- So this is Belsay Hall,
we're just a bit north of Newcastle in Northumberland,
and we've got a lovely hall, we've got a castle,
we've got quarry gardens as well.
(Cheerful music)
It's a really interesting example of Grecian architecture.
You can't see that at the moment,
'cause we've got the scaffolding up.
But what people really come here for is our quarry gardens.
They're really unique.
The walls create a little microclimate,
and it means you'll see plants here
that you'll not see anywhere else in England.
So the Middleton family, who owned Belsay,
they used to live in the castle section of our site,
which is at the far end,
and what they decided to do after a tour
of Europe, inspired by Grecian architecture, is
to build themselves a new home.
So they quarried where our quarry gardens are now,
and on Christmas day, so the story goes,
they moved from the castle to the new hall.
And they actually very deliberately did the quarry so
that they could build gardens there,
so they had this horticultural plan in mind,
and that's how we get the beauty that we've got today.
(Cheerful music)
Belsay Awakes is a fantastic project.
It's been in the works for about 10 years now,
and it's taken loads of different forms in that time,
but now we're getting to the final iteration
of that project.
We've got major conservation works,
we've got the hall, we're going to put a new roof on it,
we're also going to have a new car park,
so we're going to have some new infrastructure,
we've redone our toilets,
so that the visit really lives up to visitor expectations.
In amongst that, we're going to have a new cafe,
we're going to have a new café down at the castle site,
a new play area for the little ones, and that'll just mean
that people can really get the most out of their visit.
It's really important that we conserve these sites
for future generations,
and this project covers that in both ways.
It makes sure that we are conserving it for the future,
but also that people can really enjoy their day out here.
(Cheerful music)
So every aspect is getting a bit
of attention at Belsay here,
it really is an awakening for the whole site.
(Birds chirping)
- It's an impressive view, isn't it?
Treetop height and everything.
So the project is really important for Belsay.
There's some key conservation works
that need to happen, some repairs.
So the hall, for example, is a huge element of the project.
The roof has a really low pitch in its original design,
and the guttering and the drainage were all put
on the inside of the building,
which meant that water was actually going inside,
and over 200 years, needless to say,
that's going to cause some problems.
So, Paul, is this just the old felt?
- [Paul] That's the old felt, yes.
- Is it rotten then? Is that-- - It's just rotted away
over the years, and that's what we'll be replacing
with a bat-friendly, more breathable, longer-lasting felt.
- So damp, wet rot, dry rot have all caused all these issues,
and the slate now needs to be replaced.
- We'll do the joinery works on it,
and then we'll follow them round,
round and round, - Right.
- and then they'll be putting the slate back on
as we go around. - Okay.
- The roof's got several leaks at the moment,
due to how long it's been on, the damage,
the pitch of the roof.
Now when we strip the slates off,
we don't know what condition the timbers are underneath,
so that's going to be quite challenging
when we do remove it to see what we actually need to do,
and then we'll have it surveyed by the architect
and the structural engineer, and then we'll get cracking on
with the timber repairs and re-roof it.
You've got to be a lot more sensitive
with what you're doing: bats, for instance.
We'll be here doing a dawn survey
before we even lift any slates,
just to see where the bats are actually going,
so when we do lift the slates,
we're not injuring any of the animals.
- So while all the works are happening on the project,
the site's still open, so visitors can still come,
and we're doing a whole range
of different activities and events and tours,
so that visitors can learn about what's happening.
- It's great to have visitors when we're on a live project.
- So we're going be running scaffolding tours,
which are hard-hat tours with high vis,
so it'll all be quite exciting,
but it comes up above the height of the roof,
so visitors will be able to come up
and stand and have volunteers
and the contractors explain all the works
that's happening on the roof.
So we're doing something a little bit unusual at Belsay.
We're going to have a slide from this scaffolding staircase.
Not only do you get this amazing view,
but you get an opportunity to play with it as well.
So the slide will come off this platform
and take you down back down to ground level.
So there's some really cool facts and figures
about all this scaffolding.
There are 28 miles' worth of tubes, of the scaffolding tubes,
which would basically take you
from Belsay all the way to Durham.
There's 212 tonnes of scaffolding,
which is more than the Statue of Liberty weighs,
and all of these clips and the shackles,
the joint part of the scaffolding,
there's 28,000 of them used all around
and they've all been fitted by hand.
(Cheerful music)
- So this has been a bit of historical detective work
to try and work out what paper underlies
this cream emulsion paint.
I'm Lisa Vere-Stevens,
and I'm a collections project conservator
at English Heritage.
And if you can look at an angle,
you can see a lovely decorative relief,
and from that, I pieced together, I was able
to find the original design, which is illustrated here.
So this room would've all been wallpapered
in this amazing foliage of beautiful different colours.
This paper was designed by J.H. Dearle,
who was the chief designer at the William Morris Company.
There are lots of different elements
of the conservation aspect that I'm involved with.
We have a programme of wallpaper conservation happening.
A specialist paper conservator has been
doing practical conservation treatment of the wallpapers,
of which we have about eight different decorative schemes
in 16 areas of the property.
Also, I've been working with the contractors
and specifying the internal protection of the building.
We've had to move about 550 stored collections.
To make them safe, we've had to remove them
from the top floor of the hall down
into temporary storage spaces on the first floor.
And as part of that, we have been doing a lot
of auditing of collections, cleaning of collections,
and checking of different materials.
So here we've got an Edwardian stove.
Basically this is the new kitchen at Belsay,
and it's not an area where the public have been able
to visit before, but we've taken the opportunity as part
of this project to do some conservation treatment of it.
It has been in a really, really sorry state.
With the brilliant help of volunteers
and historic property stewards,
they have been working so hard,
they've been removing rust and debris
that have built up on the surface,
I mean, soot debris inside has all been removed,
putting a preservative treatment on the surface,
so we're having a wax treatment into the internal areas,
and we're doing a wax blacking solution on external areas,
and you can see Jill working here,
buffing up the newly applied black wax treatment,
which has also been completed on certain elements
of the front of the stove.
The stove itself is an Edwardian period,
so in the middle, you've got the fire section,
and on the left-hand side,
that would've been the roasting oven,
and on the right-hand side, you've got the baking oven.
And I think we've almost, we've got 97% completeness.
I was looking at oral history archives
and came across lots of wonderful historic quotes
from people who lived here, worked here,
and from the army occupation during the Second World War.
So we've made oral history panels,
which we've put onto some of the protection areas,
so that it'll be a wonderful experience for people
to actually see that kind of living history.
(Cheerful music)
- So we're here in Hall Wood,
and this has been a huge part of the project actually.
What we wanted to do is try
and restore the original Mediterranean feel,
and part of the project really has been
to open up the views through
to these fabulous Scots pines that you see,
and you can appreciate all the lovely textures now.
I'm John Hawley, I'm the head gardener here at Belsay Hall.
We're a team of 10 plus a team of around 10 volunteers.
So I obviously manage the maintenance and the conservation
of the garden, and lead the Belsay Awakes project as well
in conjunction with my colleagues.
What we're trying to achieve is
to open up the old historic views and vistas,
reconnect areas of the gardens with each other,
reconnect the gardens with views towards the hall,
and views to the wider landscape as well.
So you get lovely focal points -
as you're walking down paths, you'll be able
to see the next area of the garden which is coming along,
which will entice you and draw you into that area.
It's also very much a plants person's garden,
so really, as part of the project,
we're trying to increase that level
of interest in plant material,
which is why we've recruited Dan Pearson.
He's one of the country's top garden designers
and this is a Grade I listed garden,
so we really very much thought
that the garden deserved that top level of horticulture.
So we have a huge range of wildlife,
all the way from red squirrels, we're fortunate enough
to have encouraged those back, actually,
in the last few years, having lost them.
We have badgers, fox, lots of different bat species,
a huge variety of bird species as well,
so we've got that good starting point which we can build on.
Also as part of the project,
we've got a couple of new meadows, so it will be interesting
just to see that develop over the coming years,
so it'll look absolutely beautiful for visitors to see,
but it's also got that added bonus
of increasing wildlife in the garden.
- It's been such an exciting time
as the scaffolding's gone up,
but all the delays that we've had
with COVID and high wind and storms,
just to be able to stand up here
and see, on a platform, that we're gonna be able
to share all this exciting work
and all this crucial, important work
that's going to transform this building
and make it last that bit longer into the future.
That Conservation in Action work is going to be key.
- So we've got a number of funders involved in this project,
but mainly the National Lottery Heritage Fund,
so everyone who plays the National Lottery
has actually made this project a reality.
- So even though all this work is happening at Belsay,
we're still going to be open to visitors
and providing opportunities for them
to learn about and see all this exciting work as it happens,
and we're really excited about that opportunity.
- What we find people come to Belsay for is
that little bit of peace and tranquility.
It's a chance to get out of the city
and really see some beautiful plants and a beautiful garden,
and get a walk in the fresh air.
We can give you plenty of fresh air here!
Not only can you still visit,
we actively encourage you to do so.
It's a really good opportunity
to see the work that we're doing,
get involved with scaffolding tours,
and you'll be able to get involved
and see what our volunteers are doing as well.
There's also opportunities for heritage skills,
so come down, see what we're doing, be part of it.
(Cheerful music)