The Angel Awards, started by English Heritage and now being continued by one of its successors, Historic England, had a Scottish version as well as an English version this year. They emphasise the local effort communities are making to preserve their heritage.

For the first time this year, Scotland as well as England rewarded the efforts of those working to save the built environment with the presentation of Angel Awards. And on both sides of the border the Awards have emphasised again the often defining role of natural stone in the built environment.

In England, the Awards were presented, as they have been since they were introduced in 2011, at the Palace Theatre in London’s West End. In Scotland the presentations took place at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre. Historic England and Historic Scotland managed the events backed by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation. Composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber was at the London event in person. In Scotland, the Scottish Government, The Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, the Scottish Civic Trust and Archaeology Scotland were also involved.

On 1 October, Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland joined together to form a new lead public body on heritage in Scotland called Historic Environment Scotland (HES).

Chair Jane Ryder, OBE, said at the Scottish Angel Awards: “The ethos on which these awards are founded complement and support the underlying principles of Scotland’s first strategy for the historic environment – Our Place in Time.

“As we look ahead to our new heritage organisation coming into full effect later this week, the Angel Awards are a great example of how we hope to work with the sector to deliver this strategy, which places an emphasis on celebrating and championing our heritage as an asset for all.”

In London, a headline award was for one of England’s stately homes, St Giles House and Park in Dorset, owned by Nicholas and Dinah Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl and Countess of Shaftesbury.

Both the family and its house in Wimborne St Giles have a long and eventful history, recorded back to the 12th century. In its Victorian heyday, the 6th Earl extended the house, roofing the inner courtyard to form the Stone Hall and modernizing the library. In 1853 the 7th Earl had the kitchens rebuilt and a year later added a pair of Italianate towers at the junction of the 18th century west wings and the original building.

In the First World War part of the house became a hospital and in the Second a girls’ school was evacuated to the house. The post-war years were difficult times. The 9th Earl wrote in a notebook he kept that domestic servants were practically unobtainable and footmen no longer existed, “with the result that these large houses are no longer a practical proposition to live in”.

Large parcels of the 15,500-acre St Giles estate were sold, eventually leaving the 5,500acres that it remains today.

The 9th Earl lived long enough to pass on the estate to his grandson largely free of taxation. The 10th Earl set about returning the house to its design before the Victorian additions. In 1973 the Victorian additions were demolished along with the tower, leaving the chapel isolated.

Various materials were bought for renovation work but many remained unused until this latest project. Eventually the 10th Earl moved out of the house and into another house on the estate.

In 2004 the 10th Earl was murdered in the south of France. His heir, Anthony, although only 27, died of a heart attack while visiting his younger brother, Nicholas, in New York, leaving Nicholas to become the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury.

In 2010 Nicholas began looking at ways of reinstating the house as a family home. Building work started in 2011 and came to an end in May this year, although some snagging continues even now. The project was used as one of the training sites for Scholars (architects) and Fellows (craftspeople) of SPAB during the four years that the work progressed.

One of the people who has spent most of the past four years at St Giles is stonemason Sean Clarke of Shepton Mallet stone and conservation company Ellis & Co.

“When we first got there, there was the estate office, but there was no way they could live in the property. It was like walking through a derelict building. The roof was in a really bad state of repair,” says Sean.

The first job was to keep the rain out, which meant re-tiling the roof using large format Penrhyn Welsh slates. Later on in the project, slate reclaimed from the original roofs was used so that from the east and the north weathered slates show.

All the stone was taken out of the windows and any rusting ironwork removed. Sean says much of the stone was in good condition and could be re-used. Where replacement stone was necessary, Chilmark stone from Chicksgrove Quarry and Hurdcott Greenstone, both from Wiltshire, were used.

There were large areas of coping stones missing, but replacement stones were among the materials that had been secured by the current Earl’s father. They were found when brambles and nettles were cleared from the south terrace and were still in good condition.

“There was a lot of piecing in and pinning. It was a careful blend of restoration and conservation, determined by Philip Hughes Associates [conservation consultants from Wincanton, Somerset],” says Sean.

The north tower was completely rebuilt, using durable Portland limestone for quoins and other vulnerable areas and Chilmark for window and door frames with wooden sash windows made by Ellis & Co.

Although there is a lot of stone in St Giles House, the walls are brick and as well as the stonework the new north tower has 70,000 bricks in it, laid by local company Benchmark subcontracting for Ellis & Co.

A loggia was rebuilt using nearly 30 tonnes of Portland stone. An architect had provided drawings and Sean, a stonemason who studied masonry at Bath College and has subsequently gained a conservation degree as well as having 30 years’ experience with Ellis & Co, filled in the details. He says his background and education stand him in good stead. “It makes you very rounded. You can see when a stone needs to be replaced or if it can be saved.”

There are eight, 5m-wide Portland limestone steps up to the new loggia made up of more than 50 pieces of stone, most of which were already there, although some new stones were needed.

The north doorway was extended with archways formed using square engaged columns that have guttering inside them.

Much of the work was carried out by Sean working with mature apprentice Luke Weatherall (now 27). Sean is full of praise for Luke. “On a project like St Giles there are so many problems it’s turned him into a brilliant mason. He finds solutions – and he’s built like a tank!”

Sean appreciated Luke’s muscles because most of the stone had to be manhandled into position using a chain block. Only occasionally was a telehandler available to assist. “I said we should write a book called Two Men and a Block,” says Sean.

Sean is delighted with the work that has been carried out at St Giles. “When Nick became Lord Shaftesbury he wanted to rebuild the family home and I think he’s done a really good job of it. It looks fantastic now.”

Another particularly good example of stonemasonry in the Angel Awards is on St Martin’s Church in Camden, London, one of the entries short-listed in the Best Rescue of a Historic Place of Worship category.

Inevitably there is a lot of stonework involved in this category because of the nature of many ecclesiastical buildings, but the repair of the Kentish Ragstone and Bath stone tower at this church, which involved rebuilding of lost pinnacles and a turret, make it stand out from a stone perspective, even though the project was not the winner. That honour went to St Mary’s Church, Norfolk, a Grade I listed building that became redundant in the 1980s and quickly fell into disrepair. The 100-strong Friends group were faced with a huge challenge to restore the building – windows were broken, walls crumbling, organ vandalised and graveyard completely overgrown. It was a worthy winner but the masonry work carried out on it was not as impressive as the work carried out at St Martin’s in Woolwich, London, by Pierra Restoration, based in Crayford, near the Dartford crossing of the River Thames.

St Martin’s is a Grade I Listed building that was on the Heritage at Risk Register due to the severe and dangerous deterioration of the stonework to the tower.

It is a fairytale Gothic church designed in 1865 by the eccentric architect Edward Bucton Lamb. But the church’s turret and pinnacles had become no more than a memory recorded on fading photographs.

Pierra moved on site in August 2014 for what would become a 28 week project to bring that memory back to reality. The originals had disappeared, perhaps as a result of bomb damage, shortly after World War II.

Previous inappropriate hard cement repairs and pointing on the tower had exacerbated the problems. The cement and significantly eroded stonework were falling off as the Ragstone and original lime mortar disintegrated. The buttresses of the tower were scarcely attached and could have crashed to the ground at any time.

Scaffolding was erected around the tower to protect it and the people using the church, which remained open while the Kentish Ragstone walling and Stoke Ground Bath stone dressings were repaired and the four new pinnacles and turret were built anew. The scaffold had 22 lifts, five of them above the tower roof for the building of the new pinnacles and turret.

Pierra Restoration is a company established by Mark Norris and James Rospo in 2008. They had previously worked for London-based PAYE Stonework & Restoration, so have considerable experience of this type of work.

Platform hoists and hoists on running beams on the tower itself were used to lift the stones into position. The masonry was supplied by Ranco Stonemasonry or worked onsite, with some of the individual pieces weighing as much as 500kg. They would have been even bigger if it had been possible to achieve the architect’s original designs, but the stone bed heights were not available.

All the previous cementitious repairs and

re-pointing were removed and replaced with appropriate lime mortars by Pierra.

The aim of the Vicar, congregation and architect Jon Bolter was to reinstate what had become the missing crowning glory of the church.

The project was paid for by the Heritage Lottery Fund (which has been the largest dedicated funder of heritage in the UK since 1994 and currently distributes about £375million from the Lottery each year), a legacy of £50,000 from a recently deceased church member, a local charity, the Diocese, the Heritage of London Trust and £15,000 from the church’s own fund-raising efforts.

The Craftsmanship award always exposes some particularly talented tradespeople. It was won this year by Emma Dawson for her lime plastering at several of the sites on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register.

Ten years ago, at the age of 16, Emma landed a place on a foundation scheme where she began learning to work with plaster and mortar.

When she applied for an apprenticeship with Owlsworth IJP in Reading, Berkshire, she so impressed the assessment panel with her determination to work in the heritage sector that she was offered a 12-month foundation scheme to determine her motivation and chosen trade.

Emma subsequently bought herself a motorscooter and found herself up 10 flights of scaffold on her first job at St Giles’ Church in Reading. She has resolutely continued to develop her skills and qualifications since then, working on many historic properties, from the National Trust’s Basildon Park to King’s Cross / St Pancras, and has earned the nickname of ‘The Pointing Queen’.

She gained the Award against some formidable competition, including the Skillington Workshop in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and Sally Strachey Historic Conservation’s renovation of a shell grotto in Wimborne St Giles, Dorset.

The Skillington Workshop’s project was the most sensitive in the Angel Awards, involving Carrara Statuary marble sculptures of world class significance – the Montagu Monuments at St Edmund’s Church, Warkton, Northamptonshire.

The statues commemorate four members of the Montagu family from Boughton House, which is near the church. Two of the pieces were created by Louis Francois Roubiliac, one of the greatest sculptors working in 18th century England. The other two memorials are hardly less impressive. One is by Peter Mathias van Gelder and the other (a bit more austere) by Thomas Campbell.

The monuments had been a cause of concern since about 1980, when fractures due to corroding iron fixings were noted on Duke John’s monument.

The causes of deterioration (including staining to all the monuments) were complex, with the impact of the environment within the chancel itself, with its large east window, being unclear.

Skillington Workshop was commissioned by the church and the present Duke of Buccleuch to start looking at the monuments in 2007, with a sustained and carefully planned programme of investigation culminating in the major programme of repair undertaken last year.

Through the Prince’s Regeneration Trust and The Heritage Skills Hub a trainee work placement was funded in order to afford the rare work experience of monument conservation of this calibre.

The work involved dismantling, cleaning and reassembly of the works. Corroding ironwork was removed and replaced with marine grade stainless steel. The marble was cleaned and, in a few places, replaced.

Paul Wooles, the Conservation Manager at Skillington, told NSS the statues were given the gentlest of cleans using poultices of 1% solution ammonium carbonate, which was chosen because of sulphur deposits on the statues from the times when the church was heated by coal fired boilers in the vestry.

“Normally ammonium carbonate wouldn’t have had that much of an effect on statuary,” said Paul, “but in this case they really shone. I guess some schools of thought would think they have been overcleaned, but I don’t. For me, they just wanted to shine. The results were so easy to achieve and so satisfying.”

The statues have been cleaned several times before. Paul: “There’s a chap in the village who’s now 86 who had cleaned them when he was 14. He bought a box of Lux soapflakes and he and a plumber set to. They cleaned the whole monument in a week.” Skillington started in February and finished in November.

There was a curious sugaring decay on the Duchess of Buccleuch’s monument that has not really been satisfactorily explained, although it was concluded that it related to a property of the marble itself, as marble nearby from a different block was not affected.

Most of the original material was retained but some restoration of lost parts was necessary, notably a new marble spindle that was essential to the iconography of the Duchess Mary’s monument. It had disappeared completely but it could be seen in old photographs sufficiently well for it to be reproduced accurately.

The Angel Awards are intended to recognise and encourage the efforts of local groups and individuals who have led and co-ordinated efforts to save particular examples of the built heritage that have moved them. In England, the focus has always tended to be on the buildings themselves and the work carried out on them, which often involves professionals like those mentioned above.

In Scotland, more of an emphasis was placed on the social aspects of the projects.

As is the nature of conservation there was still a lot of stonework involved – perhaps even more so than in England because so much stone has been used to create the built environment north of the border over the centuries. But it was the contribution to society today made by projects involving the historic built environment that took centre stage in Scotland, as was reflected in the names of their categories.

Whereas in England the categories are called the best rescue of historic places of worship, industrial buildings, other buildings and best workmanship, in Scotland the categories were for investigating & recording, caring and protecting, sharing & celebrating, capacity building (projects demonstrating the sharing of skills with volunteers) and lifetime contribution.

The winners were: Friends of Glasgow Necropolis for the surveying and archiving of graves and monuments; Forres Heritage Trust for bringing back into community use two local historic stone landmarks, Nelson Tower and The Tolbooth, Moray; Scottish Fire & Rescue Service Volunteers for their Scottish fire heritage project in South Lanarkshire and throughout Scotland; Scottish Waterways Trust Canals College for their canal and waterways heritage work in Falkirk.

The lifetime contribution award went to Patrick Cave-Browne, a volunteer at Archaeology Scotland for more than 20 years. Patrick was responsible for fostering the use of hands-on skills and educational outreach programmes to children at the Royal Blind School and those with special education needs, an area that Archaeology Scotland continues to be active in today through its online resources and loan investigation kits.

The award summarised as ‘capacity building’, for projects demonstrating sharing of skills with volunteers, was won by the Canal College project. It saw 162 16- to 25-year-old volunteers undertaking various tasks in built, cultural and natural heritage.

Historic canalside structures, mostly stone, were recorded, repaired and maintained under the guidance of project manager Alan Forrester with assistance from waterways supervisor Billy King, a trained stonemason, and sculptor Kenny Munroe who helped the youngsters cut the letters in sandstone to spell out ‘Union Canal’, which is where they had been working. One of them, 17-year-old Angus Harkins, was awarded a Historic Scotland bursary working alongside Billy King and is now employed by the Waterways Trust that looks after the canals.

Kenny Munroe spent three days with 20 of the students teaching them about lettercutting so they could cut the letters in the sandstone. Kenny told NSS: “I would say the majority took to the lettercutting. I was very impressed. Everyone got something out of it and a few individuals showed great promise.”

Alan Forrester said all the youngsters benefitted from the experience and grew in confidence and stature. All left with a better understanding of Scotland’s canal heritage and 72% went on to more training or jobs, while their effort and enthusiasm with the Canals College raised the profile of canals in the areas in which they worked.

In Ireland

Heather Humphreys TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has recently announced a new €2 million investment scheme for the repair and conservation of protected structures. The Built Heritage Investment Scheme 2016 will operate on the same model as the very successful Built Heritage Jobs Leverage Scheme (BHJLS), which ran in 2014, and is expected to support a significant number of projects across the country and create employment in the conservation and construction industries.

Announcing the Built Heritage Investment Scheme 2016, the Minister said: "This investment is possible thanks to the increase in funding for my Department in the recent Budget. The €2 million fund will encourage the investment of private capital in small-scale, labour-intensive projects to repair and conserve protected structures.

"This will improve the appearance and structure of historic buildings across the country and will also support jobs in the conservation and construction industries.

"Well maintained historic buildings contribute positively to the vitality of our cities, towns, villages and countryside. Local communities have a great sense of pride in their built heritage, which in turn can help to provide an important source of local employment by boosting tourism.

"This new scheme will operate on the same model as the BHJLS, which was a great success in 2014. It will help to regenerate urban and rural areas and will come as a welcome boost to the custodians of heritage properties.

"Our heritage is one of the main attractions for visitors to Ireland and within Ireland and its conservation reinforces and promotes our growing tourism and recreational industry. Our heritage is also an extremely important element in our cultural landscape and I am pleased that, thanks to the economic recovery, we are once again in a position to invest in the heritage sector".

The Built Heritage Investment Scheme 2016 will be administered by Irish local authorities. Contractors looking for information should visit the website of their local authority to see the deadline for applications for the Built Heritage Investment Scheme 2016.