The Museum of Welsh Life in reconstructing the 13th St Teilos Church chose a ‘modern’ flooring system designed for them by Ty-Mawr Lime Ltd of Brecon.
The Museum of Welsh Life opened on 7 July 1948, it shows how the people of Wales lived, worked and spent their leisure time over the last five hundred years. The Museum stands in the grounds of the magnificent St Fagans Castle, a late 16th century manor house generously donated to the people of Wales by the Earl of Plymouth. The 100-acre parkland now has over thirty original buildings, moved from various parts of Wales and re-erected to show how the people of Wales lived at various times in history.
The buildings include a school, a chapel and a splendid Workmen's Institute as well as several workshops where craftsmen, such as the blacksmith and the cooper, demonstrate their skills to the public. Their produce is usually on sale.
The Museum has recently completed one one of its largest and most complex projects to-date, namely the re-erection of the medieval church of St Teilo from Llandeilo Tal-y-bont near Pontarddulais in west Glamorgan. The church, which is believed to have been built during the 12th century, on the site of an earlier Pre-Norman church, originally stood close to the banks of the river Llwchwr. It was abandoned in 1970 and was eventually offered to the Museum in 1984.
Before the process of dismantling the structure began, however, two major series of pre-Reformation wall-paintings were discovered, along with numerous texts and areas of decorative patterns, all of which were carefully recorded, removed and conserved. It was decided to rebuild and refurbish the church as it would have appeared circa. 1520. It was therefore rebuilt using traditional lime mortars and plasters from local supplier Ty-Mawr Lime Ltd.
Fat lime mortars are often seen as too weak these days for actual construction work - however St Teilo's Church is an excellent example of how these buildings were constructed and it was entirely reconstructed from premixed fat lime mortar with a careful build programme and good protection and understanding of the materials. It was finished internally with premixed fat lime plasters. All-in-all, these choices have afforded the building maximum flexibility to settle and excellent vapour permeability not only to dry out but also to ensure the long term health of the building and its special contents.
The Museum then faced the challenge of introducing heating into the building, which was clearly not designed and built with heating in mind. This not only raised practical issues, but also but also matters of principle and authenticity. Balanced against these are questions of personal comfort (for the visiting public and the Museum's own warding staff) and conservation. The latter point is of particular importance within the context of restoring an old building which incorporates both original (in this case medieval) timberwork and modern replicas. Both require special conditions to ensure that they are not adversely affected by the temperature, and more importantly, Relative Humidity (RH), prevailing within the building.
Excessive heat and/or dryness would, for instance, cause the timbers to dry out too quickly, resulting in twisting, shrinkage and cracking; whilst the lime-plastered walls would crack, loose adhesion and fail. Conversely, too much moisture and/or very low temperatures would result in condensation and mould growth. It was important therefore to find a method of controlling the RH levels within the building so that both the historic, and new oak, timberwork would not be adversely affected.
The use of a controllable under-floor heating system combined with Ty-Mawr's insulated limecrete floor was seen as an ideal way of minimising such problems, enabling the building to dry out gently and naturally, whilst moderating the internal environment for staff and visitors.
See the building for yourself, it is well worth the visit! http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/stfagans/historic-buildings/
Laying the limecrete slab.
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