The Building Conservation Directory 2023

56 T H E B U I L D I N G C O N S E R VAT I O N D I R E C T O R Y 2 0 2 3 | C E L E B R AT I N G 3 0 Y E A R S C AT H E D R A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S in the long-term will come from having a viable business plan that allows a balance of income and expenditure to ensure the financial health of the building without relying on revenue subsidy. CLISSOLD HOUSE As an architect in private practice I have found some of the most rewarding projects have been for the revival of listed buildings with the help of the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Such projects make it possible to take a holistic view of the listed building, understanding the layers of history that have led to its present appearance. Generally, the building must be made easy to find and to enter, with an accessible and logical horizontal and vertical circulation system, often including the provision of a lift. The rooms and spaces served by this circulation system can then be adapted flexibly to suit the new uses according to the principle of long life, loose fit. Clissold House illustrates this well. It is a lovely late Georgian house in Clissold Park, one of London’s most attractive and heavily used parks. When we were appointed to carry out a NLHF project for the London Borough of Hackney, the house had been derelict for at least 15 years except for a café occupying two rooms of the house, served by a kitchen occupying three of the best historic rooms. The project involved reinventing every aspect of the house, and the restoration of the historic plan form surprisingly proved the best way to accommodate the new uses. These are a greatly enlarged café operating on two levels, with outside seating below the portico and facing the pleasure ground to the south; rooms for lettings and functions in the rest of the house; and public WCs for park users facing the park to the north. Full accessibility was provided by reopening the historic lower ground floor entrance leading via a lift to the upper floors; this entrance can be used for functions in the evening when the park is shut. The central door below the Doric portico leads to the upper café, while the adjacent jib door allows function visitors to access the terrace without conflict with park users. Thermal upgrading was carried out within the rebuilt roof and in the voids behind plaster finishes where the original timber battens had to be removed because of rot. Clissold Park has always been at the heart of Stoke Newington, but the house is now reinstated at the heart of the park. Its future is secure socially, economically and environmentally, and its restoration and transformation is an example for other historic buildings that need reinventing for a sustainable future. Recommended Reading Neil May and Nigel Griffiths, Planning responsible retrofit of traditional buildings, Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance (STBA), 2015: http:// bc-url.com/responsible-retrofit Understanding Carbon in the Historic Environment, Carrig Conservation for Historic England, Swindon, 2019: http:// bc-url.com/he-understanding-carbon Energy Efficiency and Historic Buildings, Historic England, Swindon, 2018: http:// bc-url.com/he-energy-efficiency Marianne Suhr and Roger Hunt, Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability , SPAB, London, 2013 RICHARD GRIFFITHS is a conservation architect and director of Richard Griffiths Architects (see page 24). Since its inception in 1993, the practice has specialised in the creative repair and adaptation of historic buildings and the design of new buildings in sensitive historic contexts. Clissold House, a lovely late Georgian house in Stoke Newington, London which was saved and brought back into full use with the help of Lottery funding One of the function rooms at Clissold House before and after its regeneration (Photo: Richard Griffiths Associates)