Stop the destruction of old buildings across the world

For the Olympic games, the Chinese authorities demolished countless precious and irreplacable old buildings in Beijing. 

But such sacrilege is not just the way of totalitarian regimes.  It is common in the poorer countries of Europe and even, surpisingly, in the US.  Do Americans care about their heritage? Most of those I know and work with care deeply.  But much in that new country that should have been cherished has been carelessly swept aside.  What happened to all those slave cabins?  Where are the glorious town houses in Atlanta?  Who pulled down those thousands of settler log cabins? What is left in New York of the 19th or even 18th century?

On one US business trip, I switched on the television in my hotel to catch a programme on old buildings.  It featured a wonderful wooden barn dated from 1800.  But it was riddled with rot and worm; an interesting challenge I thought.  But the whole programme - to my utter shock - was about how to pull down old buildings safely ... which it them proceeded to do with a bulldozer!

But rot and worm are not insoluble problems as any renovation specialist or even most jobbing builders in any country in Europe will tell you.  Rotten wood can be chemically stabilised, new wooden sections can be cut in using old timber or, as I did on a derelict and collapsing 1776 wooden mill we bought, steel can be inserted invisibly to give the structure the strength it needs, so the treated wood can become the exposed and exciting part of the building.

In Norfolk, in England, where I live, history is all around you – as it should still be in most parts of the world.

The oldest houses here are mostly made of wood – though there are few of these left for the simple reason that wood is a material that deteriorates.  Sadly, later generations in our country 200 years ago (as they still do today in some parts of thee world) might well have demolished a building to replace it with what would be seen to be more suitable and modern building materials such as brick or, for the wealthy, stone. Wood was cheap for the whole country was covered in woods.

Population growth devastates the built environment

In the 1700s, the population of the whole of the British Isles was less than three million compared to over 60 million today. Not only was wood cheap and plentiful then, in most cases, the only cost to those who would use wood to build their houses would have been the labour in cutting and trimming the timber.

Land also was cheap and widely available. In medieval times in the UK (and up to the 19th century in the US) almost anyone could carve out a piece of woodland, cut down a patch of the trees and build a home.  He became not only a householder but the owner of that land, if his new home could be built between one dawn and the following dusk.

To achieve this groups of people got together to help each other to build their homes, hence the origin groups of homes as hamlets or villages. The tracks that led from one settlement to another, originally often made by the roaming animals, soon became roads and lanes. It explains the constant twisting and turning of all the older roads in the UK. Every bend and every turn represents an area where there would have been a small settlement, some houses or farmed land around which the original track would have had to have gone.

Thatch was cheap and practical

For centuries, thatch was the common building material in old England, again because it was simple and minimal cost, as most thatch was made from reeds which grew in marshy ground and alongside rivers and lakes – and, so could be harvested for nothing but a little labour.

Thatch has the advantage that it is also cheap and easy to replace and it acts as a very good insulator, partly because the reeds themselves are hollow and partly because it needs a good thick layer of twenty or more inches to make a proper roof.

Though it is a good insulator against the heat of summer and the cold of winter, it is not so effective against rain - something not unknown in these fair isles. Indeed, the old saying, "it's raining cats and dogs" derives directly from the leaky thatched rooves.  Every household had cats and dogs not just as pets but for their utility function in catching mice and hunting, respectively. When the house was full of people and the smoke from the fire drifted upwards to a hole in the centre of the roof – long before the days of chimneys – the cats and dogs found it more peaceful and warmer to actually lie and sleep on the beams going across the room below the thatch - often just a single large room for the whole family. However, with heavy rain seeping through the wet thatch, it would begin to drip down; the cats and dogs did not like their comfort being disturbed and promptly jumped down from the beams to find a dryer spot. Hence the origin of the saying. It clearly must be raining rather heavily if even the cats and dogs are trying to get out of its way!

In our corner of the world in the eastern county of Norfolk, flint is also a natural building material. Many people, like myself, walk their dogs two or three times a day and we have the joy of many public footpaths across vast open fields. Early in the year when these are ploughed, countless glacial flints are brought to the surface.

In olden times, as these stones were a nuisance when sowing crops, it used to be a tradition that in the spring the women and children would go out behind a cart and collect as many of the larger ones as possible. These served a useful purpose; being hard and, usually not too large; they made an excellent and durable building material. Often they replaced the old clay bricks.  Indeed, initially clay was used to form some bonding between the flints and to prevent draughts and water seepage through the walls. Later, mortar was discovered and this was used to build stronger and more permanent walls.

There remain in the UK thousands of historic and protected manor houses of several stories predominantly built out of timber framing and flint infill. Old buildings are listed on a national register that means they cannot be altered without planning permission from the local authority - wise legislation that protects our heritage and which could be adopted by many legislations around the world who want to protect and cherish old buildings

In Norfolk, flint proved to be a very good material for the building of churches which, in those days, were an expression of faith and a demonstration of the community's dedication to God. However, the major weakness with flint as a building material was that it is virtually impossible to build a corner as the flints rely on each other for support and at corners they simply fall out. This is why a certain quantity of stone and brick would still be needed for the flint churches to finish off the corners. It also explains why Norfolk has so many round towered churches; the builders discovered that as the round tower had no corners it did not require any expensive brick or stone to build it.

Even today, flint is used in construction work – though usually for a more decorative or ethnic feel than for its structural properties. Many people like myself out walking the dogs pick up two or three of the more attractive flints each time they are out and these are used in many gardens to make simple walls and other low cost attractive structures. These structures may be on a modest scale but, just this morning out with the dogs, I walked past a substantial building at least two hundred years old which has an enclosing wall of at least five hundred yards long and approximately ten feet tall, almost entirely built out of beautifully even and rounded oblong flints. The colours of these are extremely varied and it creates a beautiful and interesting reminder of the history that we share in this corner of heaven.