Building Conservation: Snowdonia 1890 - Members News - Blogs

Building Conservation: Snowdonia 1890

Posted by Grosvenor Construction on 13th October 2010.

You can probably imagine, that a construction company dedicated to the historic environment will come across many unusual 'finds', 'happenings', and 'events'.

For example, we recently found an ornately carved timber, re-set as a purlin within the void of an ancient church. On another occasion, we hacked through the hundreds of years of growth entangling an ancient hollow way to get to an ancient chapel.

So we are used to embracing the unusual every now and again. Out of all our 'unusual' projects, one particular one stands out.

First glimpse of a tender to conserve a traditional Welsh farm house within the mountains of Snowdonia brought about the usual interest that such a challenging and fascinating job should do. Upon further reading, we discovered that this particular project had the potential to take notions of the historic environment to new and dizzying heights.

What we tendered for (and subsequently won), was not just the conservation and restoration of a culturally significant tyddyn, but also the bringing about of a stage set to re-enact the lives of its past occupants to be broadcast on BBC TV. ‘Snowdonia 1890’, takes two families and places them within the context of an 1890’s tyddyn.

Whereas in previous projects, we could only guess as to the occupants of the past, or even capture the faint echoes of former structures; here at Taly Braich in Rhosgadfen, we had the unique opportunity of creating an historically accurate environment to be used as originally intended. A stage set to capture the trials and tribulations of contemporary characters trying to come to terms with the vagaries of living in the past.

The project involved a full restoration of derelict parts of the building, and gent

le conservation of the surviving structure. Coping with the complex logistics of working at distance in the raw Welsh mountains was challenging. Additionally, Grosvenor had to fit into a strict timescale to meet the needs of the production team who were to be lodged just a matter of metres away in a temporary building.

Whilst the TV unit bristled with technology, Grosvenor’s skilled hands were busy with practices more relevant to the period the house was built. Mixing lime mortar, fixing Welsh blue slates and re -building dry stone walls formed a marked contrast to the beeps and digital paraphernalia flickering over the hill.

You can see some of our skilled team at work in the short ‘making of’ video over on the BBC site here.

So special was the project that Grosvenor commissioned specialist architectural photographer, Andy Marshall, to spend a day there capturing the building.

Grosvenor Construction are a specialist building conservation company working within the United Kingdom. Their vast wealth of experience ensures that they are firmly anchored within the full spectrum of the historic environment. Quality craftsmanship in all fields is guaranteed due to Grosvenor’s continuous framework of personal development at practitioner and professional levels.

Find Grosvenor Construction in the Heritage Register

Photography by Fotofacade’s Andy Marshall - View profile

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