Examination of Witnesses (Questions 4160
- 4179)
4160. LORD BROOKE OF ALVETHORPE: Yes.
(Professor
Mair) The principal structure here are the three masonry storeys
that you see here and there is a very flexible attic structure
on top. It is not illustrated well in this photograph but I believe
there have been other photographs shown to you, which show the
nature of the historically interesting but structurally not very
robust weavers' attics on top of the building, which, in terms
of the way these buildings will behave as far as the tensile strain
calculation is concerned, that is a really rather small consequence,
the attic part. The height that has been assumed in these calculations
is, I believe, the correct height when one is trying to assess
the overall performance of this building.
4161. MR MOULD: While we are on this
page and a related point, would you mind dealing now with foundations
and explaining the assumption made in relation to that?
(Professor
Mair) Towards the bottom of the page you see the heading "foundations"
and the likely construction is described as "corbelled brick
strip footings approximately two to two and a half metres below
road level" and that is an assessment that is appropriate
for Georgian buildings with cellars, that the foundations would
be very close, just a short distance below the cellar door, which
essentially is what has been stated there.
4162. And this page is the work of Alan Baxter
Associates; that is right, is it not?
(Professor Mair) As I understand it that
is correct, yes.
4163. MR MOULD: The Committee heard about
their work in this field yesterday and I do not think that is
a point in issue in itself.
4164. BARONESS FOOKES: Before we go on
could I just clarify this question of the height of the building
because a lot was made of it yesterday. As I understand it, what
you are saying is that the attic structure above is of insignificant
importance and therefore does not need to be taken into account
when looking at the height, is that right? Otherwise there is
a discrepancy which I do not follow?
(Professor
Mair) I perhaps would not go as far as saying that the attic is
of no importance but it is not part of the main masonry structure
of the building.
4165. And that is the part that counts when
you are looking at strain?
(Professor Mair) That is correct.
4166. That would account for the discrepancy
noted by one of the witnesses?
(Professor Mair) It would account for
that, yes.
4167. MR MOULD: So we move on to the
next page, please.[31]
There are two things with which I would like you to help us on
this. First of all we can see at the bottom of this page, which
is a series of photographs of the buildings at 17—25 Wilkes
Street, we see references and reference to the Survey of London,
and I think you can help the Committee with the source information
that Baxter Associates had available to them when they were compiling
this and indeed other reports in relation to listed buildings
in the Spitalfields area.
(Professor Mair) As I understand it the information
that Alan Baxter has assembled for these buildings is all publicly
available information. There is the Survey of London; there is
also Pevsner's Buildings of England; there also the English
Heritage statutory lists of such buildings. So all that information
was obtained from those sources. These six photographs would have
been taken by Alan Baxter as part of their assessment and on the
previous page we noted various vulnerable features that they had
listed. All of these photographs have special significance but
the one on the bottom right is probably the easiest one to see.
You can see clearly some brickwork that has got slightly out of
alignment there. There is some evidence of movement.
4168. That is the way in which Alan Baxter have
assessed some of the features of the building. However, particularly,
those sources of Survey of London, Pevsner's Buildings of England
and the English Heritage list would also highlight very special
heritage features, both within and outside the building.
4169. MR MOULD: We might at this point
just pick up on Lord Young's point. You told the Committee what
you understand to have been the range of information available
to Alan Baxter's and we have heard about their experience and
expertise in relation to this kind of work. Have you raised with
them the logic, if you will, of their reliance on that information
as opposed to, as we know, not undertaking internal inspections
of these buildings as being an appropriate and sufficient source
of information for the purposes of the exercise you have described
to the Committee?
(Professor
Mair) I will say, first and foremost, that Alan Baxter are pre-eminent
in this field; they are extremely well-known as experts on all
kinds of buildings but, in particular, they know a great deal
about heritage buildings—listed buildings. The point that
I was describing a few minutes ago, on the scoring system, is
that if there is a building that has a heritage feature—some
really important and extremely delicate internal feature—that
would be almost certainly known about and stated, and would be
part of the assessment. The highest score, 2, which I described,
which was in cases where finishes which, if damaged, would have
a significant effect on the heritage of the building (and an example
was given of a fresco or something like that) then that fresco
would be known about, would be documented and would have been
part of the assessment.
4170. CHAIRMAN: It can be isolated, can
it not, if necessary? If the damage is likely to be more severe
than you are talking about, plasterwork and such like can be isolated
from the immediately adjoining structures.
(Professor
Mair) There are techniques for doing that, that is right. It requires
highly specialist knowledge to do that and to do that in the right
way, but that is sometimes done, yes.
4171. LORD SNAPE: I am still confused,
before you go on, Mr Mould, about how you can tell these features
exist if you do not actually go into the building. You mentioned
earlier on cornice ceilings, for example. Professor Mair, can
you tell us: do you recognise a cornice ceiling from across the
street (I hesitate to use that phrase but it was used by one of
the witnesses) on a second-gear drive-past? If you do not look
inside these buildings how do you know what features they have?
(Professor
Mair) I think the answer to that question is that you might not
know about some unusual feature, but my understanding is that
a firm like Alan Baxter, who knows these kinds of buildings extremely
well, would identify if there was something particularly delicate
and unusual—not least because it would be documented. I
guess what we are distinguishing here is between very special
features and perhaps a not-so-special feature.
4172. Ordinary features.
(Professor Mair) Ordinary features, yes.
4173. When we put this point to Mr Berryman
and said: "If you just do an external examination it must
surely reflect on these scores"—the 1, 2 and 3 that
you have gone into today, he said: "This was a preliminary"
(I paraphrase) "or the first time we had looked at these
and if there were some greater detail then we would go back and
look again." Let us go back to Mr Mould's description of
a cornice ceiling. You did wax—as lyrical as you do, Mr
Mould—about cornice ceilings. How can you tell they exist
if you have never actually been in the building?
4174. MR MOULD: My Lord, my point really
is this: the emphasis of the right-hand side of the table that
we were looking at a few moments ago, is to identify as being
of greater sensitivity those features which add significantly
to the heritage value of the building in question. What this is
about is about applying a particular methodology to buildings
which are on the statutory list, and which are there precisely
because they have some special architectural or historic feature
of importance. That may be an external or it may be an internal
feature, or both. The point—and here I echo what Professor
Mair has just said to you—is that, as I understand it, one
can be reasonably confident that where such features exist they
will be documented and recorded, either on the statutory list
or in one of the learned journals—that is to say, Pevsner's
guide, or indeed in the Survey of London. Those sources of material
do not simply confine themselves to external features. The statutory
list, for example (and I say this from experience of dealing with
this kind of work in practice; I am a lawyer, not a building surveyor),
is that the statutory lists in relation to even the greatest section
of listed buildings—that is to say, Grade II buildings,
as your Lordship appreciates—is often set out in considerable
detail as to both external and internal features.
4175. We have been focusing on 17 to 25 Wilkes
Street because Mr Wheeler, understandably, focused on that property
because it includes his own property, so understandably he is
concerned about the fate of that building, but your Lordships
may have glanced through some of the descriptions which we have
included in relation to other properties, that is to say the corresponding
description of features of particular interest or sensitivity,
and you will find that they do include, from time to time, not
only external features but, also, internal features. The source
for that, because, as we know, there were no internal inspections
carried out when these reports were being undertaken, is, perforce,
the information that was available from the specialist documents
record that I have mentioned.
4176. Also—and this is of some considerable
importance—picking up, again, on the second point that Professor
Mair has made, the expertise which Alan Baxter Associates have
in surveying buildings in this class and category, armed as they
are with the sources of information I have just described, and
having carried out an external inspection of these buildings one-by-one,
of which these photographs are a little bit of an illustration,
as you will appreciate the skilled and experienced professional
who deals day-in, day-out with this kind of structure will, armed
with that information, be able to form a pretty clear sense of
whether there are any features that might be within. Ultimately,
one has to form a judgment as to how far one needs to go in order
to form a reliable understanding of the sensitive aspects of buildings
of this kind, in order to inform the exercise that is set out
in these tables before you.
4177. Of course, it is the combination of what
we know about the engineering—Professor Mair has explained
how very limited is the risk in that respect—and the sensitivity
of the structures to which that very limited risk is being applied.
One has to form a judgment as to how far one needs to go down
the line of inspections of structures of that kind with the information
one does have in order to complete that exercise reliably. Both
Mott MacDonald and Alan Baxter are extremely experienced in doing
this kind of work. My instructions are that these reports are
informed by a considerable amount of cross-fertilisation of thinking
between the two of them; so they have obviously looked critically—they
have cross-validated each other's work—and what you see
in relation to Wilkes Street, the coloured sheet, page 56, is
a table which reflects that careful process of individual and
collaborative consideration.
4178. The question arises, notwithstanding all
that, ought there to have been an internal inspection in any event
at the stage when these reports were being prepared? We would
say, with respect, no that was not necessary, and the judgment
that was taken that that was not necessary was one which was a
proper and sensible one, and indeed the right one. That is the
case we make in relation to this point.
4179. CHAIRMAN: Mr Mould, I may be out
of date, but the listing system used to identify notable interiors
as two-star. I do not know whether that still persists. Are there
any two-stars?
31 Crossrail Ref: P23, 17-25 Wilkes Street, Historic
Building and Features, Mott MacDonald (TOWHLB-XR5A-059) Back
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