Building Preservation Trusts

Many people presume that most counties have a heritage trust, but Lincolnshire is actually quite rare in this respect. A good many counties have archaeological trusts, but only a handful have a heritage trust and no two of these are the same in terms of their structure, or what they do. The Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire combines many activities, including education and information, looking after ancient monuments, archaeological work, publishing local books, and preserving historic buildings. It's this last element that I want to talk about today, as the Heritage Trust is, amongst all its other activities, also a Building Preservation Trust.

There are over 168 Building Preservation Trusts spread across the country and both Lincoln City and Boston have Trusts which undertake projects in those towns. Until the Heritage Trust was formed in 1991, there wasn't a building preservation trust for the rest of the county.

'Repairers of the last resort'

Building preservation trusts may be thought of as 'repairers of the last resort' - It is their job to take on historic buildings which, for one reason or another, have reached a state of disrepair that makes them commercially unviable - In other words, in financial terms, the buildings are a write off, however, their heritage value also has to be taken into account - it may be essential that we save them on heritage grounds even if it is not commercially sensible to do so. Inevitably the buildings which are dealt with are those which are already recognised as being of special architectural or historic value, by being listed - which merely means they have been included on the official list compiled by the government of buildings of special architectural or historic value.

Funding the work

In order to carry out their work, Building preservation trusts are given access to low interest loans through a government agency known as the Architectural Heritage Fund. They might also get preferential treatment when it comes to applying for grants, as all their work is done on a Not For Profit basis. If any surplus should be made, it is ploughed into the next building project. In order to carry out this work, the BPTs have to own the buildings on which they are working - they cannot work on anybody else's behalf.

So often, the reason that a listed building has got into a bad state of repair is because it no longer has a use. This is especially true with agricultural and industrial buildings - what on earth do you do with disused maltings, old windmill towers or cart sheds which are now far too small for even the smallest piece of modern agricultural machinery. Problems can also be faced with disused churches and chapels, and dwellings which lack the facilities which we have now come to regard as essential, such as bathrooms kitchens and even staircases.

The first part of any building preservation project is, therefore, to decide whether a new use, which is commercially sustainable, can be found for the building. Often this means looking at the feasibility of several possible uses and comparing their costs, their usefulness and their potential income. If a suitable end use can be decided upon, then we start to try to put together a package of funding to pay for the repair and, if necessary, conversion. The funding sources we may go to are wide - these days the heritage Lottery Fund is high on our list of potential grant givers, but they will only give up to 75% of the total costs and other sources are required. These could include English Heritage, Local Authorities, European money (which comes in many forms) landfill tax rebate and charitable grants, for all Building preservation trusts are, by definition, registered charities.

If the funding can be raised the repair work can go ahead - and the work is always carried out with the main emphasis on conservation of the original structure. Anyway, as the buildings are invariably listed buildings we have to comply with all the requirements of listed building consent which are laid down by the local planning authority.

Mud and Stud – Little Steeping Cottage

In 2000, Heritage Lincolnshire completed a most interesting and unusual Building preservation project at Little Steeping, near Spilsby. For the first time, the Trust undertook the repair and refurbishment of a mud and stud house – a type of earth building unique to Lincolnshire. The project was mostly funded through the Heritage Lottery Fund, with additional input from Wren (who are the landfill tax rebate agency), European grants and money from East Lindsey District Council and several charitable trusts.

The builders began work in January 2000 and uncovered a fascinating history – we found a bread oven we didn't know that we had and discovered that our tiny cottage once had dormer windows in its upstairs rooms, which were originally only reached by a ladder. Our work involved repairing the structure and fitting the cottage out in order that it could be let as a holiday cottage – that way, many people will be able to experience (perhaps even enjoy!) living in an earth structure.

There were many problems to solve along the way (not least how to keep all of the historically important old thatch which we found under the corrugated iron, whilst thatching a new roof over the top) but the cottage was structurally complete by September 2000 and, after a period of drying out, was fitted out and furnished by Easter 2001. The opening of the cottage was held up initially due to the foot and mouth crisis, but it is now available for holiday lets through the Vivat Trust – see their web page at www.vivat.org.uk.

During the repair work we held a series of public days which were called 'hard hat days' so that people interested in the old building techniques could come along and speak to the carpenters and thatchers and mud masons. We have held 'hard hat days' on all our historic building projects since, and they are so popular we have decided that every building preservation project (where safety permits) will have open days during the repair works. Be sure to sign up to our emailing list if you want to receive information on these and other such events.

Dave Start
Director, Heritage Lincolnshire