Consent is the design team’s job, and it comes first
Listed building consent is obtained by the client through the appointed architect and heritage consultant, and it is a criminal offence to carry out works affecting special interest without it. As a contractor our position is straightforward: we build what has been consented, we raise anything on site that appears to depart from it, and we do not vary listed fabric on the strength of a site conversation. Eternal carries out construction. Heritage and conservation matters are dealt with by the appointed consultants.
Record before you touch
On a listed building the first site operation is documentation: photography of every affected element, measured records of mouldings, cornice profiles, staircase details and joinery sections, and a schedule of what is to be retained, repaired, removed or replaced. If a profile has to be matched later, the only reliable evidence is the record made before demolition, and taking a physical template off an original moulding costs half an hour.
Protection is designed, not improvised
Retained fabric is boxed, wrapped and cased before any adjacent work starts — staircases, chimneypieces, doors, architraves, decorative plaster and original glass. Protection is inspected as often as the work itself. On a listed interior the cost of accidental damage exceeds the value of the operation that caused it, and some of it cannot be replaced at any price.
Materials and methods
Lime mortars, lime plasters, natural slate, leadwork, timber sash windows and traditional glass behave differently from their modern equivalents and generally need to be worked by people who use them regularly. Cement pointing on soft historic brickwork causes damage that takes years to show. Where a consent specifies matching an existing detail, we prepare samples and get them approved by the design team before proceeding to the main run.
Reversibility and services
Modern services are the hardest part of any listed refurbishment. Routes are planned to use existing voids, redundant flues and later fabric rather than cutting original structure, and interventions are made reversible where they can be. Every chase, penetration and fixing into historic fabric is recorded, so that the next person to open the building up knows what is original and what is ours.