- 18 hours ago
Kevin McCloud's Listed Britain Season 1 Episode 3
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Short filmTranscript
00:04The more I think about it, the more I think that listing our heritage assets, our great buildings
00:12and 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
00:25inconvenient or eccentric they are. It's as if we don't like to ask the question, what
00:33can we replace this with? And we much prefer to ask the question, if this went, what would
00:42we be losing?
00:54Music
00:55Music
00:55Music
00:55Music
00:55Music
01:12If you're a structure, it doesn't get much better than being Grade 1 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.
01:45In Scotland, they can list buildings directly. In England and Wales, they have to put them forward to government for
01:52final approval.
01:53Whatever the process, their work is vital.
01:56If 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 length and breadth of Britain to visit the extraordinary places that have been saved and to find
02:15out the stories behind them.
02:20This time, I'm looking at buildings that have had to be fought for.
02:26Some buildings get saved because someone got very annoying.
02:31These are the people who campaign, who write letters, who won't go away.
02:38And their struggle isn't a glamorous one. It's hard. It takes forever. And it's often deeply personal.
02:46This programme is about those buildings that were saved not thanks to money or influence, but because somebody wouldn't take
02:58no for an answer.
03:06Some fights are about stopping demolition, saving a building before it's too late.
03:13However, Coventry tells a different kind of story.
03:18Because here, the destruction came first.
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.
03:38That's what they expected would happen here.
03:41But one architect said, no, no, no. Leave the ruin exactly as it is. Don't touch it.
03:48Half of Coventry thought he was mad.
03:55Coventry Cathedral is not one building, but two.
03:59The vision of the architect Sir Basil Spence, who wanted to keep the shattered shell of the old cathedral bombed
04:06by the Germans during World War II in November 1940.
04:11And beside it, he built a new cathedral in the 1950s.
04:17But the story of this place begins on the night the old cathedral burned.
04:25The Dean, he was here firefighting on the roof when it actually happened.
04:29The Dean was firefighting?
04:30Yes.
04:31He 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.
04:38But the trouble was that when the incendiaries hit the lead, they stuck in the lead and quickly burnt through
04:45it.
04:46Melted.
04:46And then sort of burnt into the ceiling. That's what caused it.
04:49The next day when they was dampening it down, he was devastated, of course.
04:55But what he did do was he picked up some charcoal and wrote on the sanctuary wall, Father forgive.
05:04That's quite a message. Just those two words.
05:07Yeah.
05:08Not forgive those who...
05:10Yeah, not forgive them.
05:11...who have just bombed us, not forgive them.
05:13No.
05:13Just Father forgive.
05:14Yeah.
05:14So he was talking universally there.
05:17Yeah.
05:17Yeah.
05:19Because we're involved and we're doing it to them as well and so...
05:23Of course.
05:24So he was...
05:25Actually he was making a comment about war, generally.
05:28Yes.
05:29Yeah.
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.
05:37Over since, yeah.
05:42For 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.
06:16Yeah.
06:16But somehow it's all a little bit as if it was meant to be.
06:19So you feel that there's this kind of natural flow through it.
06:22There's pilgrimage built into this cathedral, really.
06:25Yeah.
06:26But you have to start in the place of honesty about the world and about your life, which is the
06:30story of the ruins.
06:31Of course, moving into this space towards this extraordinary tapestry.
06:35Yeah.
06:36Yeah.
06:39The 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
06:52for 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.
07:07And it's just so big.
07:08It's extraordinary.
07:09I met somebody actually who came into the cathedral yesterday.
07:12She used to come here as a child.
07:13She said, I just used to be terrified.
07:15She said it was his feet that used to do it for me.
07:17They were so big.
07:20The whole cathedral is a container for wonderful works of art.
07:25Tapestry.
07:26Sculpture.
07:27Lettering.
07:28Stained and engraved glass and wrought iron.
07:31All 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.
07:43And it's because the architect, Basil Spence, took a meddling interest in everything.
07:49He was like the director, the conductor of the orchestra.
07:53He even drew the layouts for the organ pipes.
07:58I mean, anybody else would just leave it to the organ builder.
08:01But no, he handed his drawing over to Harrison and Harrison, the great organ makers, and said,
08:07make it work.
08:10Spence was involved in every detail.
08:13He designed the Crown of Thorns screen at the entrance to the Remembrance Chapel.
08:18And the striking baptistry window frame.
08:22He 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.
08:43Yeah.
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.
08:53And Spence was so angry that he publicly resigned, by letter, I think to the Daily Mirror, on the basis
09:01of all this had happened.
09:02The headline in the paper was, Architect Flushed Out of Cathedral.
09:07I mean, this was his, I suppose, his opus magnus, this cathedral.
09:10His most beautifully crafted casket of jewels.
09:13And then somebody else sort of starts playing with it.
09:15I mean...
09:15Absolutely.
09:17Ah, poor man.
09:19Great story, though.
09:21Yeah, I know.
09:23Hard to believe, isn't it?
09:24Anyway, here we are.
09:25Yeah.
09:25I bet you gents don't have the same story, do they?
09:28We don't.
09:28No.
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
09:54build this cathedral.
09:56Now, I have been downstairs into the archives and looked with academics to see if we could find in the
10:03archives any records of their, the names of this international tribe band of men.
10:12But nothing.
10:14OK.
10:14There's nothing.
10:15There's no official record that tells us that he and others were here.
10:20Particularly men of the Windrush generation, because my father...
10:23Of your father's generation?
10:24Yes.
10:25Yes.
10:25Which seems a bit insulting, given the fact that your father built this cathedral.
10:32Helped.
10:33He was a people builder, so he would have made connections with the other men from Wales and Poland and
10:40India and other parts of the Caribbean.
10:43And I can actually picture him with a pencil behind his ear. He always had a pencil behind his ear
10:50when he was making things.
10:51And somewhere on his person, a spirit level.
10:55Yeah.
10:55To make sure it was just right.
10:59Yeah.
10:59Yeah.
11:00Extraordinary.
11:01He, as a maker, as a builder, so he'll have been involved in concrete pouring and shuttering and last minute
11:08changes, no doubt, and a great deal of collaboration.
11:11And all the time surrounded also by the artists and the makers and the craftspeople who were doing all the
11:17add-ons, you know, the stained glass, the tapestry, the metal work.
11:22I'm sorry that I didn't have the opportunity to sit down with Dad as I'm sitting down with you, to
11:29ask him, Dad, what was that like?
11:31Mmm.
11:31I missed that opportunity.
11:34Mmm.
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, and also
11:48those who come here today.
11:53See, I've come here, and I brought you here, not because it's on a list of important places to visit,
12:05an important grade one building.
12:06It is all of that, but for very personal reasons, because it's just one of my favorite places on the
12:12planet.
12:15So I can't dissociate my personal feelings, my emotions, from a sort of generic architectural appreciation, or a love of
12:27a particular craft, or an admiration for an artist, or any of that, because it's all bound up.
12:35I'm just very happy to be here.
12:40Very happy.
12:56There's a generally accepted view in conservation that you should always, wherever possible, try and make sure the original purpose
13:02of the building is kept.
13:05Otherwise, the building can wither.
13:09The thing about this place, the empty former cathedral and the new one next door, is that that message, that
13:15purpose, is still super active.
13:19And it's defined in that very simple act, made by the dean in 1940, after the fire, to scratch two
13:29words onto that end wall.
13:32One of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.
13:35That 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.
14:05The greatest battle in conservation is to pull a building back from the brink of ruin, to save what is
14:12rare and precious.
14:14Mavis Bank is one such building.
14:17An 18th century villa in Midlothian in Scotland.
14:22It's category A listed the equivalent of grade one.
14:26And Anna Key has been one of those trying to save it.
14:31Mavis Bank was the first building to be called a villa, actually, in Scotland, which is to say that it's
14:34not a massive, great, big, stately home.
14:36It'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.
14:46It was really the first building to look like that, to have that kind of design style that then became
14:53so familiar.
14:54You know, the whole of the new town in Edinburgh looks like that.
14:56But when it was built, you know, it was a real novelty.
15:01It was the first Palladian villa in Scotland.
15:05And it was designed by William Adam, who worked closely with his hands-on client, Sir John Clarke of Pennyquick,
15:12to design it.
15:13Remarkably, for a building made 300 years ago, we've got a very detailed picture of how it was built.
15:20We know everything about it because all the records survive.
15:23Every bit of correspondence between the architect and the craftspeople and the client exists.
15:30We've got the bills for every single bit of carving, every pane of glass, everyone who pushed a wheelbarrow or,
15:36you know, lifted a block of stone.
15:38We 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. Then it changed hands. By the 1870s, it was an
15:53asylum.
15:59Mavis Bank was very much at the forefront of the therapeutic treatment of mental illness, rather than it being treated
16:05as a sort of borderline criminal condition.
16:07The guy who ran it was a real pioneer of treating mental illness with, you know, with calm activities, with
16:16space 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.
16:26But then the National Health Service arrived. The hospital closed and it passed into private ownership, bought by a man
16:35called Archie Stevenson.
16:38Basically a really destructive owner, who seems more or less deliberately to have set about bringing it down.
16:44And so it went from being completely habitable and having a roof and windows and all the things that you'd
16:50expect 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.
17:10Until the architect James Simpson stepped forward.
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, which is the
17:35Scottish equivalent of the High Court.
17:38And I was present when, at two o'clock in the morning, the judge, Lord Kirkwood, issued an interdict, which
17:47is 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 between this building
18:02and rubble.
18:03The judge also ordered that the Preservation Trust should maintain a 24-hour watch on the site to maintain its
18:13security for 18 days.
18:15And I was one of those who spent several nights here guarding the place from possible intruders.
18:30The fight didn't end there. The Lothian Preservation Trust wanted it restored, but first they had to find who owned
18:39it.
18:40Before 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, which then
18:52nobody could find these people because he almost certainly made them up completely.
18:58He 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, really, of seeing Mavis Banks survive.
19:13But James didn't give up, nor did Anna, and...
19:18If 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 this sector for 30 years, if I can't help pull this off, I will personally have
19:38failed.
19:38It's not good enough. We have to do it.
19:44They persuaded the local council to pursue compulsory purchase of it.
19:50And 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,
20:09which is sadly more than 50 years ago.
20:15On the bottom of one of the plinths, carved in Latin 300 years ago, is a message.
20:22The last lines of it say something along the lines of,
20:27May this building, the older it gets, become more beautiful,
20:32and may posterity take what has become broken and restore it intact.
20:38It is like a message from him to say,
20:42One day, you will all be looking at this, and it will be broken,
20:46and I want you to know that I want you to mend it,
20:50and that's going to be part of your job.
21:01300 miles away in Wales, and less romantic than a Scottish villa,
21:05is another structure that local people are fighting for,
21:09Newport Transporter Bridge.
21:14There are only eight transporter bridges left in the world.
21:17Most were demolished.
21:19This one nearly was two.
21:22Finished in 1906,
21:24it's a hanging platform that carries people and cars
21:28from one side of the river to the other.
21:32You can see 1924 here,
21:34it was a penny to go across on the platform.
21:37But if you walked up,
21:39and walk over the top,
21:41and back down the other side,
21:42it's cheaper, certainly.
21:44And there are apparently pictures of guys
21:46carrying heavy bicycles,
21:48their lunchbox,
21:49up the steps,
21:50all the way to the top,
21:51across,
21:52and then back down the other side,
21:53to go to the steelworks.
21:57Newport was a booming coal and steel town
22:00at the turn of the 20th century,
22:01and the bridge was a vital link
22:04to allow the steelworkers to get to work.
22:07For 50 years,
22:08the bridge superintendent kept a diary
22:10of everything that went on on the bridge.
22:13It always starts off with a weather forecast,
22:16a fine day with a light westerly wind.
22:18Then it's mainly,
22:19what are the guys working doing?
22:21They'll be doing some painting.
22:23There's mechanics.
22:25Often it's only three or four lines.
22:27But then,
22:28buried in the,
22:30some of the longer entries,
22:31I always looked at a lot,
22:33you know,
22:33there's more here,
22:34there must be something happened.
22:35Saturday the 3rd of April, 1948.
22:39Fair day,
22:40heavy showers,
22:40with a fresh westerly wind.
22:43Mechanics on routine work.
22:45We have had a bit of trouble with footballers
22:47changing into their football kit,
22:49while waiting on the car.
22:50We have given them their final warning.
22:56Naked footballers
22:57were the least of the bridge's problems though.
23:00It stood on this exposed site for 120 years,
23:04and corrosion and attack by the weather
23:06has been a constant problem.
23:08Replacement parts of it are also tricky.
23:12Just finding the correct material
23:14and the correct sizes of components there,
23:16that definitely throws up a lot of challenges.
23:20The bridge was designed
23:22by a French engineer in metric,
23:24in millimetres,
23:25but built by British workers
23:27who only had access to British steel
23:29made in imperial sizes.
23:32Each piece had to be matched
23:34as closely as possible
23:35to its metric equivalent.
23:36The original substitutions
23:38were recorded during construction,
23:40but many of those records
23:42have since been lost.
23:44The original drawings
23:45never matched what was actually built.
23:48And they're currently trying to repair the bridge
23:50and get it working again.
23:53It's a massive learning curve.
23:54It throws up its challenges
23:55in terms of not having proper drawings.
23:57You're using photographs,
23:59you're going through archives,
23:59you're working with the designers
24:00to try and figure out certain characteristics
24:03of the bridge from the past.
24:05They can't trust anything that they can't measure.
24:09And 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 eighties,
24:22it just became so expensive.
24:24It needed expensive repairs.
24:26It wasn't running because it wasn't safe, basically.
24:30So there had been talk of whether we demolish it,
24:33whether we sell it to Americans.
24:37But it was a much-loved landmark.
24:40So the town of Newport came together to fight for it.
24:44There was an article written in the local paper
24:47saying we need to get rid of this.
24:50Ferocious petitions were got up,
24:52letters to the editor saying,
24:53we know we love this thing.
24:54If we don't have this transporter bridge,
24:56what 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 are steel workers going back and forth for their jobs.
25:16That is the backbone of this city.
25:20Now, thanks to almost 17 million pounds in funding,
25:24it's been given a new life.
25:28We're here to refurbish the bridge,
25:31try to repair bits that are quite badly corroded
25:34in terms of steel work,
25:35blast away the old paint,
25:37give it a new coat of paint,
25:39replace a series of quite worn components on the bridge,
25:42pins and cables,
25:44trying 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,
25:55it's the only transporter bridge in the world to have its own toilet.
25:58Unfortunately, it's no longer functioning.
26:00There was no trying to think of a polite way to put it.
26:03It was just a long drop.
26:06It's taken millions, and it will continue to take millions.
26:09It's taking time as well.
26:10It's taking longer than we hoped.
26:12Every time we move a meter, we find more.
26:14But that's the reality of these kind of structures,
26:16we've just got to accept it.
26:17When I'm long gone and 120 years,
26:19I 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,
26:47it won't just survive, but be cherished.
26:52It will be cared for, funded and kept alive.
26:56That's not what happened here.
27:01This is a moth-balled 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
27:15doesn't keep the rain out.
27:17It doesn't protect the building from decay.
27:19It doesn't stop these timbers from rotting,
27:22or the frame of it falling apart.
27:27Listing means you need permission to change just about anything.
27:32But 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,
27:40built for Sir William de Bagley in 1320,
27:44who supposedly 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,
27:57so it was a manhouse to start off with, then it became a farmhouse,
28:00and then Manchester Corporation took the building on.
28:04It was used as a timber store.
28:06Excellent.
28:06Can you believe it?
28:06You know, this wonderful hall was just a storeroom for timber.
28:10Oh.
28:10And then it was listed in 1952.
28:15But the buildings that thrive are the ones people will pay to use and visit.
28:20And a medieval hall with nothing 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.
28:33Yeah.
28:34The National Trust spent a lot of effort trying to make a place feel alive.
28:38Yeah.
28:38So the owners have just 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.
28:46In 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.
28:53At the minute it's beautiful but it's cold and it's got no soul and it's got no heart because there's
28:59nobody using it.
29:03The 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 metre square.
29:22In 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.
29:39The tradition, it seems, remained.
29:45These huge timbers that you see are really, really what makes this unique and unusual because these timbers are so
29:52beefy and muscular to the north wing.
29:56I've never seen timbers this big except in cathedral roofs, hidden.
29:59Oh, 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.
30:07But blown up.
30:08Yeah, building on steroids.
30:10Exactly.
30:11We think that these timbers have come from Lime Park, which is a huge estate further east.
30:16Yeah.
30:17And we've done dendrochronology on the timbers, tree ring dating, and dated them to 1398.
30:241398.
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.
30:33Isn't it?
30:35There is hope for this beautiful place, and it comes from the people who love it, who live locally, a
30:42group known as the Friends of Bagley Hall, who are devoted to all things medieval.
30:48Morning.
30:49Morning.
30:49Morning.
30:50Good to see you.
30:50Fine outfits.
30:52I see you're not carrying a pike.
30:54I'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.
31:01Yeah.
31:01Living history, if you like.
31:02We basically advocate for the building and make sure that the local people have somewhere that they can discuss what's
31:09going on with the building.
31:11Well, at one time it was the hub of the community.
31:13It was the most important building in the area.
31:16It could easily return to such a role.
31:19What kind of activities would you like to see going on here?
31:21All sorts.
31:22Re-enactments, bringing the public in, open days.
31:25Weddings.
31:26Theatres.
31:27Anything that can bring people into the building, bring it back to life.
31:30We're going for ideas.
31:37The fight for Bagley Hall is 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 there 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 by the same
32:01building's preservation trust that has acquired this.
32:06And here, the community fought for it and won.
32:15This 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 sixties, but he had spent most of the money by then.
32:39So he foreclosed on the mortgage.
32:43So in 1963, the hall was taken over by Guardian Royal Exchange, who used it as their northern corporate headquarters
32:52for more than 30 years, until the late 90s, when the community rallied together and finally won it back.
33:01Somebody at British Aerospace gave the community some money to buy it back.
33:07That's right. I 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.
33:17And that's where we came in.
33:20When Heritage Trust North West took on Lytham Hall, it was dilapidated after years of neglect.
33:26As well as looking after the day-to-day running of the hall, Peter has spent a decade putting the
33:32place 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 house.
33:44So 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.
34:03He was Henry, but he was known as Harry.
34:05He 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.
34:25I 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.
34:29Because they are family.
34:30Yes.
34:31Of course, yes.
34:32So you've had to assemble, have you?
34:34Of course, yes.
34:35We've begs, steal and borrowed along the way.
34:37Even, 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.
34:51Yes.
34:52So 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.
35:14When we do weddings, we do Georgian afternoon tea twice a day.
35:18So 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.
35:55Some 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, I'm guessing some of the mouldings, some of the later
36:08stuff will be plaster at Paris.
36:09Yeah.
36:10And some of the earlier stuff will be wrought lime.
36:12Yep.
36:12And what are you repairing with? Do 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.
36:22Just to that point where it feels plastic.
36:24And then you follow on with paint, clearly.
36:27Paint in the back.
36:27Then the gold.
36:28Everything has two coats.
36:30Yeah.
36:30It needs to look alright up here for me.
36:32Can't just go with that'll do because it'll look good down there.
36:34Oh, no, no, no.
36:34It's got to be right.
36:35For sure.
36:36It's beautiful though.
36:37It is.
36:37I'll come back and see when it's done.
36:39Hopefully, yeah.
36:39Thank you very much, Warren.
36:41I'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 them, that requires
37:05a 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.
37:40Those are the energies that actually matter in our built world.
37:44They 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.
38:06Sometimes 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.
38:31Oh, this is very beautiful.
38:37When Henry VIII was ransacking Catholic monasteries in the 16th century, the local people stepped in here.
38:45Alistair is the church secretary.
38:48The population of Malvern was about a hundred families.
38:53And 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.
39:1520 quid. I mean, how much is that in today's money?
39:18Well, 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.
39:2650,000, 60,000 pounds.
39:28Yeah.
39:28So a real bargain, not down price.
39:30Yeah.
39:34What 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.
39:47The 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.
40:24This glass dates from the late 1400s.
40:26It's survived the Reformation, the Civil War, two World Wars, and five centuries of English weather.
40:35That isn't luck.
40:39It is thanks to the efforts of the locals through the centuries that the glass was looked after.
40:46People 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.
40:59Somebody should have made a film about that.
41:05Beautiful as it is, this is not just an historic relic to be preserved and admired.
41:11Modern Priory is a working building with all sorts going on in strange corners of it.
41:17Aha.
41:20Ah.
41:21Oh, it's a little community of campanologists.
41:25Hello.
41:26Excellent, yeah. Hello Kevin.
41:28You 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, this 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.
41:43Look two, trouble's going, she'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 and then...
42:16I got it wrong.
42:19That was really beautiful.
42:21I was going to say, why learn it? Why do this? I don't understand. What's the appeal of it?
42:24You can't do it on your own. When you get it right and eight people or ten people get it
42:29right, all you've done is pull your bell into the right position and the sum of the whole is greater
42:35than 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.
42:43How long have you all been doing it?
42:44I first started bell ringing about 70 years ago.
42:48How long?
42:4970. Seven 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.
43:18And that seems to me to be primal.
43:20And what 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.
43:32And the oldest bell we have in here is from the 1300s.
43:35From the 1300s.
43:37From 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.
43:53Don't worry.
43:53It's only 400 kilograms.
43:55But it is nearly 700 years old.
43:58Okay, so here we go.
44:00You ready?
44:01That's it.
44:02Here we go.
44:02And wait for the rope to go up.
44:05Straight 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.
44:15It's a stretch.
44:16It's physical.
44:18It's like a sort of stretch workout.
44:20Like 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.
44:35simply by turning up.
44:38By using this building every day.
44:40And 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 and that 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.
45:19Not one big heroic act, but hundreds of tiny ones.
45:23Yeah.
45:24And because this is worth saving, it's never going to stop.
45:41Next 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. It is a basilica.
46:00And a modern grade one listed structure originally designed for penguins.
46:05Yeah, you can't, it's not edible.
46:08You can't encounter any of the people.
46:11You can't talk about fresh oil, as well, as people have gone somehow to solve you.
46:36Any again and amazing kind of stories that you've ever understood in history
46:37What can I influence?
46:37You
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