Book 2 Agenda item: 7 a)
Applications awarded a small grant under the Chairman’s delegated
authority.
Preservation & Scholarship
Preservation - Secular
MANSFIELD TRAQUAIR TRUST
ORGANISATION
Charity Number
SC021599
Applicant
Miss Rosemary Mann, Secretary
Previous Appeals
Present Appeal
South Chapel Intarsia Panel Repair of wooden intarsia panel
in south chapel of the Mansfield Traquair Centre
Amount Requested
£1,000
Organisation Overview
Mansfield Traquair Trust is a single building preservation trust established in 1993 to
rescue and preserve the former Catholic Apostolic Church of 1872 in the centre of
Edinburgh at Mansfield Place, now known as the Mansfield Traquair Centre.
The building was designed by the prominent nineteenth-century architect Sir Robert
Rowand Anderson and completed in 1885. The most outstanding feature of the
church is the vast scheme of mural decoration painted by Scotland's leading Arts and
Crafts artist Phoebe Anna Traquair in the 1890s. The church suffered badly in the
years since it ceased to be a place of worship, and damage to both the fabric of the
building and the murals was severe. However, the building was rescued by the
Mansfield Traquair Trust which was set up in 1993 to preserve the building and the
magnificent murals within. A multi-million pound renovation of the building was
completed in 2002 and the restoration of the murals was completed in 2005.
Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852-1936) was the leading artist the Arts and Crafts
movement in Edinburgh. From the 1880s to the 1920s she worked in a wide range of
media, including easel painting, embroidery, manuscript illumination, book cover
tooling, enamelling, as well as mural decoration. She exhibited in Chicago, London,
Turin and St Louis in the 1890s and 1900s. The decoration of the Mansfield Place
Church helped to confirm this international recognition.
Part of the building was converted for office accommodation with the main body of
the church open for visitors and available for events, particularly weddings.
Project Outline
The intarsia panel in front of the altar is in need of attention: some of the inlay is
missing and the surface varnish is discoloured and badly scuffed. The inlaid parts of
the intarsia panel will be consolidated with all loose inlay refixed. Missing parts will
be fitted using closely matching date-related salvaged material. The panel will be
Book 2 Agenda item: 7 a)
Applications awarded a small grant under the Chairman’s delegated
authority.
sanded to remove the existing varnish and damaged surface and revarnished with four
costs of matt varnish.
Churches of the ecclesiological movement are often highly decorated, the richness of
the decoration increasing towards the liturgical east end. Whereas the flooring in the
nave is often wooden boards or plain tiles, the chancel and apse floors are usually
stone or patterned tiles. The Catholic Apostolic Church is unusual as it not only has
increasingly elaborate floor tiles as one approaches the altar, but it has intarsia panels
in front of the altars. Apparently, no other church in Scotland has such panels. When
new, the different coloured woods would have glowed with vibrant colour giving the
effect of a rich carpet. It is hoped to see this effect when the panel in the south chapel
is restored.
Financial Information
Cost of conservation work....................................£3,000
Applications made to:
Gordon Fraser Charitable Trust £500
Hazel M Wood Charitable Trust £500
Russell Trust £1,000
Requested from the Pilgrim Trust,,,,,,,,£1,000
Comments
It is difficult to get excited about this panel, but it is in a sorry state and will, no
doubt, look rather more impressive once the conservation work has been carried out.
There is no doubt, however, about the spectacular decoration in the Church. It is
quite breathtaking.
A grant of £1,000 is recommended.
Book 2 Agenda item: 7 a)
Applications awarded a small grant under the Chairman’s delegated
authority.
Book 2 Agenda item: 7 a)
Applications awarded a small grant under the Chairman’s delegated
authority.
Preservation & Scholarship
Preservation & Scholarship - Research
SAVE BRITAIN'S HERITAGE
ORGANISATION
Charity Number
269129
Applicant
Mr William Palin, Secretary
Present Appeal
Fortifications at Risk; New Initiatives to save military
structures
Amount Requested
£3,500
Organisation Overview
SAVE was formed in 1975, European Architectural Heritage Year, to draw attention
to the needless and continuing destruction of historic buildings and to campaign for
their rescue through press releases, reports and exhibitions. SAVE publications
continuously highlight historic buildings and places which are at risk from decay,
neglect, destruction and redevelopment. Although SAVE’s finances looked a little
shaky in 2009/10, it has explained that during the last financial year it spent a little
more freely as it was expecting two legacies in the first quarter of this year - totalling
over 400k. It has also shed one full time member of staff which is helping to balance
the books ahead of these promised funds.
Project Outline
The Pilgrim Trust is asked for funding to allow the research leading to a publication
on Fortifications at Risk; New Initiatives to save military structures. The central
theme is that, in the past, people have looked to Governments and public bodies to
save fortifications, castles and forts as ancient monuments, open to the public. Today,
a much wider range of fortifications is considered of interest, many dating from the
19th and 20th centuries. These include forts, batteries, ramparts, gun emplacements,
tunnel works and below ground installations, on both sides of the Channel, for
example as the Maginot Line and the Atlantic Wall ranging across a whole series of
European Wars, notably the 1st and 2nd World Wars, and the Cold War. A race is on
to identify and explore these structures but they are so numerous and often large that
their care and preservation must, and is, being undertaken by a growing range of
volunteers and voluntary bodies, preservation trusts and local groups dedicated to
individual fortifications. While some can be looked after and opened by volunteers
others are earning their keep by ingenious conversion as holiday lets, pioneered by
bodies such as the Landmark Trust. The report will describe the large number of
Book 2 Agenda item: 7 a)
Applications awarded a small grant under the Chairman’s delegated
authority.
recent initiatives in Britain and abroad, aimed at identifying, recording, protecting and
opening fortification sites, as well as finding new uses. Other notable initiatives to
rescue and open neglected historic British fortifications have taken place in Menorca.
In America the Battlefields Preservation Society has an active programme of taking
(and buying) easements (covenants) on sites to protect them from development.
This project will initially be presented by SAVE’s president Marcus Binney as a 40
minute keynote address to the Fortress Study Group Symposium 'Fortifications at
Risk'. It will be published as an illustrated SAVE report.
Financial details
Research, travel and photography and assembly of illustrations, writing and editing
£2,500.
Design and printing £2,000
Launch and marketing £500
Requested from the Pilgrim Trust.......................£3,000
Comments
SAVE is a well respected campaigning organisation that has scored a number of
heritage "victories", not least Dumfries House. A grant of £3,000 would enable
another one of its flag waving, but scholarly publications to be produced.
Book 2 Agenda item: 7 a)
Applications awarded a small grant under the Chairman’s delegated
authority.