Webinar on Building Craft Skills: The Prince's Foundation Programme

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:29:04

Speaker 1

My name is Clara Willett. I'm a building conservation adviser in the technical conservation team at Historic England. My specialisms are stone and terracotta. I'm an accredited ICON, accredited conservator. Before joining Historic England in 2003. And before that, I worked in private practice for six years. I ran a national training scheme for traditional building crafts. So this is a topic that's particularly interesting to me.

00:00:29:09 - 00:00:49:02

Speaker 1

And as Matt said, the co-presenters this afternoon are Michael Goodger from the building crafts programme and three of the current cohorts of trainees Imogen Higgs, Chris Menzies and Ethan Willett. No relation, I might add. And so, Michael, would you like to introduce yourself?

00:00:50:04 - 00:01:08:11

Speaker 2

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, hello, my name is Michael Goodger. I am the built environment education manager for the Prince Foundation. I'm currently based off Dumfries House in Scotland and I look after a number of our traditional craft programmes, one of which is the Building Craft Programme, which we'll hear a bit more about today.

00:01:09:15 - 00:01:31:08

Speaker 1

Thanks, Michael. Yeah. And we'll be hearing a lot more from Chris and Ethan and Imogen shortly. Oh, there's some nice pictures of us all. So you can you'll see us a little bit later. But there we are for you. I'd just like to highlight some of the Historic England initiatives and support for building craft skills that we undertake.

00:01:31:17 - 00:01:59:19

Speaker 1

And we understand the need for skilled workforce to look after the heritage environment. And we are very proactive in supporting and advocates advocating for numerous training and skills development opportunities. As an organization, we lead on identifying and addressing skills in the construction industry. We advise on educational standards, which support standards and qualifications such as MVCs in heritage skills.

00:02:00:08 - 00:02:32:00

Speaker 1

And we also provide technical support on the content of training courses such as those at West College. We also deliver training programmes and work with partners who also provide heritage skills training. This is something we deliver ourselves or provide funding for, and this includes the Prince's Foundation, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, ESP Fellowship, and the Cathedrals Workshops Fellowship as well.

00:02:33:05 - 00:03:08:22

Speaker 1

The Hamish Ogdon Foundation, a Heritage Building Skills Programme, is a current initiative with a generous 4.3 million from the foundation. Historic England has been able to fund a major five year in-work training and apprenticeship programme in the north of England. And this runs until 2026. In 2022. The summer school run at Wentworth Woodhouse and among other activities, the trainees worked on the iconic temple, which you can see here, and that offered them the opportunity for a multi trait group working.

00:03:09:07 - 00:03:33:07

Speaker 1

So during this time they learned about health and safety like for like repairs, protecting work, cleaning and recording, which is a very important aspect. I think Matt's going to put a link to a short video, so if you want to watch that later, you can do that. The entry for the next trainees will be available in May, so keep an eye up on our website.

00:03:33:07 - 00:04:00:22

Speaker 1

And you know, if you're interested in finding out more and applying a range of training, opportunities were also provided at the major project at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings. Although the project is now complete and the site is open to the public, we're continuing to deliver work placements relating to the site and the project, so opportunities will be posted as and when they become available.

00:04:01:04 - 00:04:14:06

Speaker 1

And I think again, Matt will post a link to this so that you can keep in contact with that as well. Hopefully that will come up in the chat room.

00:04:15:12 - 00:04:19:23

Speaker 2

But now I have to link. I will I will post it at the end of the session.

00:04:20:00 - 00:04:48:06

Speaker 1

Okay, that's great. Yes, we'll find it for you. That's lovely. And so before moving on, I just thought would be interesting to find out from yourselves, the audience. We're going to do a little poll here and we just want to know a little bit about your background. What's your role or interest in the built heritage sector? It's always interesting to see how this is all moving around us.

00:04:48:06 - 00:05:30:12

Speaker 1

You place your votes. I think that's a few more coming in. Almost there. That's really interesting to know. So most of you, 58%. Well, yeah, half of you are professionals in working in the sector and but that's quite a significant 20% of you saying either. So that would be really good if you could just put in the chart what it is you you do, that would be really, really helpful.

00:05:30:12 - 00:06:17:09

Speaker 1

Thank you. Fantastic. Wonderful. I'll be okay to move on. Matt Brilliant. So thank you for that. I'd now like to turn to one of the most established and renowned heritage skills programmes that Historic England supports. So we're going to start with a short video about the Prince's Foundation and the work it does. And then Michael will explain more about the building crafts programme.

00:06:26:06 - 00:06:58:18

Speaker 3

At the Prince's Foundation. We deliver a diverse curriculum of educational programmes that bring in students from across the UK and international, and to cover subject areas from farming and agriculture to craft and textiles, decorative and applied arts, food, farming and horticulture and a range of others. And within this, we sort of embed the importance of learning by doing of hands on practice based education linked industry of interdisciplinary education that provides the opportunity for knowledge, exchange for learning across curriculum areas.

00:06:59:00 - 00:07:25:01

Speaker 3

And although we have sites really across the UK and internationally, one of the areas that we deliver a particular focus is at the Dumfries House Estates and there are multiple reasons for this. The first is that it is an area which could really benefit from this type of engagement. It's an area with fairly high levels of deprivation, of unemployment, of loss of industry over the years, but also an area that has a remarkable number of assets to it.

00:07:25:05 - 00:07:51:00

Speaker 3

And so having the ability to provide training, to provide routes into employment, to provide future skills for the local community, was hugely important. When visitors come to Dumfries house, what they see is a remarkable estate, a remarkable house and a remarkable collection of Chippendale furniture. But what they also see is a remarkable learning environment. As you go across the estate, what you see is an active hub of learning across such a multitude of subject areas.

00:07:51:00 - 00:08:13:10

Speaker 3

It is a hub of activity and learning, but it's also just a really creative environment, a place where people can come and explore their craft, explore their educational area, explore their vocation. They're able to do that across a huge range of progression levels. So we can, quite literally in some areas, have a student come in and work with us as a five year old as part of their primary school class, and continue training with us through to completing with a PhD.

00:08:14:03 - 00:08:54:03

Speaker 3

But another area that was of real value is having a place where we can bring people, be they from across the UK or internationally, to showcase the importance of and the impact of this type of skills. Training of this type of education is embedded in the local community. It has exposure across the world and that has really tangible outcomes that impact individuals and sectors.

00:08:57:07 - 00:09:17:14

Speaker 2

Hello again. I'm so yeah, just a touch on what the building craft programme is really and a bit more about it. We're now in our 15 for 16 year actually I think of delivery and it's a fully funded programme which is of course made possible by a wide range of individuals and organizations such as Historic England to support the programme each year.

00:09:18:18 - 00:09:43:11

Speaker 2

But it's an eight month programme which brings together a small cohort each year, up to 12 students, and it's primarily aimed at people who are already working in the construction sector. But really, the aspiration of the programme is to move, move people along that journey to becoming a mass craftsperson. So actually focusing more on heritage skills, traditional skills and local materials wherever possible.

00:09:43:11 - 00:10:05:19

Speaker 2

We try and support the students to work towards an end VQ and Heritage Skills Construction. And so we are trying to kind of upskill the industry and make that and VQ something that should be recognised by people that are custodians of historical buildings and kind of yeah, build that quality into, into the next generation of craftspeople. So we've been a typical cohort.

00:10:05:19 - 00:10:31:21

Speaker 2

We may have carpenters, masons, brick workers, plasterers, painters and decorators, blacksmiths, builders, factors, all working together over a period of eight months. And as I say, we are kind of in our 16th year now and we've just we just recently done an alumni survey towards the end of last year. And from off the back of that, we can see that around 83% of our alumni are still working in the heritage sector.

00:10:31:21 - 00:10:53:14

Speaker 2

So it's obviously, you know, building, building capacity across the UK and hopefully ensuring that our historical built environment lasts for for much longer. So I've got a breakdown of the programme on the screen there just to kind of give you a sense of the different sections. But I'll just touch on each section and a bit more detail so we get underway every week.

00:10:53:14 - 00:11:26:15

Speaker 2

So my school, and that's primarily delivered on the Dumfries house estate and really it's an opportunity to bring all the students together and kind of bring in some of the teach ins around the kind of the wider Prince's Foundation and what the Prince's Foundation is about. It's very much about encouraging the students to look at the historical built environment, particularly from the perspective craft, but also getting them to have discussions with each other across the different disciplines and actually, you know, have conversations around different approaches to conservation and traditional skills and what they mean today.

00:11:28:11 - 00:11:49:08

Speaker 2

It's very practical. They get to try lots of hands on things, new craft skills, which many of which have maybe not been involved in before. And it's not necessarily that they're becoming competent and proficient in all of these skills in a period of three weeks. But it's actually just a very tangible way of starting to have conversations around how we can work collaboratively.

00:11:49:08 - 00:12:11:00

Speaker 2

So during the most recent summer school, actually it's the first time since the pandemic where we've been able to have quite a number of external students as well. For the students from all over the world who joined the 12 students for those three weeks. And I think just within that CO are bringing together architects, engineers, planners, craftspeople from elsewhere around the world.

00:12:11:05 - 00:12:35:22

Speaker 2

The conversations that people have and and the overlaps people say within, within the sector is quite exciting. Following the summer school, a big part of the programme is the live build projects. And really it's an opportunity for all of the all of the class students to work together on a live project to gain an appreciation for the interdisciplinary nature of craft.

00:12:36:06 - 00:13:00:11

Speaker 2

And we tend to work in silos of in the craft sector. Be that in your workshop or the time when you end up on site doing doing your specific material. But really the live build is trying to stimulate discussion across the different disciplines and allow people to kind of feed into each other's craft and material and maybe adapt what they do so that actually they can work more harmoniously together.

00:13:01:01 - 00:13:18:12

Speaker 2

So this year we actually spent the life building two sections. We we had a two week design school, which is a bit more intense than we've had in previous years. And it allowed the students to spend a bit more time actually considering design and they got to survey the site that they were working on. They got to develop design ideas.

00:13:18:21 - 00:13:38:01

Speaker 2

They even got some kind of mock up the actions of buildings just to start to understand space and how they start to use use their skills to create spaces and places. And one of the reasons for doing this was really try and instill that sense of ownership for the projects, because ultimately they would come back at the end to actually build it.

00:13:38:01 - 00:13:59:01

Speaker 2

And various designs came out of those two weeks where they worked alongside architects and other design tutors, and there was a period of kind of refining and developing those designs further so that when the students did come back, it was ready to go. So after the design school, when when it went over, decisions are being made, actually, the students then went onto their industry placements.

00:13:59:22 - 00:14:38:03

Speaker 2

These tend to be more individual based. So we've got a huge network of placing ideas across the UK, from individuals to bigger companies to cathedral workshops and so on. And really it's about the students working alongside these practitioners to kind of learn their skills and develop their understanding of the sector. I think as I said at the beginning, quite a few of the students and wherever possible are working towards the heritage skills and Vocational Qualifications that is a on site assessed and Vocational Qualifications so by very much by the very nature of doing the work and recording it, they are gathering the evidence for Vocational Qualifications.

00:14:38:04 - 00:15:13:19

Speaker 2

So placements are obviously a really useful opportunity to get involved in in some quite amazing buildings. I mean we've had students go to this year, we've had students working at Windsor Castle, we've had students at Braemar Castle, Inverness Castle, town halls, cemeteries, but also kind of domestic buildings and private buildings as well. So a huge range and actually for some students, an amazing opportunity to get involved in very prestigious projects at a relatively early stage of their career, but also build some really good networks across the sector.

00:15:13:19 - 00:15:45:21

Speaker 2

So maybe after the programme, students might go on two or three placements during that period of time. And generally it's obviously trying to give them a breadth of experience and maybe touch on different things for the Vocational Qualifications. Ordinarily, we would have we would conclude the programme with the Business Skills Week, but the way we arrange it, this year, actually, we had the students come back to the estate in the middle of the programme, which in in one way it was a great way of getting the cohort back together in the middle placements to share to share that experiences.

00:15:46:05 - 00:16:05:17

Speaker 2

And it also enabled them off the back of Business Week to kind of go back and re-enter the workplace, but with a slightly kind of deep understanding of what it is to run a business within the sector. So you can get a sense on the screen that some of the topics which we covered during that business week, some of them very practical and kind of obvious things like taxation and insurance.

00:16:06:17 - 00:16:27:04

Speaker 2

But we've also kind of tried to encourage bigger discussions around the culture of the sector and kind of some of the issues around the kind of culture of construction and how how the next generation of people can maybe tackle that and maybe, you know, change, change their approach to business to kind of make it more welcoming and kind of, I guess, more appropriate for the 21st century.

00:16:27:18 - 00:16:52:17

Speaker 2

And as I say, the students are now back on the estates for the end of that programme. Actually constructing the project that they designed in the summer. We've intentionally left quite a few of the design details unresolved and factored in a period of kind of research and development so that within within that trade areas, they're working together is kind of refined.

00:16:52:17 - 00:17:24:21

Speaker 2

Certain certain things and maybe experiment with things. So you can see some pictures on. There actually is a few different types of earth and clay. So this is plaster and the group has been digging samples of materials from the estate and experimenting with different colours and different mixes and finishes. So I think in that it's really kind of helped to build that sense of ownership, but then also allowed the students to move more, hopefully more freely between some of the disciplines and actually gain a bit more of a sense of how the different trades are going to come together.

00:17:25:19 - 00:17:47:02

Speaker 2

The proposal actually is a it's a bird hides for the estate. And and we've had various kind of involvement from our estate team and our education team about how this building might be used. And it would be kind of yeah, it's been a really prominent part of the estate. Hopefully for the estate to use. So that's enough for me.

00:17:47:02 - 00:17:48:18

Speaker 2

Clara, back over to you.

00:17:49:02 - 00:18:12:08

Speaker 1

Thanks, Michael. That's really interesting and gives us a really good insight into the whole programme. I'd now like to introduce three of this year's trainees from the programme Imogen Higgins, Chris Menzies and Ethan Willett. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. And perhaps if we can start with each of you telling us a bit about your craft and background.

00:18:12:08 - 00:18:14:04

Speaker 1

So if I could start with you, Imogen.

00:18:15:14 - 00:18:54:08

Speaker 4

Thank you. And so I have a background in art and I'm a voiceover. I've enjoyed working with my hands in originality, but what I was doing like last year when I started and so, yeah, and I really liked working out the math with that and also like work and scale and being very practical. And so I've always just really liked working with my hands and that I wanted sort of a change of career and a really sort of wow, say, change of career.

00:18:54:12 - 00:19:24:24

Speaker 4

But for me, like working with Wood was just kind of a change of material, which kind of maybe sounds a bit odd. But the way that I look at useful buildings or beautiful pieces of architecture or is that they're just, you know, sculptures that you can live in or playing or whatever. So and so, yeah. So I was really keen to like take on a new challenge and I knew that I really enjoyed working with wood.

00:19:25:19 - 00:20:16:04

Speaker 4

And so it's sort of like a natural transition for me and I think I knew I wanted to kind of go into carpentry a lot and a lot longer and for a long time before actually trained. Because I think like a lot of women, they felt I felt kind of quite intimidated by it. And I was not sure like how out of the accepted into the sector and but actually like it was amazing and and yeah I found people to be really accepting and and yeah and when I did carpentry in college, I found that I really liked the intricacy of doing all the joints and I really enjoyed the joinery aspects of it.

00:20:16:04 - 00:20:27:04

Speaker 4

But I knew that I wanted to work on a bigger scale and more architectural scale. And so that timber framing was just perfect for me. Really? Yeah.

00:20:28:02 - 00:20:42:06

Speaker 1

Oh, that's great, Imogen, thank you. That's that's really good. And we'll be hearing more about your placements and your work shortly. But if I could just ask Chris. Chris, could you tell us a little bit about your craft and your background, please?

00:20:43:12 - 00:21:19:08

Speaker 2

Hello again. No problem. And primarily my background was in Ireland. What in general can of proper repair and maintenance for the best part of the ten years. And I really enjoyed the more technical aspects of what we did, the larger projects. But I think because it was a sort of general bone company, I had other interest primarily to do with masonry and so I kind of went down a little path of trying to explore a little bit more about studying.

00:21:20:06 - 00:21:41:05

Speaker 2

So maybe possibly about eight, nine years into my career also did a little bit teaching on the side, but I kind of wanted to know more about the masonry industry. So I moved then didn't move. I did both essentially working for the new company. And then after a short period of time, I really enjoyed what I was doing landlords.

00:21:41:05 - 00:22:05:06

Speaker 2

But I got the opportunity to go and study in conservation because that's kind of I wanted to know more broadly, more broadly about the heritage sector and increase must go with increase my knowledge. And so last year was when I studied and there was more of an academic setting but it's kind of really been on the tools as such and been more hands on and being more practical.

00:22:05:23 - 00:22:17:14

Speaker 2

So that's kind of why I came on the course is because it gave me the insight into the heritage sector, working on interest and projects. But it's also been hands on.

00:22:17:14 - 00:22:35:17

Speaker 1

Thanks, Chris. Thank you. Yeah, it's really interesting to see everybody's coming from different backgrounds, but also the sort of breadth of that experience that you're collecting on the way. Ethan, could I ask you to just tell us a little bit about your craft and your background, please?

00:22:36:09 - 00:23:30:11

Speaker 2

Of course, from Ruch. Hello. Hi. So this year, earlier this year, I completed my level three diploma in blacksmithing and metalworking at Hereford College. I went into that course with relatively little experience. I was mostly new to the craft in its entirety, so I'm probably sitting here with the least experience out of the three of us. But yes, I did some work experience when I was in high school, even with a company called Jim Lawrence, and they gave me the opportunity to do a bit welding, a bit of blacksmithing, machining, all these all these kinds of things that stuck with me for a long, long time.

00:23:30:11 - 00:23:57:09

Speaker 2

And then after a could my was I dived into that and I've never looked back since. And one of the things that really led me to where I am now is during the course I was instilled with a kind of the breadth of ideas and avenues within blacksmithing that were available to me. And one of them that really took my eye was conservation, blacksmithing.

00:23:57:09 - 00:24:26:14

Speaker 2

You know, there's so much metal work you can learn from this beautiful, beautiful craftsmanship within it that is left to rust and fade away. And one of the things, you know, conservation, something really appealed to me getting involved, learning from these projects. And I kind of didn't know where to, how to, how to, how to put my foot in that door.

00:24:26:14 - 00:24:47:24

Speaker 2

It's really let me let me directly hear and especially interested in its industrial heritage, working with these working materials like wrought iron, cast iron that make up such a staple of our history. Yes.

00:24:47:24 - 00:25:12:10

Speaker 1

Thanks, Ethan. And I think everybody would would agree that we're always learning. It doesn't matter what stage we are in our career or the work we're doing, but, you know, we're always learning. And I think that's that's what draws a lot of us to the heritage industry. So thank you for that. So now we're going to move on and let you each talk a little bit more in detail about your placements while you've been on the programme.

00:25:12:21 - 00:25:40:16

Speaker 1

And so I'm going to ask Chris to start. And Chris, so your background is in roofing. And so if you can tell us a little bit more about your experiences on the placements. And also it's at this moment, it be good to say if anybody's got any questions for any of the trainees, then please just put them in the chat room and we'll hopefully have time to answer a few from the end or or perhaps later on.

00:25:40:24 - 00:25:44:19

Speaker 1

But thank you all. I'll hand you over to to Chris now.

00:25:45:14 - 00:26:08:17

Speaker 2

No problem. Thank you. And yeah, so I had the pleasure of being with Venus Roofing, who we are currently working on Manchester Town Hall. So they were essentially strutting and restating the whole, the whole riff and but it was just a huge that you can see them. It just gives you a context of the size of the project.

00:26:09:06 - 00:26:38:19

Speaker 2

It's about £25 million investment, six and a half year project, probably the biggest project in the UK for a long time. So as soon as I find that I was really excited and so yeah, what I found quite interesting was coming from my location, it's quite obvious to see the differences in approach and techniques to do with essentially the methods that they're using.

00:26:39:12 - 00:27:05:02

Speaker 2

So on Manchester town hall we were basically stripping off a Bollington slate, the quarry and the lake district and replacing them like for like as we strip them off, we, we kept what was then what could be reclaimed and sent to salvage yard, which is about 60%. And then from there we removed the slate. So it was a vein also of lime fortune underneath, which is interesting to see.

00:27:05:17 - 00:27:32:16

Speaker 2

And as you can sort of see in the images that sort of open roster construction and then buttons, essentially we were really not we weren't touching the slates anymore. We're working on a breather membrane that ventilate the roof surface and kind of reduce drafts. From there we went straight onto CO2. That would be the membrane on the ribs and what whatever the gauges.

00:27:32:23 - 00:28:16:21

Speaker 2

And because it was such a prestigious project, the health and safety was was taught and got to do essentially this y scaffold at all times, moving the scaffold up every two meters, allowing us to not clamber over the roof, essentially. So that was really, really handy. And in this can, of course, the roof. But until they were able to stack that off and that we're making things a lot easier and from there we did perpendicular lane to the roof to ensure the roof Mason squared obviously certainly and then yes recently the great hope and then from there that was about a five weeks I was with them and this was a great experience.

00:28:16:21 - 00:28:44:24

Speaker 2

I really got to see so many other aspects of the project that were going on that managed to get to out of the principal contract. And we went and see the great hope to see the place painted by Cecilia. And I got to see all the stonemasons carving Daniel's and the stones and then in the placement, so were really just to kind of be among a project of that size and to see what it's organized.

00:28:45:13 - 00:29:09:11

Speaker 2

And so it definitely massively way. And after Manchester Turnbull I spent nine weeks with leading traditional masonry. I was in placements of them, Clackmannan Town Hall and Inverness Castle, and I thought it was quite a good contrast to see, as I said, the sort of regionality of things. And so the technique changes with the geology of the slate.

00:29:10:00 - 00:29:39:03

Speaker 2

So previously with the Bollington slate, the quite an easy slate to quarry and got the dimensions. And up here in Scotland the geology is quite different. The streets are more rugged and especially on properties that may be of high financial status. Nothing was really wasted when it came to quality into that led to a lot of very small slates being used and as the risks goes from the bottom up to the top, initially it's get smaller and smaller.

00:29:39:24 - 00:30:07:13

Speaker 2

And that wasn't really what in terms of putting lots and lots of buttons on the roof. So the whole roof is essentially what it can board and then it's filtered from there. And then because of the technique you're in, you're doing things. It totally changes the approach. So instead of walking off a scaffold, you can what we have and these sort of a views that could drive into the roof and we put scaffold boards on from there and that allows us to walk up in sections on the roof.

00:30:08:11 - 00:30:32:10

Speaker 2

And then instead of when this leads onto Barton's your lane them to a diminishing gauge and then striking in your lines with the wrong slates. So the techniques are very, very different. Both have the pros and cons, usually with Slate in the West Midlands. On just to note, it's a little bit easier. It's less of a jigsaw because they're all the same size, the same place.

00:30:32:16 - 00:31:15:18

Speaker 2

But as we've got this or random dimension which isn't only localised to Scotland, then we do a lot of things, a lot with the level of slate. So you have to basically make a big deposit would make Ravensthorpe appropriate headlock appropriate. So you love this to for its practical purpose of not we can need to kind of know what you're doing it's a just so it has an aesthetic and performs forms performs well also when it comes to that sort of random slate in it's not what went on the buttons previously in the previous forms it would have been double nails sort of st any further down the slate with the appropriate seat up, but

00:31:15:19 - 00:31:43:22

Speaker 2

generally with random slate and especially up in Scotland, it's head down to a single needle at the top and then maybe a specified amount of courses and B beside courses. Of course, as you only knew enough stops when there's problems and there's so many slates stacked on top of each other essentially pins them down every first course. It also allows you for maintenance to make life a lot easier.

00:31:43:22 - 00:32:04:05

Speaker 2

First of all, you can shed this lease as you can see and imagine that I can see. And that allows you to repurpose the slate shed in the marketplace. And that's that's good for me and south of that but is with more squares more square sleeping you end up having to sleep. So which is can be a bit difficult.

00:32:04:20 - 00:32:14:18

Speaker 2

You may break of a slate, but this is an easier way of repairing. So that's my three placements.

00:32:14:18 - 00:32:24:05

Speaker 1

Thanks, Chris. It's really interesting to see, you know, you experience that regional differences in materials and techniques. So thanks for that.

00:32:24:15 - 00:32:25:01

Speaker 2

No problem.

00:32:26:09 - 00:32:35:00

Speaker 1

Imogen, your background, as you've already explained, is as a carpenter and joiner. And so can you tell us a little bit about your placements, please?

00:32:36:09 - 00:33:02:01

Speaker 4

Well, my first placement was with Acadian Coast and and so what you can see in front of you is a patch repair. So we did quite a lot of these sort of patch repairs and like complete re facings of timbers and which I think is, you know, is it it's a good way of going about it because you you save as much of the original wood as you can in this way.

00:33:02:17 - 00:33:40:06

Speaker 4

And so to actually make these patch repairs, my supervisor, Justin, taught me how to write them in and post. It is quite cool because I didn't realise that he was showing me the same methods that you actually use to scribe bigger timbers, you know, like when you're, when you're setting out a timber frame. I didn't realise it was pretty much the same striping method until like, like on and my second placement, they were showing me this scribing method which is kind of like it was really exciting.

00:33:40:06 - 00:34:07:14

Speaker 4

But then I was just like, Oh, actually, I think I've already touched on this before. And so it was really nice and sort of yeah. To they find out that you can kind of practice something for hand and but yeah, I really enjoyed doing this work. It was kind of hard because then the old timbers themselves and like rotten wood, old wood is very unpredictable at times.

00:34:07:23 - 00:34:38:20

Speaker 4

So when you're choosing in a way it'll just go off in directions need to really anticipate and then yeah, so it can be quite tricky to work with and yeah. But like to say it's satisfying when you can, when you know that you're sort of making the most of the building and, and the with the last thing and just and so this building in particular, which was it?

00:34:38:20 - 00:35:02:12

Speaker 4

So what it was then it was an interest in building and selling. It was so it was a 16th century, so it was sun and, and it would have been weatherboard it. But I think in the 1990s they reconfigured the entire barn and turned it into to convert it into offices. And they they think they didn't know for sure.

00:35:02:12 - 00:35:38:03

Speaker 4

But I think that they put the brick suddenly and then whereas it probably was just weatherboard and the whole thing. And so because they reconfigured the whole building, a lot of like the timbers weren't in the original spaces and so as you can, so when you're fitting, as you can see here, this is this is a clean paste going into it's a bit like a nice and clean post going into Principal Rafter on the Gable end.

00:35:38:19 - 00:36:03:09

Speaker 4

And you can see here that the mortar is much larger than the same types of equipment. But that's just because, like I say, the reconfiguration of the building. And so we're ending up having to do quite complex sort of tenants to sort of almost like a jigsaw puzzle way into into there and give it the most support that you can possibly have.

00:36:04:00 - 00:36:41:15

Speaker 4

And which is a bit of an issue when you're working with something that's been sort of rigid and a lot. But I mean, it's what I think it's quite common for Timbers to be reused in this way in timber framing, you know, to be sort of, you know, used from old buildings are reused in this way. And I think, yeah, I quite like the fact that it's been used that and yeah it would have been nice maybe to work with and the original barn and what it was like and then just moving on.

00:36:41:19 - 00:37:30:10

Speaker 4

So my second placement, I stayed with my Canadian case because they're just a really great company to work with and finding is great and really took the time to teach me a lot. And so this building is building and um, which has got a lot of interesting history to it in itself, vintage, a lot of historic and interesting buildings and, but this barn was like absolutely in its original condition, which was just so, so nice to work with because you can really like get inside the building and understand that and and a lot of the and also, you know, the other people that we worked with, my supervisor, the people in the team, the more experienced and the framers were actually like excited and enthusiastic about this project and this. And because they could see whether you the original team, the framers had done sort of interesting doing joints and things like that and they were explaining it to us and there was like this really cool, active tenant and yeah, and it was just really fascinating to see how they did it back in the day sort of thing.

00:37:57:12 - 00:38:29:10

Speaker 4

And, and they even got to do some surveying in this building. So we were taking down this entire porch area that you can see on the left. It was completely shot, really. And there's not much that we could save on that one. So we took it all down and we were fighting it completely. But we were we're doing it as sort of as much like as we possibly can and being really safe, all the material we're using and and this is quite simple.

00:38:29:22 - 00:38:57:00

Speaker 4

And, but what was most one of the interesting points about this building was that it it was actually softwood rather than hardwood, which is quite unusual when it comes to timber framing. And mostly that with hardwood and and there's some debate as to what softwood it was. And I think the jury's still out on that one. They're going to make any guesses.

00:38:57:00 - 00:39:24:23

Speaker 4

But yeah, I really enjoyed this project and here is me sort of cutting out the tenants rights and also the markets and and it was really amazing this placement, but quite scary because then they gave us a lot of them. Yes, they really like put us in the deep end in terms of what they allowed us to do.

00:39:24:23 - 00:39:56:12

Speaker 4

They really was just like had a lot of faith in us as them, which was great. It was really amazing. And so they, you know, they, they allowed us to do all this driving all the cutting out, all the mopping up and stuff like that, which, you know and yeah. Got my heart going at points when you, when you're about to like put the joint and you just pray that it fit and that, you know, it will be so good and they major and that's it.

00:39:56:12 - 00:40:28:07

Speaker 4

And then my third placement, I decided I wanted to go somewhere close to home. So this one was in Marvin and it was with a much smaller company called Timber Group, headed up by a Howard. And he he's actually an alumni of this programme from the foundation programme. And so it was quite nice to see how far he's come and his development activities in the programme.

00:40:29:00 - 00:41:11:06

Speaker 4

And we were working on a carport, which was it was a new construction completely, but it was just using loads of traditional techniques and some of the methods were different. But like you can see there is I think you can see a laser level. And so we did use a laser metal to level things, but at the same time we would also use an incline which is quite too much of it to show let chalk time and that we would use in this country for many years and so so yeah.

00:41:11:06 - 00:41:49:02

Speaker 4

So and he also use like a problem Bob described whereas like in Mccurdy's quite often we use like a straight line in a skirt level. So lots of sort of like old and new techniques like put together in a way that I think was really effective. Actually, I really thought the and the, the incline, using the incline as a reference point as opposed to just relying on the strength of wood I thought was yeah, just a really effective way to get the most out of the wood.

00:41:49:02 - 00:42:27:09

Speaker 4

Because if you're working with movies that aren't exactly, you know, perfectly square and all the rest of it, it just allows you to find almost that finding the square in which or find in the square and but yeah, it was a really cool project. And I also learned how to do a bird math on this project, which is basically like that the joint that connects and all that then allows the rafter to sit comfortably on the wall plate.

00:42:28:02 - 00:42:51:09

Speaker 4

And yeah, but as you can see, the food is, the building itself is absolutely beautiful and and it looks like a very traditional building. Right. And yeah, if you allowed it to weather a little bit, you easily fall into thinking that it's much older than I am. But yeah, I really just love all the traditional methods that we use.

00:42:52:03 - 00:43:28:11

Speaker 4

And, and I he also how it also taught me how to label and put the different sort of symbols and maybe some things and which helps to orientate the building when you're raising it. And this was actually also the same timber frame that I'd actually helped to raise as well, which was very exciting. And so I'd say all in all, I had a really successful time on all three placements and I've just been really, really lucky with that and.

00:43:28:11 - 00:43:28:22

Speaker 4

Yeah.

00:43:30:18 - 00:43:54:06

Speaker 1

Banks and merchant, that's really great. And to hear about your experiences with those different companies and I've got I've got to give a shout out to Justin at Mccurdy's because I knew him in the nineties. And you mentioned Howard, who's an alumni of the Prince's Foundation. So it's great to see that cross people stay in the industry and passing on their skills.

00:43:54:06 - 00:44:05:19

Speaker 1

So that's fantastic. Thank you. So if we can move now, Ethan, if you'd like to tell us your background is is metalwork and if you can tell us a bit more about your placements, please.

00:44:06:13 - 00:44:46:20

Speaker 2

Yes. Schools. So I was I had the pleasure of spending nine weeks in Northern Ireland with a company called Fireman's Forge Works just outside of Newry in Ring of Ring of Gullion. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. And yeah, so as you see it on the screen there, we were doing repair of a pastime weighbridge. I believe the weighbridge in this term was, you know, something you would drive onto with a cart or so to discover what waste it was essentially have been left unsupported in ground.

00:44:46:20 - 00:45:12:11

Speaker 2

And it wasn't meant to live up to the kind of punishment that modern cars need in the wake of modern cars driving over it provided and completely unsupported, it just cracked. In most places, cast iron doesn't bend, doesn't bow in any way. It just breaks the snaps and so here it is. Sat in a wheelbarrow and dignified and rusting.

00:45:12:21 - 00:45:43:12

Speaker 2

It was yeah, it was really, really in bad condition. So we went about laying it out, figuring out which pieces, figuring out the jigsaw again, getting it to line up in the right spots. And I think what's most interesting about this is really what you discover about what's happened to the article, because you know this we can see that a broken someone had tried to repair it with a bunch of plates bolted through.

00:45:44:08 - 00:46:10:13

Speaker 2

We had to take off all those plates before we could do anything about it. Like the plate repair is, is good, but it's it's not an amazing, you know, it doesn't it's so obvious that there's four huge bolts either side of every crack you can instantly identify or crack it. It's not a good looking repair anyway. And this is another job we had to make from the local town.

00:46:11:00 - 00:46:39:09

Speaker 2

It was a set of wrought iron gates for a private client. Eventually they sort of got around to the state of the wrought iron gates where enough was enough. They had to bring us in and do some repair. So this you can see on picture in the left, the slam plate along the front here was bent, bone, crack, everything you can name it.

00:46:39:13 - 00:47:18:18

Speaker 2

And the top bars and all rusted and around where the colours should be. They're just they've been eaten away. Obviously, the colours of opened up slightly. The water sat in, just held there against the metal. You know, water is the enemy of the fine work and it's just it's eaten away. It's it's barely there. It's the most inter interesting thing about this and the reason why I wanted to talk about these was because we were we went into the process of taking off all the colours, stripping neon went down so that we could repair it again and find out how to damage.

00:47:19:20 - 00:47:47:11

Speaker 2

And we went in to heat up these colours that we thought were steel and went in with the torch melted and to heat them up, to expand them, to knock them off and chisel through them. So when we're heating them up, we thought led melted out of the inside, needing a steel outlet. And then we went to chisel and and lo and behold, it was pure led the entire with LED.

00:47:47:12 - 00:48:11:06

Speaker 2

And we we they've been working there for ages. You a long, long time. And obviously I'm quite new to the trade, but never something that they've never seen before. And honestly, I've never seen four and it was it was it was quite funny moment actually when you when you chisel into a colleague it was with something and point out completely opposite the thing.

00:48:12:02 - 00:48:34:18

Speaker 2

Yeah so you'll see in that we had to think about doing like for like material repair it in the same way, but it was built and so we've got lots of led from there and it was quite nice to kind of stay here and on this, on this page, you can see me on the left doing the power of the tenon.

00:48:34:18 - 00:49:03:17

Speaker 2

So obviously we had to take out the top was damaged. We make them in some cases or in other cases where there was less damage and just make sure that the LED sits around them or protects them. So in this case, the bar across the bottom was corroded heavily and needed to be so ground back tendons taken out, new bars made out of like clipped cereal put back in.

00:49:03:18 - 00:49:52:09

Speaker 2

And I keep mentioning what material what I'm talking about is a conservation groups like Historic England and the National Heritage Ironwork Group. They have, you know, their heritage, Historic England has videos of instructional work on repairing railings, you know, on what people should be aware of national heritage join with group has a list of things of guidance of removals for when doing conservation work and yeah so luckily we had brought the right size wrought iron on hand within the workshop that we were ready to just make it make a block for roof shape and then instantly just get them back in.

00:49:53:06 - 00:50:28:10

Speaker 2

And on the right here you can see that leave. This is by the slam play again where rust jacking has occurred. So cross-checking is where the layers of wrought iron because wrought iron is material that has a green structure and layers and when it corrodes, those layers expand because rust is a bigger molecule than I am and it opens up and the pressure between two pieces there just forces out into a big old gap.

00:50:28:10 - 00:51:02:19

Speaker 2

So between the foot where the slam plays stacked against the ball, that rust has occurred, what was built through and it's forced out by metal, you know, you would be able to do that by hand. But see here over time is in a so moving on this is where we get into the repair proper and so what this is the way bridge on the left here we've covered it and put it in primer to keep it keep the metal fresh we don't want rust to get through it.

00:51:02:19 - 00:51:28:23

Speaker 2

Options get to it while we maybe take take it might take a while doing something else in the way in the project and move back to it. So that's what Red and here I am brazing. So we tried nickel rods, which is the preferred method for welding, cast iron. We had very little success. It was a dirty casting.

00:51:28:23 - 00:51:57:07

Speaker 2

When I say dirt casting, I mean that was within the cast iron. There was a lot of porosity, which is tiny holes that can fill with dirt, impurities, impurities in the cast, whatever. It's just you find yourself trying to heat the heat, the metal, and it just those impurities open up and cause the well to say so here we are, brazing it with brass brazing rods and then an acetylene flame.

00:51:58:17 - 00:52:27:00

Speaker 2

It was the first time I've ever braise anything, and I'm happy to say it was a success. We got it. Thank you. And then. Yeah, it was. It was it was a real interesting process where we tried to weld it. And in my experience, I've got a fair amount of experience welding and I expected it to work and we had to pivot on a point and just think, okay, well, this is it isn't getting us where we need to be.

00:52:27:12 - 00:52:54:12

Speaker 2

We tried everything and it was it was a interesting process to learn. These are the kinds of things that you have to sort of get into when you're doing conservation work. And on the right is moving back to wrought iron gates where the gate sits in the ground. The it was it was rotten, obviously. Same old story. Water, oxygen, stuff against the metal, corroded it to an untenable degree.

00:52:55:08 - 00:53:35:01

Speaker 2

And so I had to get a piece of a piece of wrought iron prep to prep the surface, weld a nice fee. And this went much better with welding, with traditional welding was, you know, shine it up, get it looking exactly how it needs to be. Yeah. And keep the job back in. Next is us on our final thought of well where where I left the jobs out essentially that we didn't quite finish the entire thing before my time is up.

00:53:36:04 - 00:54:07:02

Speaker 2

But here we are on the left. You see the wrought iron gates of Topaz back in Utah. Things squared back up. Yeah, look. In a million times better than it was. So you can see we've got a primer around where the colours should be. We had to try and think of a couple of different ways of which to get the casted lead to to form a suitable colour around the front bars.

00:54:07:15 - 00:54:32:22

Speaker 2

We tried with Plaster of Paris, we tried with casting plaster. I think we tried with ceramics. A couple of different options that just sort of didn't give the result we had. So instead we prepped thing for the casting just to just to get that process out the way. So essentially we coated it in primer around where it should be.

00:54:33:08 - 00:54:59:22

Speaker 2

And although that that will likely burn off, it's still providing more protection than nothing at all. Where there was there was nothing at all before we came to it. And then we lined the underside of the hole with, funnily enough, Play-Doh providing a nice tight seal, well led won't get out of it won't burn through. So it was a it was a surprising it was a surprising thing to learn.

00:54:59:22 - 00:55:27:15

Speaker 2

The Play-Doh is a perfect fit for the casting lid. And and here on the right we have the weighbridge this when was at this point it was going really well. We got a full frame of England lined up underneath it. We'd raised everything together. We split the difference in a sort of warping of the cast casting. It seemed to warp and twist, warped and twisted a little bit, so it didn't sit straight.

00:55:27:23 - 00:55:51:24

Speaker 2

But we split the difference altogether, but got it to sit nicely on a frame and then had to think about, well, now how do we get it to stay on a on a level? How do we get it to stay so it doesn't wait, wait, hits it. It's not going to break again. So actually the conclusion we came to was bitumen.

00:55:51:24 - 00:56:18:20

Speaker 2

We covered we coated this, this frame with bitumen, sat on and just sort of let it harden and dry to provide a sort of bounce back, spring underneath for the custom way, which again, it was it was a major success. And it was so interesting to learn all of these different avenues that we had think of to go down.

00:56:18:20 - 00:56:41:15

Speaker 2

You know, it's like detective work almost especially when you get the piece, you know, years old, could be hundreds of years old when you get this piece back and you've got to discover exactly what's been done to it in order to know what you have to then provide for the client. And believe it, that's me. Yeah.

00:56:42:16 - 00:57:12:06

Speaker 1

Thanks, Ethan. And it's so interesting to hear about the innovation that you have to use when you're trying to problem solve really. So a variety of materials, Play-Doh. That's brilliant, but thank you so much for all your insights into your experience and sharing those of that craft knowledge with us. Michael So for anyone who is inspired or know someone who wants to do some training, what can you tell us?

00:57:12:06 - 00:57:16:05

Speaker 1

Where should they go to find out more about the Craft Skills Cross programme?

00:57:17:07 - 00:57:37:14

Speaker 2

Yes, there's a link on the screen there now actually. And we've just opened applications. So people have got until the 3rd of April 12, noon on the third floor to get their applications in. So if you go on the link, they're on the Princes Foundation website, you'll be able to download the course overview and application form. So yeah, please spread the word.

00:57:37:21 - 00:57:54:03

Speaker 2

It's obviously not an entry level programme and we're looking for people that are already working in the construction sector that have a Vocational Qualification training or have lots of kind of demonstrable experience. But yeah, please spread the word if you think there's anyone that might interested in applying.

Have you come across an instance where you had to make the repairs to a timber frame very distinct in contrast to the original frame?

I am quite new in my career so the converted barn in West Drayton that I spoke of was the only one I have worked on so far but I'm sure I will come across more as I progress. I have certainly seen examples of where timbers have been repurposed/ reconfigured.

Did the Structural Engineer require a stronger structure to meet current building regulations?

The building at Ewelme was made of softwood but we made the repairs in oak. I am not sure whether this was done to meet current regulations or whether it was what the client wanted. In terms of the building itself the joints we made and the dimensions of the timber were replaced like for like.

Which area of the country was the timber frame house in?
The historic village of Ewelme.