Whatching tonight's Beenyfest with the listed farmhouse got me wondering
- how does a house, or any building, attain listed status? What rights do the owners of the building have? Can they stop it becoming listed?
Usually when some nosey conservationist notices you intend to do some work and they start hassling the local conservation officer to list it. I have had to "escort" people from a neighbour's property several times (only access is over my land) when the not right in the head brigade noticed he was doing work (quite legally).
Difficult. Though there is one case where this happened and a human rights breach was alleged, and this looks like becoming the main defence if a building is listed once you buy it.
That said, some conservation officers do rival BCOs in the "traffic warden" stakes.
Isn't it also often because the owners want their building listed, for snob value more than anything else?
Something else occurred to me during the prog too. I always thought that the extra expense involved in owning and maintaining a listed building was often at least partly offset by grants from somewhere or other (English Heritage?). But La Beeny made no mention of this and there was no evidence of attempting to apply for one.
There was one particular issue, where the conservation folk wanted the plastic guttering replaced with cast iron, at a cost of 8K, but had to back down because it was proven that the plastic guttering predated the building being listed - fair enough, but a bit of a shame in terms of the building's listed status. I would have thought that was precisely the sort of occasion where some form of govt or lottery funds should kick in, to cover the cost difference between plastic and iron, in order to preserve the building for the nation, or whatever
David
oui ghet almost nothing, and have to jump thorough huge numbers of hoops t get it.
I thnk yu an revlaimVAT on materials tho, like a new build. Not sure.
And that, in a nutshell is the unintended consequence of preservation. The default is to keep it in perpetuity the way it was,.
Nonetheless greasing of enough palms can work wonders (or disasters) as the runner up at the RIBA awards demonstrates. A rather shiny completely new 'restoration' on a listed building, featuring art concrete scultputures, floodlighting in its tesco like car park, and a rather nice 'oak themed' packing crate stuck in the side of what was once a listed building. Still is, even £2.5M couldn't stop it being listed, although it might as well not be.
Google wakelyns or wakelins to see.
i.e.
Now there's a mad rule if ever there was.
There's A Big House near me (Kingsweston House, nr. Bristol), that suffered rather from years of having the CID training school billeted on it. A few years back they disposed of it, and a local architect bought it instead. His plan was to restore everything possible, and fund it by hiring to the conference trade during the week and weddings at the weekend.
One of the worse iniquities they'd visited upon it was to fit one room out as a computer room, in classic '70s style - acoustic tile ceiling, supported on scaff pipe banged straight into the walls. Because this monstrosity pre-dated the listing, he had to preserve it that way !
Such things are fixable, but it's (so I'm told) a less than trivial step.
BTW - re: tonight's farmhouse. Wasn't it described as 18th century ? So cast iron rainwater fittings aren't likely to be the originals, unless it was very late 18th and it was built by Georgian technophiles.
Quite easy if it is as you state. Applications to make changes to listed buildings are free of charge unlike normal planning applications. The one above should be quite easy to get. Difficulties start when people want to make inappropriate changes to listed buildings particularly, but not exclusively, to the exterior.
NO worse. The one last night was dire. In response to the question about replacing existing plastic like for like, when the answer should have been either "yes" or "no", *twice* said "ideally should be cast iron". I'd have thought a constructive approach would have been that the existing installation is a hideous hotch potch which we would quite like to see improved and material is secondary to appearance. Fact that it turned out to be like that when it was listed just adds incompetence to the conservation officers ignorance IMHO.
Jim A
Why should the plastic guttering be replaced? It is of it's time and should be preserved. If it needs replacing in the future, then it should be replaced with plastic. Where do you draw the line? You may as well say every listed building has to be taken back to the state in which it was built with *all* modifications undone. Do you really think people would not have used "modern" materials had they been available a few hundred years ago at the same relative costs to "traditional" materials.
MBQ
Not at all! Go see the place - I have.
My aunt's house is listed too (medieval wool merchant's house in Northleach). It made many tasks a nightmare to perform, but it's a house that really deserves listing.
"Jim Alexander" wrote | NO worse. The one last night was dire. In response to the question | about replacing existing plastic like for like, when the answer | should have been either "yes" or "no", *twice* said "ideally should | be cast iron".
He never suggested having an electric Aga either, which would possibly have been cheaper than a power flue model. Or even one of those mock-Aga gas cookers.
Owain
Yes, but I see no benefit in preserving uPVC windows and plastic guttering on a 16c cottage. The listing should allow some restoration if inappropriate modern materials have been used. It's not like we're trying to preserve the Marley extrusions for future generations who might never get to see what plastic rainwater goods look like.
Christian.
You never know: the way we're going EH will soon have to list the last few coloured bathroom suites.
Reminds me of a delight I found years ago. A couple bought a tudor place and wanted to do the outside in black and white. The council said it was not mock-tudor and in Surrey. They played with the couple for about 4 years until the couple made friends with the local university Tudor Period professor.
He promised the council that he would oversee the work and only restore to exact Tudor standards. The relented and went away happy.
When they returned to see the colours, they had a fit, you could see the place from half a mile on a moonlight night, but couldn't do bugger all because of the professors status.
They quickly caved in and the couple got their B/W tudor house.
Reminds me of a friend who has a very old property, the walls are mainly composed of mud and straw. The jobsworth insisted that he put in damp proofing, even though he pointed out that would ruin the walls, which would dry out and crumble. so when all the inspections were over he removed the damp course.
What I am saying is that it is not nearly the major problem to resolve that say it it. Of course it is bureaucratic but relatively straightforward once you know how.
In message , Andy Dingley writes
Getting away from rants about listing, conservation officers etc. and down to practicalities.
Some of the houses we are looking at as potential purchases are Grade II listed. I understand about listed building consent etc. but have found little info on what it means in reality of owning a listed building. How does it impact on internal and external works?
It really means you have to proceed with caution and check with the conservation officer before you make any changes. It is well worth making friends with BCO because they can make life very difficult. It would certainly be worth going and talking to them before you buy and asking what might be allowed if you have some definite ideas.
In other words the vast majority of BCOs are jumped-up traffic warden types with massively inflated egos, who love nothing more than having you grovel before them. Not all of them, you get the odd reasonable one, but certainly the vast majority.
And exactly how many have you dealt with? Or was it just one obnoxious one?
Personally only two - but I have watched friends deal with several others (maybe another 4 or 5 different BCOs). That's 6 or 7 in total. Not one reasonable one.
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