ARCHAEOLOGICAL BUILDING ANALYSIS AND RECORDING

Two of the most serious risks to a building refurbishment project affecting an historic building are: Unexpected discoveries, particularly those of a structural nature; and the reaction of the Client, Contractor,  Conservation Officer or English Heritage to those discoveries.  Those risks can be managed more effectively with the information generated by Archaeological Building Analysis and Recording (ABAR).  Archaeological building analysis is a form of building pathology that studies, inter alia, the structural development of an historic building; Building Recording is a  detailed and archive-oriented form of record survey that utilises written and photographic records as well as the measured survey data familiar to building surveyors and architects. Together, when properly employed -  as a tool rather than as an end in itself - during the Feasibility and Design stages of a building refurbishment or repair project, they can be of immense benefit to clients - financially and technically - by identifying heritage risks and opportunities at an early stage. In our experience, the costs of engaging a specialist Buildings Archaeologist in the early stages of such a project are recouped several times over in savings later in the project. Yes, it will get you your Listed Building Consent or Planning Permission, but it may also add substantial value to the project. It is also an essential precursor of a meaningful Conservation Plan.

When applied intelligently to a building refurbishment, restoration or repair project, Archaeological Building Analysis and Recording (ABAR) can provide the verifiable information needed by Client, Designer and Curator to allow the project to proceed to their mutual satisfaction and credit. The legal tension inherent to such projects, created by the English planning system and c. 150 years of philosophical debate about what we now call 'building conservation', is not necessarily a bad thing, but its resolution requires the application of intellectual rigour to verifiable, objective information. ABAR can provide both.      

     The principal skill in recording, is knowing what to record. Any competent archaeological technician can take a photograph or draw a floor plan: but what do they do when confronted by a mass of overlapping timbers in a roof that has been modified and enlarge over a period of 400 years or so ?.  Buildings are the largest of human artefacts and therefore potentially embody more archaeological information than any other class of material. However, there are a lot of historic buildings in the UK, and many of them contain much material of negligible  archaeological potential.  Archaeological analysis of a building should therefore attempt to identify - through the stages identified by ALGAO (1997) and English Heritage (2001; 2006) what is  significant, before incurring the expense - and sometimes tedium - of recording it.

“..A programme of work intended to establish the character, history and archaeological development of a building..for the purposes of ....the formulation of a strategy for the conservation, alteration, demolition or  management of a building......“ or to seek a better understanding (and) compile a lasting record..” IFA, 1999

“The successful conservation, repair and alteration of historic buildings relies upon an adequately documented understanding of what is to be changed. Information required for planning applications can be obtained through investigations tailored to each case, using a progressive sequence of appraisal, assessment and evaluation.”         ALGAO, 1997

Michael Heaton is a student member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors 

Eversfield  House

Station Road

WARMINSTER

Wiltshire

BA12 9BP

01985 847791

office@michaelheaton.co.uk