St Aubyn's Church, Devonport, Devon

Issue
A solemn but elegant structure of 1771, attributed to Charles Rawlinson. The church has suffered bomb damage, inadequate maintenance and the effects of a declining congregation, now numbering fewer than ten. Redundancy is probably inevitable.

Our view
Library use would be a sensible alternative, as it would avoid compromising the strikingly proportioned interior, but we have advised caution on a plan to combine that with provision of a café and continued residual use as a ‘worship space’. Just as importantly, St Aubyn and its future need to be seen in the context of radical changes in Devonport itself: a new town centre is being developed and there are proposals to improve the setting of what remains of the extraordinary collection of buildings at the top of Ker Street, designed by John Foulston in a medley of ancient and exotic styles. The new buildings that are planned opposite Foulston’s surviving legacy must show that they have risen to the challenge; high-quality, considered architecture is needed to act as a foil to the idiosyncrasies across the road. We have not got there yet.

Result
Pending.

Quakers Friars Meeting House, Bristol

Issue
Quakers Friars Meeting House in Bristol was built by the local carpenter, surveyor and developer George Tully around 1750; the Quakers moved out after the Second World War and it was then used by the local authority, who unsympathetically carved up the interior with partitions and false ceilings. These have now been removed, revealing the glory of the expansive interior, now regrettably without its pews (which the council removed) but still with its balcony and Tuscan columns and altogether of some significance. A new owner has now proposed restaurant use. Good practice and the Grade I listing dictated that a conservation plan be drawn up. How to restore access to the gallery was one challenging question – the conservation plan proposed either replacement of a removed stair or a sensitive new stair located under the gallery. Contrary to this, English Heritage recommended insertion of a large T-shaped glass and steel stair in the middle of the building, rising up the centre and diverting to either side to breach the sides of the gallery.

Our view
The effect of this recommendation was threefold: first, to override the conclusion of the conservation plan; secondly, to compromise the spatial integrity of the building by the insertion of a large and very visible modern structure; and third to puncture the fabric of the timber gallery in two places. Following a site visit, we objected.

Result
The local authority deferred to English Heritage and gave permission.

Trewarthenick House, Cornwall

Issue
Having suffered several unsympathetic internal refits in the twentieth century, when it was a care home, Trewarthenick House in Cornwall deserves better fortune in the twenty-first. The house, though remote, is an obvious candidate for conversion back to family home and it is a sign of the continuing robust health of the country house market that a proposal has come forward to do exactly that - and also, remarkably, to rebuild the flanking wings that were demolished in the 1950s.

Our view
The lost wings, if not exactly an afterthought, were certainly a later addition. Humphry Repton had wanted them when he remodelled the house in the 1790s but his scheme was never fully realised and the unbuilt wings were eventually added in 1832 to a design by Hutchens and Harrison. The current proposal envisages wings closer in scale and conception to their design than to Repton’s, for which documentary evidence exists in his 1793 Red Book. The waters are even muddier inside the house, where it was believed, wrongly, that nothing of note survived. Our inspection revealed that the Repton plan form was intact but also that many of his fine doorcases and doors survived. Many of these had been destined for removal. And so, while having no wish to jeopardise the broader project, which in many ways was brave and laudable, we felt obliged to object to the proposed internal alterations. There is no substitute in such cases for really detailed analysis of the architectural history of a building, so that major works are not underpinned by flawed assumptions and false attributions.

Result
Pending