Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment – Summer School July 2010
In July we were very honoured to host part of a three week long Summer School run by the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment. The Summer School takes place each year and aims to develop an in-depth knowledge both of traditional building and repair techniques and how these can be applied in the twenty-first century.
The 27 participants were a mixture of Building Craft Apprentices and Graduate Fellows. Most of the 12 craft apprentices came from the UK, including stonemasons, carpenters, roof slate and tilers and a blacksmith, but there was a carpenter from Jamaica (who not surprisingly found the Welsh summer rather chilly!) and a stonemason from St Helena! The Graduate Fellows were drawn from disciples such as Architecture, Engineering and Town Planning. With just one graduate from the UK they were a very cosmopolitan group coming from Afghanistan, Gambia, India, Italy, Netherlands, the USA, and 6 students from Simon Fraser University in Canada.
After an initial week based in London undertaking geometry and structure exercises and architectural drawing tours, the Summer School moved to Wales for the last week in July. The students spent a week at Tŷ Mawr working with expert craft teams to learn craft and conservation skills. The first day was lead by Tŷ Mawr’s Technical Director, Nigel Gervis, and looked at the importance of lime in buildings including a demonstration of decorative plasterwork by the highly regarded lime plasterer Jeff Orton. On subsequent days the students spent a day on each of the crafts of timber framing, thatching, dry stone walling and plastering under the tuition of John Monro (Traditional Building Company), Alan Jones (Pembrokeshire Thatch and Carpentry), Stuart Fry (dry stone waller) and Julie Haddow (Lime Repair).
In the evenings the students were inspired by lectures given by craftsman and sculptor Rory Young on the buildings of the Welsh Marches and the conservator Ned Scharer, who described his recent work restoring the Cosmati Pavement in Westminster Abbey. They also explored the local area (and hostelries!) on walking tours exploring the history of Llangorse Lake and the buildings of Brecon.
The highlight for many of the students was a visit by HRH The Prince of Wales who dropped in for a cup of tea to see what they were up to. He visited each workshop and even had a go at thatching where tutor Alan Jones said His Royal Highness ‘showed considerable promise’!
For the final week of the Summer School the students moved on to the National Botanic Gardens of Wales where they designed a new structure for the grounds drawing on the inspiration and skills that they had received. This structure will be built by the Craft Apprentices this autumn.
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