Iford Manor - Cloisters
Saving listed cloisters from collapse
Sitting on the steep, south-facing slope of the Frome valley, Iford Manor is a Grade II* listed manor house best known for its beautiful gardens, listed as Grade I in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The estate was sold to the Cartwright-Hignett family in1965, after the death of its previous owner Harold Peto, garden architect and designer of the Iford Manor gardens.
During the dry summer of 2018, the owners noticed a number of worrying cracks in the fabric, mainly towards the north end of the cloisters. The widths of these cracks worsened at an alarming speed. We visited the building in August of that summer to advise on the movement.
Project Lead
Project Team
- Value Undisclosed
- Location Wiltshire
- Client Cartwright-Hignett Family
- Completion 2019
Investigation
The building was evidently suffering from considerable bodily distortions. In addition to the dislocations in the delicate stone arches of two arcades, the slender Italian marble columns within the arcades had been shunted laterally out of plumb by as much as 38mm.
This rotation led to the load from the arches, which carried the weight of the stone walls and tiled roofs overhead, being transferred to the very edges at the top of the columns. We were concerned the Italian columns would suffer from stress fractures, causing a partial collapse and loss of these members.
Intervention
A scaffold restraint system was immediately erected along the north arcade to help resist any further rotation of the column heads. We established a monitoring system to inform on further movements in
the fabric during the autumn and winter months.
Restoration
After this period of monitoring and investigation, we undertook the restoration of the Cloisters. This involved stabilising the delicate structure by underpinning, inserting new foundations to sleeper walls, stitching and strapping, along with repairs to the timber pergola and stone column structures.
Award
2020 - Historic Houses Restoration Award
