So that was kind.

00:44:11:11 - 00:44:25:20

Speaker 2

Yes, we put a really sudden coat of render onto the wood wool panels, then we'd push the mesh in and then the second really thin coat of render straight again over the top of the mesh just to get some structural stability. Really.

00:44:27:10 - 00:44:57:21

Speaker 1

That's great. Thank you. I think. Do you want. Yeah, you move it on and then I think. Michael, thank you. Thank you, Karen and Michael, I hope that people have been impressed, certainly impressed with the range of experiences and placements and the skills that this programme offers people. So if people are inspired to offer placements or undertake the programme, where can they where can they go and find out more?

00:44:57:21 - 00:45:28:00

Speaker 2

Yes. So we are currently recruiting for the next cohort. So the programme runs from July to March each year and applications are live on the King's Foundation website. So if you go to the King's-Foundation.org, follow our education links and look for the building craft programme. You'll be able to download the course overview, which I would definitely recommend everyone reads prior to applying, and then the application form will be there for you to complete.

00:45:28:00 - 00:45:46:23

Speaker 2

And we, you know, we look for a portfolio and a reference alongside that as well. And applications are open until the 8th of April, so a few weeks left. But yeah, we'll be interviewing in the spring and looking for students to start in the summer.

00:45:49:00 - 00:45:51:10

Speaker 1

That's great. Michael, thank you so much.