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00:04The more I think about it, the more I think that listing our heritage assets, our great buildings
00:11and our monuments and our landscapes, is a very British thing. It reflects a natural British
00:18impulse to protect what we hold dear, to hold on to these things regardless of how old or
00:24inconvenient or eccentric they are. It's as if we don't like to ask the question, what can
00:33we replace this with? And we much prefer to ask the question, if this went, what would we be losing?
01:11If you're a structure, it doesn't get much better than being grade one listed or category A in Scotland.
01:20It means you're not just admired and loved, but protected. Not just old, but exceptional.
01:30The brilliant thing that no photograph can prepare you for here is that the space is vast.
01:39In Britain, each nation has its own heritage body responsible for assessing historic buildings. In
01:48England and Wales, they have to put them forward to government for final approval. Whatever the
01:53process, their work is vital.
01:57If we don't let them do their job, then the country just sort of becomes a retail park with aspirations.
02:07I'm travelling the lengths and breadth of Britain to visit the extraordinary places that have been
02:13saved. And to find out the stories behind them. This time, I'm looking at buildings that have had to
02:23be fought for. Some buildings get saved because someone got very annoying. These are the people who
02:33campaign, who write letters, who won't go away. And their struggle isn't a glamorous one. It's hard.
02:42It takes forever. And it's often deeply personal. This programme is about those buildings that were saved,
02:50not thanks to money or influence, but because somebody wouldn't take no for an answer.
03:06Some fights are about stopping demolition, saving a building before it's too late. However,
03:15Coventry tells a different kind of story. Because here, the destruction came first.
03:26Coventry told a few years ago that the city had been destroyed or burned down.
03:27Historically, when cathedrals were destroyed or burned down, people would rebuild them.
03:33Because these were buildings that a city couldn't imagine losing. That's what they expected would
03:40happen here. But one architect said, no, no, no. Leave the ruin exactly as it is. Don't touch it.
03:47But half of Coventry thought he was mad.
03:55Coventry Cathedral is not one building, but two. The vision of the architect Sir Basil Spence,
04:02who wanted to keep the shattered shell of the old cathedral bombed by the Germans during World War II in
04:08November 1940.
04:11And beside it, he built a new cathedral in the 1950s. But the story of this place begins on the
04:19night the old cathedral burned.
04:24The dean, he was here firefighting on the roof when it actually happened.
04:28The dean was firefighting?
04:30Yes. He was on the roof with three others. And they were trying to get rid of the incendiary bombs.
04:35They got shovels and they were chucking them off the building. But the trouble was, was that when the incendiaries
04:42hit the lead, they stuck in the lead and quickly burned through it.
04:45And melted.
04:46And then sort of burnt into the ceiling. That's what caused it. The next day when they was damping it
04:50down,
04:51he was devastated, of course. But what he did do was he picked up some charcoal and wrote on the
04:59sanctuary wall, Father, forgive.
05:04That's quite a message. Just those two words.
05:07Yeah.
05:08Not forgive those who, who have just bombed us, not forgive them, just Father, forgive.
05:14Yeah.
05:14So he was talking universally there.
05:16Yeah. Yeah. Because we're involved and we're doing it to them as well.
05:23Of course. So he was, it was actually, he was making a comment about war generally.
05:28Yes. Yeah.
05:29And about the sins of war.
05:30Yeah.
05:31That message sort of seems to have underscored everything the cathedral's come to represent since.
05:37Oh, ever since. Yeah.
05:41For ten years afterwards, services continued in the ruins, which were listed after the war.
05:50Then work started on the new cathedral, which was listed much later.
05:59Together, they exert a powerful effect.
06:05Basil Spence placed this cathedral very deliberately lower.
06:10Yeah.
06:10I know it sort of follows the topography here and the rock formation, but actually it's subservient.
06:15But somehow it's all a little bit as if it was meant to be. So you feel that there's this
06:20kind
06:21of natural flow through it. There's pilgrimage built into this cathedral, really.
06:25Yeah. But you have to start in the place of honesty about the world and about your life,
06:30which is the story of the ruins, moving into this space towards this extraordinary tapestry.
06:35Yeah. Yeah.
06:38The tapestry was made in France and weighs about a ton.
06:44It was woven on a 500-year-old loom in one continuous piece by a team of 12 weavers working
06:51for two years.
06:54And it was designed by the great 20th century artist, Graham Sutherland.
07:01The moment you're approaching the front glass door, you're already in a line of sight with that tapestry.
07:06You totally are.
07:06And it is so big.
07:07It's extraordinary. I met somebody actually who came into the cathedral yesterday.
07:11She used to come here as a child. She said, I just used to be terrified.
07:15She said it was his feet that used to do it for me. They were so big.
07:20The whole cathedral is a container for wonderful works of art. Tapestry, sculpture, lettering,
07:28stained and engraved glass and wrought iron, all by different hands and yet all speaking the same post-war language.
07:36You may wonder how and why all this craftsmanship in this building works together harmoniously.
07:42And it's because the architect, Basil Spence, took a meddling interest in everything.
07:48He was like the director, the conductor of the orchestra.
07:53He even drew the layouts for the organ pipes. I mean, anybody else would just leave it to the organ
08:00builder.
08:01But no, he handed his drawing over to Harrison and Harrison, the great organ makers, and said,
08:06make it work. Spence was involved in every detail. He designed the crown of thorns screen at the entrance to
08:16the remembrance chapel.
08:18And the striking baptistry window frame. He did, however, neglect to put in one really important thing.
08:28Spence, for whatever reason, did not really adequately provide for toilets for ladies who might come and worship in the
08:36cathedral.
08:37And so the cathedral authorities, within a few years of the opening, just became so frustrated by that,
08:43that they made the decision, without consulting Spence, that this space should be repurposed for ladies' toilets.
08:50It was designed by Spence as the bishop's room. And Spence was so angry that he publicly resigned, by letter,
08:58I think to the Daily Mirror, on the basis of all this had happened. The headline in the paper was,
09:03Architect Flushed Out of Cathedral. I mean, this was his, I suppose, his opus magnus, this cathedral.
09:10His most beautifully crafted casket of jewels, and then somebody else sort of starts playing with it.
09:15I mean... Absolutely.
09:17Ah, poor man. Great story, though.
09:21Yeah, I know. Hard to believe, isn't it? Anyway, here we are.
09:25Yeah. I bet your gents don't have the same story, do they?
09:28We don't. No.
09:31Despite this old-fashioned misgiving, this building has established itself as one of Spence's greatest achievements.
09:38But until now, the people who actually built this place have been forgotten.
09:47My father was one of the tribe of men from all over the Caribbean who came here to help me
09:53build this,
09:55this cathedral. And now, I have been downstairs into the archives and looked with academics to see if
10:02if we could find in the archives any records of their, the names of this international tribe, band of men.
10:12But nothing.
10:13Okay.
10:14There's nothing. There's no official record that tells us that he and others were here.
10:19Particularly men of the Windrush generation, because my father...
10:23Of your father's generation?
10:24Yes, yes.
10:25Which seems a bit insulting, given the fact that your father built this cathedral.
10:31Helped. He was a people builder, so he would have made connections with the other men from Wales and Poland
10:39and
10:41India and other parts of the Caribbean. And I can actually picture him with a pencil behind his ear.
10:48He always had a pencil behind his ear when he was making things. And somewhere on his person, a spirit
10:54level.
10:54Yeah.
10:55To make sure it was, it was just right.
10:58Yeah, yeah. Extraordinary. He, as a maker, as a builder, so he'll have been involved in concrete pouring and shuttering
11:07and
11:07last minute changes, no doubt, and a great deal of collaboration. And, and all the time surrounded
11:12also by the artists and the makers and the craftspeople who were doing all the, the, the add-ons, you
11:18know,
11:18the stained glass, the tapestry, the, the metal work.
11:22I'm, I'm sorry that I didn't have the opportunity to sit down with dad as I'm sitting down with you.
11:28To ask him, dad, what was that like?
11:30Mm.
11:31I'm, I, I, I missed that opportunity.
11:33Mm.
11:34But what a conversation I would have had.
11:38This place resonates with the human energy of those who built it and furnished it in the 1950s.
11:47And also those who come here today.
11:53See, I've come here and I brought you here,
11:58not because it's on a list of important places to visit,
12:04an important grade one building. It is all of that.
12:07But for very personal reasons, because it's just one of my favorite places on the planet.
12:14So I can't dissociate my personal feelings, my emotions from a, a sort of generic architectural
12:24appreciation or, or a love of a particular craft or an admiration for an artist or any of that,
12:32because it's all bound up.
12:35I'm just very happy to be here.
12:39I'm very happy.
12:55There's a generally accepted view in conservation that you should always,
12:59wherever possible, try and make sure the original purpose of the building is kept.
13:04Otherwise, the building can wither.
13:09The thing about this place, the empty former cathedral and the new one next door,
13:14is that that message, that purpose is still super active.
13:19And it's defined in, in that very simple act made by the dean in 1940, after the fire,
13:27to scratch two words onto that end wall, one of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.
13:36That message is still being broadcast from here with the same energy.
13:43And goodness me, it's needed perhaps now more than ever in the world.
14:04The greatest battle in conservation is to pull a building back from the brink of ruin,
14:11to save what is rare and precious.
14:14Mavis Bank is one such building, an 18th century villa in Midlothian in Scotland.
14:22It's category A listed the equivalent of grade one. And Anna Key has been one of those trying to save
14:29it.
14:30Mavis Bank was the first building to be called a villa actually in Scotland,
14:33which is to say that it's not a massive great big stately home. It's a sort of small country house.
14:40And it was built in the 1720s, so right at the beginning of the kind of Georgian period.
14:44And it's a really pioneering building. It was really the first building to look like that,
14:49to have that kind of design style that then became so familiar, you know, the whole of the new town
14:55in Edinburgh looks like that. But when it was built, you know, it was a real novelty.
15:01It was the first Palladian villa in Scotland. And it was designed by William Adam, who worked
15:07closely with his hands-on client, Sir John Clarke of Pennyquick, to design it. Remarkably,
15:14for a building made 300 years ago, we've got a very detailed picture of how it was built.
15:19We know everything about it because all the records survive. Every bit of correspondence between the
15:25architect and the craftspeople and the client exists. We've got the bills for every single
15:32bit of carving, every pane of glass, everyone who pushed a wheelbarrow or, you know, lifted a block of
15:37stone. We know that. We know what their names were. We know what families they were in.
15:45For a hundred years, Mavis Bank was a country house.
15:49Then it changed hands. By the 1870s, it was an asylum.
15:59Mavis Bank was very much at the forefront of the therapeutic treatment of mental illness,
16:04rather than it being treated as a sort of borderline criminal condition. The guy who ran it was a real
16:09pioneer of treating mental illness with, you know, with calm activities, with space and fresh air,
16:17and the grounds at Mavis Bank formed a big part of that.
16:21So even as an asylum, Mavis Bank was a place of forward thinking. But then the National Health
16:28Service arrived. The hospital closed and it passed into private ownership, bought by a man called
16:35Archie Stevenson.
16:38Basically a really destructive owner, who seems more or less deliberately to have set about
16:43bringing it down. And so it went from being completely habitable and having a roof and windows
16:49and all the things that you'd expect to being a derelict shell within really a decade.
16:54He turned the forecourt into a scrap yard. There were burnt out cars where the formal garden had been.
17:01Then in 1973, a fire gutted the interior. And by the 1980s, the council was set to demolish it.
17:15The demolition contractor brought their machines to the site and the demolition was about to be started.
17:25The Lothian Building Preservation Trust then raised an appeal and it went to the Court of Session,
17:34which is the Scottish equivalent of the High Court. And I was present when, at two o'clock in the
17:41morning,
17:42the judge, Lord Kirkwood, issued an interdict, which is the Scottish for injunction, preventing the demolition from proceeding.
17:53Two in the morning, the bulldozers were already on site. A judge's signature was all that stood
18:01between this building and rubble. The judge also ordered that the Preservation Trust should maintain
18:09a 24-hour watch on the site to maintain its security for 18 days. And I was one of those
18:18who spent several nights here guarding the place from possible intruders.
18:30The fight didn't end there. The Lothian Preservation Trust wanted it restored,
18:36but first they had to find who owned it. Before he died, Archie Stevenson claimed he'd sold it.
18:45Not only that he'd sold it, but that he'd sold it in three parcels to three separate individuals,
18:51which then nobody could find these people, because he almost certainly made them up completely.
18:57He also sold off every access road, so even if you could prove you owned it, you couldn't get to
19:04it.
19:05For the last ten years, I and others have given up all hope,
19:09really, of seeing Mavis Bank survive. But James didn't give up, nor did Anna, and…
19:17If you're really, really determined to pull it off, it's about will. It's ultimately about will.
19:24I felt personally, if I can't, with all the colleagues and the resources and the charity that I work with,
19:32and having worked in the sector for 30 years, if I can't help pull this off, I will personally have
19:38failed.
19:39It's not good enough. We have to do it.
19:44They persuaded the local council to pursue compulsory purchase of it.
19:49And then in 2024, the National Heritage Memorial Fund awarded the Landmark Trust just over £5 million.
19:59If everything goes to plan, we should be starting work on site building the drive this autumn.
20:05This autumn, after 50… I mean, the fire happened the year I was born, which is sadly more than 50
20:10years ago.
20:15On the bottom of one of the plinths, carved in Latin 300 years ago, is a message.
20:21The last lines of it say something along the lines of,
20:27may this building, the older it gets, become more beautiful, and may posterity take what has become broken and restore
20:36it intact.
20:38It is like a message from him to say, one day, you will all be looking at this, and it
20:46will be broken,
20:46and I want you to know that I want you to mend it, and that's going to be part of
20:50your job.
21:00300 miles away in Wales, and less romantic than a Scottish villa, is another structure that local people are fighting
21:08for, Newport Transporter Bridge.
21:14There are only eight transporter bridges left in the world. Most were demolished.
21:19This one nearly was two.
21:22Finished in 1906, it's a hanging platform that carries people and cars from one side of the river to the
21:29other.
21:32You can see 1924 here, it was a penny to go across on the platform.
21:37But if you walked up and walk over the top and back down the other side, it's cheaper, certainly.
21:43And there are apparently pictures of guys carrying heavy bicycles, their lunchbox, up the steps, all the way to the
21:50top, across, and then back down the other side to go to the steelworks.
21:56Newport was a booming coal and steel town at the turn of the 20th century, and the bridge was a
22:03vital link to allow the steelworkers to get to work.
22:07For 50 years, the bridge superintendent kept a diary of everything that went on on the bridge.
22:13It always starts off with a weather forecast, a fine day with a light westerly wind.
22:17And then it's mainly, what are the guys working doing? They'll be doing some painting, there's mechanics.
22:24Often it's only three or four lines.
22:27But then, buried in some of the longer entries, I always looked at a lot, you know, oh, there's more
22:33here, there must be something happened.
22:35Saturday the 3rd of April, 1948.
22:38Fair day, heavy showers with a fresh westerly wind.
22:43Mechanics on routine work.
22:44We have had a bit of trouble with footballers changing into their football kit while waiting on the car.
22:50We have given them their final warning.
22:56Naked footballers were the least of the bridge's problems, though.
23:00It's stood on this exposed site for 120 years, and corrosion and attack by the weather has been a constant
23:07problem.
23:08Replacement parts of it are also tricky.
23:12Just finding the correct material and the correct sizes of components there, that definitely throws up a lot of challenges.
23:20The bridge was designed by a French engineer in metric, in millimetres, but built by British workers who only had
23:28access to British steel made in imperial sizes.
23:32Each piece had to be matched as closely as possible to its metric equivalent.
23:36The original substitutions were recorded during construction, but many of those records have since been lost.
23:44The original drawings never matched what was actually built, and they're currently trying to repair the bridge and get it
23:51working again.
23:53It's a massive learning curve.
23:54It throws up its challenges in terms of not having proper drawings.
23:57You're using photographs, you're going through archives, you're working with the designers to try and figure out certain characteristics of
24:03the bridge from the past.
24:05They can't trust anything that they can't measure, and nothing comes off a shelf.
24:11Every single part has to be made from scratch.
24:14All that pushed the cost of maintaining it up and up.
24:20Into the mid-80s, it just became so expensive.
24:24It needed expensive repairs.
24:26It wasn't running because it wasn't safe, basically.
24:29So there had been talk of whether we demolish it, whether we sell it to Americans.
24:36But it was a much-loved landmark, so the town of Newport came together to fight for it.
24:44There was an article written in the local paper saying, we need to get rid of this.
24:50Ferocious petitions were got up, letters to the editor, saying, no, we love this thing.
24:54If we don't have this transporter bridge, what else does Newport have?
24:59It's the symbol of our city.
25:02It's iconic.
25:04And we couldn't ever see it not flourish.
25:07And we could never not try and get it to work.
25:09It's also a symbol of our working-class roots.
25:12These were steel workers going back and forth for their jobs.
25:16That is the backbone of this city.
25:20Now, thanks to almost £17 million in funding, it's been given a new life.
25:28We're here to refurbish the bridge, try to repair bits that are quite badly corroded in terms of steel work,
25:35blast away the old paint, give it a new coat of paint,
25:39replace a series of quite worn components on the bridge, pins and cables,
25:43trying to conserve as much material as we possibly can.
25:48Some things, however, have to remain unused.
25:52This is the transporter bridge toilet.
25:54As far as I'm aware, it's the only transporter bridge in the world to have its own toilet.
25:58Unfortunately, it's no longer functioning.
26:00There was no, I'm trying to think of a polite way to put it, it was just a long drop.
26:06It's taken millions, and it will continue to take millions.
26:09It's taken time as well, it's taken longer than we hoped.
26:11Every time we move a meter, we find more.
26:14But that's the reality of these kind of structures, and we've just got to accept it.
26:17When I'm long gone and 120 years, I hope and expect it to still be here.
26:38There is something almost magical about the idea of listing.
26:44We assume once a building is recognized as exceptional, it won't just survive, but be cherished.
26:52It'll be cared for, funded, and kept alive.
26:56That's not what happened here.
27:01This is a mothballed building.
27:06It's empty.
27:07It has, however, the highest level of protection.
27:10It is grade one listed.
27:12The thing is, of course, is that that protection doesn't keep the rain out.
27:17It doesn't protect the building from decay.
27:19It doesn't stop these timbers from rotting, or the frame of it falling apart.
27:26Listing means you need permission to change just about anything.
27:31But what it can't easily do is protect a place if it's not being used.
27:36At its core, Bagley Hall is the oldest building in Manchester, built for Sir William de Bagley in 1320, who
27:44supposedly made his fortune from Cheshire's salt mines.
27:49It's 700 years old, and is now owned by Historic England.
27:54It's been vacant for the last 60 years, so it was a manhouse to start off with, then it became
27:59a farmhouse, and then Manchester Corporation took the building on.
28:04It was used as a timber store.
28:05Excellent.
28:06Can you believe it?
28:06You know, this wonderful hall was just a storeroom for timber, and then it was listed in 1952.
28:15But the buildings that thrive are the ones people will pay to use and visit, and a medieval hall with
28:22nothing in it in South Manchester has never been an easy sell.
28:28It's not like a National Trust house where there's furniture that's important, or paintings on the wall, or anything like
28:33that.
28:34Yeah, the National Trust spent a lot of effort trying to make a place feel alive, so the owners have
28:39just left.
28:40Yeah.
28:40Even though we all know there's still a red cordon and a pine cone sitting on the chair, meaning you
28:45can't sit there.
28:45In your mind, how do you make a building like this accessible?
28:49Financial viability and money is always the problem.
28:52It's always the biggest challenge.
28:54At the minute, it's beautiful, but it's cold.
28:57And it's got no soul, and it's got no heart, because there's nobody using it.
29:02The Great Hall is extraordinary because of the way it was built.
29:08It has no parallel anywhere in England.
29:11Every upright timber is two and a half feet wide, and where the walls meet is a single corner post
29:18of oak one meter square.
29:21In any other medieval hall, the big timbers hold the roof up, and smaller ones fill in between.
29:27Here, there are no small ones.
29:30The only people who built anything like this were seemingly the Norse, and they'd been gone from this part of
29:36England for 400 years by then.
29:38The tradition, it seems, remained.
29:44These huge timbers that you see are really, really what makes this unique and unusual, because these timbers are so
29:52beefy and muscular.
29:54I've never seen timbers this big, except in cathedral roofs, hidden.
29:59Ah, okay, yes.
30:00You know, they're on a giant scale.
30:02Yeah, yeah.
30:02Almost like a child's drawing of a medieval building.
30:06Yeah.
30:06But blown up.
30:08Yeah.
30:08Building on steroids.
30:10Exactly.
30:10We think that these timbers have come from Lime Park, which is a huge estate further east.
30:16Yeah.
30:16And we've done dendrochronology on the timbers, tree ring dating, and dated them to 1398.
30:241398.
30:25Yeah.
30:25And I love all of the cusping details on the timbers, how it looks when you're in the hall.
30:30It's not just structural, it's beautiful as well, isn't it?
30:35There is hope for this beautiful place, and it comes from the people who love it, who live
30:40locally.
30:41A group known as the Friends of Bagley Hall, who are devoted to all things medieval.
30:48Morning.
30:49Morning.
30:49Morning.
30:49Good to see you.
30:50Fine outfits.
30:52I see you're not carrying a pike.
30:54I'm not carrying a pike.
30:55I'm not carrying a pike.
30:55Or a musket.
30:56No.
30:56I'm a merchant.
30:57Yeah.
30:58It's a way of illustrating and educating people into history.
31:01Living history, if you like.
31:02We basically advocate for the building and make sure that the local people have somewhere
31:08that they can discuss what's going on with the building.
31:10Well, at one time it was the hub of the community.
31:13It was the most important building in the area.
31:15It could easily return to such a role.
31:19What kind of activities would you like to see going on here?
31:21All sorts of re-enactments, bringing the public in, open days.
31:25Wedding.
31:25Theatres.
31:27Anything that can bring people into the building, bring it back to life.
31:31We're going for ideas.
31:37The fight for Bagley Hall is sort of really just starting.
31:42It's going to take years.
31:43It's going to cost millions.
31:45It's going to take the whole of this community to really get behind the scheme and to stay
31:51there steadfastly.
31:53And what's going to inspire them?
31:55Well, just up the road from here, an hour away, is another building that was taken on
32:00by the same building's preservation trust that has acquired this.
32:06And here, the community fought for it and won.
32:14This is Lytham Hall on the Fylde Coast in Lancashire, completed in 1764.
32:23The Clifton family lived here for three and a half centuries and then Harry Clifton inherited.
32:31It was quite a character, put it that way.
32:33Yeah.
32:34And his mother lived here, I think, into the 60s, but he had spent most of the money by
32:38then, so he foreclosed on the mortgage.
32:43So, in 1963, the hall was taken over by Guardian Royal Exchange, who used it as their northern
32:50corporate headquarters for more than 30 years, until the late 90s, when the community rallied
32:57it together and finally won it back.
33:01Somebody at British Aerospace gave the community some money to buy it back.
33:07That's right.
33:07I think they donated a million pounds and it was hugely transformational.
33:12But what the community didn't have is an operator or somebody to run it on a day-to-day basis.
33:16Right.
33:16And that's where we came in.
33:20When Heritage Trust Northwest took on Lytham Hall, it was dilapidated after years of neglect.
33:26As well as in looking after the day-to-day running of the hall, Peter has spent a decade
33:31putting the place back together.
33:37We went through 18 layers of paint.
33:39We had a wonderful chap called Nigel Leany, and Nigel did all the paint archaeology on the
33:43house, so he found the ochre colour that you see the house painted in today.
33:47It's an original 1764 colour when the house was new.
33:53The paintwork was straightforward to restore compared to the furniture and artwork.
33:59Going back to the last Clifton, Henry Talbot de Vere Clifton.
34:02He was Henry, but he was known as Harry.
34:04He was a bit of a gambler, and he started to sell vast parts of the collection off.
34:10He even had things like renoirs and stuff like that.
34:12His mother, Violet Clifton, really put a foot down and said,
34:15there's no way you're selling that.
34:16Yeah.
34:17So there's probably about 30% of it was here that managed to escape the auction rooms.
34:22The one good thing is that the portraits survived.
34:24I don't know whether he had an emotional attachment to them, but they survived.
34:28They're usually the last thing to go.
34:29Yes.
34:29They are family.
34:30Yes.
34:31Yeah.
34:31Of course, yes.
34:32So you've had to assemble, have you?
34:34Of course, yes.
34:35We've beg, steal, and borrowed along the way.
34:38Even, you know, if your mother's going into a care home and they've got antique furniture,
34:42is there any chance we can have it?
34:44Wow.
34:44And things like that because the place was that empty.
34:46That's ruthless.
34:47And then what you do then, it becomes a rolling collection because you replace things.
34:51So they were good at one time, and then you get offered something else.
34:55The collection is just bettering itself all the time.
34:58Places like this need people like Peter.
35:01They need people who care, and their numbers are legion.
35:06We have 400 volunteers, 65, 70 house guides.
35:11We open seven days a week once we turn Easter.
35:14We do weddings.
35:15We do Georgian afternoon tea twice a day.
35:17So all these things, you know, help keep the place sustainable.
35:21The volunteers from the local community are invaluable in helping run this place.
35:26But when it comes to the technical repairs of plaster, joinery, and gilding, you need a specialist.
35:34Are you up there, Warren?
35:35I am.
35:37Oh, what a beautiful world you work in.
35:40Oh, it's exquisite.
35:44I just think that blows me away about this building is the plasterwork.
35:48I mean, all this is beautiful, and it's well attached, and there's not much damage to any of this.
35:54Some bits on this side, over the years, there's water damage.
35:59Right.
35:59So it's quite rough on that side.
36:02So when a piece needs repairing, and this is all...
36:05I'm guessing some of the mouldings, some of the later stuff will be plaster of Paris.
36:09Yeah.
36:10And some of the earlier stuff will be wrought lime.
36:12Yep.
36:13And what are you repaying with as you go along? Various mixes?
36:15Various mixes.
36:16And you've got to wait until it's just going off to get it on and mould it, because it...
36:21Yeah, just to that point where it feels plastic.
36:24And then you follow on with paint, clearly.
36:26Paint in the back, then the gold.
36:28Everything has two coats.
36:29It needs to look all right up here for me.
36:32You can't just go with that all day, because it'll look good down there.
36:34Oh, no, no.
36:34It's got to be right.
36:35For sure.
36:35It's beautiful, though.
36:37It is.
36:37I'll come back and see when it's done.
36:38Hopefully, yeah.
36:39Thank you very much, Warren.
36:40I'm going to just slowly back out now, like the muppet that I am.
36:55In order to take these buildings and wrangle them back into life, to inject a vitality into
37:03them.
37:04That requires a huge amount of positive energy.
37:08Yes, there's money to raise.
37:10And yes, there are people to bring together and communities to inspire.
37:18But the forces at work here are generally celebratory.
37:24We restore and repair and we renew and we kind of breathe life into places through championing.
37:31These are energies which represent hope and belief and imagination.
37:39Those are the energies that actually matter in our built world.
37:43They matter in new buildings and they sure as hell are necessary in the reawakening of the buildings of the
37:51past.
38:01The fights that save buildings aren't always dramatic.
38:05Sometimes they start with a decision, a whip round and a terrifying amount of money for a tiny village.
38:13That's how this building was saved.
38:15Great Malvern Priory.
38:30Oh, this is very beautiful.
38:37When Henry VIII was ransacking Catholic monasteries in the 16th century, the local people stepped in here.
38:44Alistair is the church secretary.
38:48The population of Malvern was about a hundred families.
38:52And they had their own church and it was a partly wooden structure.
38:57And it was rotting and starting to fall down.
39:00And they looked at what was left of the old monastic chapel and they approached the crown.
39:06And the crown said, well, yeah, you could, you can have it for 20 pounds.
39:12Sharp intake of breath from locals at that point.
39:1520 quid.
39:15I mean, how much is that in today's money?
39:17Well, it was roughly the equivalent of two years' salary for a skilled craftsman.
39:23So that was really a bargain for a building this size.
39:26I mean, 50,000, 60,000 pounds.
39:27Yeah.
39:28So a real bargain, knock down price.
39:30Yeah.
39:33What those families bought was priceless.
39:37They didn't realize at the time, but the stained glass here is some of the finest in the country, commissioned
39:43by Henry VII and Richard III.
39:45The Great East Window is linked to the workshop of John Thornton of Coventry, the man behind York Minster's masterpieces.
39:56This is glass of international significance, sitting in a tiny Worcestershire town.
40:03You have the most exquisite glass here, and there's a huge quantity of it.
40:09There is.
40:11It makes up the largest collection of English medieval 15th century stained glass in the country.
40:17Seriously?
40:18Yes.
40:19The survival of it is remarkable in such quantities.
40:23This glass dates from the late 1400s.
40:26It's survived the Reformation, the Civil War, two world wars, and five centuries of English weather.
40:34That isn't luck.
40:39It is thanks to the efforts of the locals through the centuries that the glass was looked after.
40:45People were farsighted enough to remove the glass during those periods in the First World War and in the Second.
40:51And they were stored in the Second World War in 40 zinc-lined boxes, and then all reinstalled, reinstated after
40:58the war was over.
40:59Extraordinary.
40:59Somebody should have made a film about that.
41:05Beautiful as it is, this is not just an historic relic to be preserved and admired.
41:11Malvern Priory is a working building with all sorts going on in strange corners of it.
41:17Aha.
41:21Oh, it's a little community of campanologists.
41:25Hello.
41:26Excellent, yeah.
41:27Hello Kevin.
41:27You look like a secret society up here.
41:29Yeah, indeed, yeah, yes.
41:31Am I interrupting?
41:32We're about to start.
41:34I've never witnessed this.
41:35This is exciting.
41:36Keep your feet on the floor, hands to yourself and you'll be fine.
41:38That's generally what I've been told to do in life, so I'll just watch, yeah.
41:42Look two.
41:44Trouble's going.
41:45She's gone.
42:02Oh, that was too good, because it was a proper octave and you maintained it and nothing went out of
42:15order.
42:16I got it wrong.
42:19That was really beautiful.
42:20I was going to say, why learn it?
42:22Why do this?
42:23I don't understand.
42:23What's the appeal of it?
42:24You can't do it on your own.
42:26When you get it right and eight people or ten people get it right, all you've done is pull your
42:31bell into the right position and the sum of the whole is greater than the parts.
42:36And if you get a nice piece of ringing, you stop and you look at each other and you think,
42:41there's a buzz.
42:42How long have you all been doing it?
42:44I first started bell ringing about 70 years ago.
42:48How long?
42:4970.
42:50Seven.
42:50Seven zero.
42:52You don't look old enough to be 70.
42:55No, I first laid hands on a bell rope at the age of eight.
42:58Good Lord.
42:59And I'm now 78.
43:00So, if I'd taken up bell ringing, I'd have a full head of amazing hair.
43:05It's not guaranteed.
43:08Tell me about the importance of the building, because it happens, it's physical, it involves an interaction with the heritage
43:14asset itself.
43:15You're actually making it move and making it make a sound.
43:18That seems to me to be primal.
43:20What value does that bring to your lives?
43:22It's a massive community thing.
43:24Keeping this as an instrument alive is, like, constant work.
43:28You have to keep bringing new people in, young people in to, like, keep learning the tradition.
43:31And the oldest bell we have in here is from the 1300s.
43:35From the 1300s.
43:36From the 1300s.
43:37And it's still sound.
43:38It's still making a great noise.
43:39Yeah.
43:41Time for me to join the Malvern bell ringers on their ropes.
43:45Nice and relaxed.
43:47And then all you're going to do is just follow the rope up.
43:49Yeah.
43:50Get to the top and pull straight back down again.
43:52Yeah, yeah.
43:52Don't worry.
43:53It's only 400 kilograms.
43:55Don't worry.
43:55But it is nearly 700 years old.
43:58OK.
43:59So here we go.
44:00You ready?
44:01That's it.
44:02Here we go.
44:02And wait for the rope to go up.
44:04Straight back down.
44:06That's it.
44:07Perfect.
44:08And again.
44:10Straight back down.
44:11Nice and gently.
44:12That's nice.
44:13That's it.
44:14Yeah.
44:15Yeah.
44:15It's a stretch.
44:16It's physical.
44:17It's like a sort of stretch workout.
44:19Like Tai Chi.
44:20It's fluid.
44:21I like that.
44:23I could do that.
44:24I could suddenly and now I could do more.
44:27Excellent.
44:29The bell ringers of Malvern do as much as their ancestors did to keep this building alive simply by turning
44:37up, by using this building every day and by making a big noise in the community.
44:46In 1541, a hundred or so families here pledged, oh, so much of their income towards one idea.
44:56Not saving a building.
44:57That was too much of a luxury of an idea.
44:59No.
45:00It was to just have a church.
45:02And ever since, people have campaigned and raised money and fought and championed and written applications to lottery funding bodies,
45:14whatever it takes.
45:15That's what conservation looks like.
45:18Not one big heroic act, but hundreds of tiny ones.
45:23Yeah.
45:24And because this is worth saving, it's never going to stop.
45:40Next time, I'm exploring modern heritage structures, the cutting edge of what we choose to save.
45:47It was either absolute hostility, or this is a work of genius.
45:52Cathedrals shaped like wigwams.
45:54The space is vast.
45:58It is a basilica.
46:00And a modern grade one listed structure originally designed for penguins.
46:05Yeah, you can't do it.
46:07It's not edible.
46:08It's not always edible.
46:08It's wonderful.
46:09It's colorful.
46:29It's beautiful.
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