The Georgian Issue 2, 2024

In The Georgian (Issue 2, 2024), the magazine of the Georgian Group, outgoing director David Adshead discusses the longstanding and controversial approach to repairs following the disastrous fire that swept through the National Trust’s country house, Clandon Park, in 2015. The initial approach to reinstatement and repair, from what the Georgian Group considered a flawed brief, amounted partly to ‘reimagining’. This was thoroughly contentious, leading to the rejection in 2017 of a radical scheme prepared by architects Allies and Morrison. A countervailing argument was that Clandon’s interiors, including secondary spaces of lesser significance, should be completely restored and not denatured by what Adshead describes as something ‘zeitgeisty’. Proposals are now the subject of significant redirection on which the Georgian Group had been consulted on a pre-application basis.

Adshead concludes that the case of Clandon highlights the fact, as is now all too apparent in almost every sphere of life, that we cannot all agree on everything on every occasion, but we can disagree agreeably. There is much to learn from the question of the appropriateness of irreversible interventions to historic fabric. The decade-long saga of the ‘correct’ approach to saving Clandon is one that has important lessons for virtually every current practitioner.

This issue also addresses the Georgian Group’s Architectural Awards 2024, now in their 20th year, recognising exemplary conservation and restoration projects in the UK. It also continues the series of articles on the design and development of Georgian and Regency exterior door furniture, illustrating over 30 examples, emphasising both their aesthetic and historic value, and their usefulness in providing dating evidence.

This article originally appeared in the Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s (IHBC’s) Context 183, published in March 2025.

--Institute of Historic Building Conservation

Related articles on Designing Buildings Conservation.

• Conservation area.
• Conservation.
• Georgian Group Journal 2024‎.
• Georgian Group Newsletter (No 2, 2023).
• Heritage.
• Historic environment.
• IHBC articles.
• Institute of Historic Building Conservation.
• Listed buildings.
• The Georgian No 1, 2024.