Surrey Historic Buildings Trust has announced the shortlist for the Surrey Heritage Awards 2022. Six projects have been shortlisted for this year’s awards, which celebrate Surrey’s architectural heritage by highlighting the best recent conservation and restoration projects.
A judging panel led by Dr Seán O’Reilly, Director of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, is currently assessing the shortlisted projects. The winners will be revealed at a ceremony to be held at Brooklands Museum in Weybridge on March 30.
These are the buildings where restoration and repair work has been carried out recently and which are on the short list for the 2022 Surrey Heritage Awards:
Old Well Cottage, Peaslake
This is a distinctive timber-framed 14th century hall house, with original wattle and daub panels, where repairs have been carried out using traditional materials and experienced local craftspeople. Where timber had decayed it was replaced with new oak to exactly the same dimensions. Some of the repairs were carried out using hazel cut from the cottage garden and local woodland.
Mansion House Farm, Crowhurst
A medieval hall house dating from the 15th century, this is a good example of the Surrey vernacular style, with oak beams and hanging tiles. Extensive restoration work to preserve the building has included cleaning the building’s original oak beams to return them to their natural state and repairing structural timbers to ensure that the maximum amount of historic fabric is retained.
Naggs Stable, Loseley Park, Guildford
Built in 16th century and enlarged in the 18th, this is an L-shaped timber-framed outbuilding on the Loseley Park estate that was previously used as the estate’s granary and storehouse. Needing substantial repair and restoration, it has been sensitively converted into an office to secure its long term survival.
Colquhoun Chapel, Brookwood Cemetery
This Gothic-style chapel, made entirely from Bath stone, was built in the mid-19th century as the family mausoleum for the Colquhoun family. Located in a remote corner of the cemetery it had become hidden in rhododendron bushes, so extensive scrub clearance work outdoors was needed, as well as cleaning and repairing internal and external masonry.
St Mark’s Church, Upper Hale
A late-Victorian church, St Mark’s is noted for its stunning wall murals painted by local artist Kitty Milroy, a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art. These murals had deteriorated and faded after a century’s accumulation of dirt, so the local community rallied round to raise the funds for a major project to clean, repair and restore the murals.
The Horton, Epsom
Newly restored as a community space and arts centre, this was originally the chapel of Horton Hospital. Built in 1901, it is one of only a few surviving original buildings in Epsom’s ‘Hospitals Cluster’, much of which has been redeveloped for housing. Under threat, it has been saved by a local community group who set out to rescue the building and preserve its unique architecture.
