Rising from the ashes - Helen Beer meets the team at Clandon Park

11th October 2018

This is an abridged version of an article from the autumn 2018 issue of National Trust Magazine (Autumn 2018 issue)

(Image) ©National Trust Images/Arnhel de Serra

After a fire blazed through Clandon Park in Surrey, Helen Beer meets the team building an exciting new future for the Grade I-listed house

After Clandon Park went up in flames on 29 April 2015, no one knew what the future might hold for the Palladian mansion. Everyone was safely evacuated, but the fire, which was caused by an undetectable electrical fault, raged overnight. By the time Surrey Fire and Rescue Service handed the house back to the Trust after 10 gruelling days helping with the salvage, the majority of its interior had been lost, including the roof and the entire upper floors. However, the solid brick structure of the house remained standing, and the well-rehearsed salvage plan and efforts of the fire service meant some 600 of Clandon Park’s most significant items were saved from the building on the night of the fire. Remarkably, one of the most historically important rooms, the Speakers’ Parlour, was virtually intact. Sections of the historic plasterwork, joinery and fireplaces in some of the ground-floor rooms also survived, as did the extraordinary marble overmantels by Flemish sculptor John Michael Rysbrack. Staff, contractors and volunteers pulled together.

By the autumn, Clandon Park was holding garden open days so people could see the façade of the house for the first time. The following September the team welcomed visitors back inside via a protective walkway through the fire-damaged Saloon, one of the most significant state rooms. Then they extended the walkway into the Marble Hall and the State Bedroom. Last March, the Trust launched an international design competition to find an architectural team to bring Clandon Park back to life, and appointed award winning UK architects Allies and Morrison in December.

This year you can explore even further into the house. There’s a new walkway into the basement and an exhibition about the restoration. It’s a unique chance to visit the house in its current state before the team take Clandon Park into the next chapter of its story.

After the fire

Senior Project Curator Sophie Chessum

Sophie helped with the salvage on the night of the fire. She now advises the project team on all aspects of Clandon Park and its history.

I turned up on the night of the fire with a backpack, food and warm clothes to help with the salvage, and I’ve been here ever since. I had worked as a curator at Clandon Park several years before the fire and I researched and wrote its guidebook. The title ‘curator’ is taken from the Latin ‘to care’. To see everything I had looked after for years destroyed in a puff of smoke will stay in my mind for ever. After the fire the house was full of debris. We started work from the top down, with two cranes removing huge timbers and lead that had fallen in from the roof. The archaeologists then began separating out the ash and putting aside anything that looked like it could be part of the collection or have once been part of the Grade I-listed house. It was a painstaking task, but it felt great when we found something whole. We found a little 14th-century ceramic duck that had fallen two floors and somehow remained intact. After 18 months of hard work, the house was clear.

Since then, I’ve been leading work on a conservation plan, bringing together everything we know about the house to help us plan for its future. I see Clandon Park reopening with beautifully and carefully restored rooms and meaningfully displayed collections. Most of all I want to see people enjoying Clandon Park again.

(Image - ©National Trust Images/James Dobson)

Saved and salvaged

Collections Officer Anna Szilagyi

Anna has the huge job of helping look after Clandon Park’s surviving collection.

I help look after the store where Clandon Park’s collection and architectural salvage, such as the plaster ceiling fragments, are now being kept. My first job was to do an inventory. A volunteer and I went through every box and shelf, checking off over 1,000 objects in two months.

We have managed to identify around a third of the salvaged collection. Its condition varies hugely. Several paintings were cut out of their frames to remove them during the fire, and other items have water and smoke damage. Some of the items have minimal damage but others are so badly burned they are impossible to identify positively. The fire was tragic, but we’re trying to learn as much from it as we can. I have helped create a new display in the basement this year to show people the different types of damage. For example, there’s a big lump of rubble where everything has fused together because of the heat. My favourite salvaged item is a tiny pomegranate-shaped ceramic wine pot. Seeing inside the broken ceramics allows you to appreciate their craftsmanship even more. We now need to make informed decisions about what to do with everything. We are starting a review to look at every item, its conservation needs and how it could be displayed, and, most importantly, its significance to the house, to local people, and the story it tells.

‘Fire and the future’

Longstanding volunteer June Davey

June is a house guide. In 2015 she was awarded the British Empire Medal for her services to heritage in Surrey.

I started volunteering at Clandon Park in 2003. I’d previously worked in museums so volunteering for the Trust felt like a natural step. I started as a room guide, and after a year I began to help with talks, setting up a team to speak to local groups about the history of Clandon Park. Following the fire we started presenting a ‘Fire and the future’ talk, to share what had happened and what we’d be doing next. All the volunteers were absolutely devastated by the fire, but from the beginning Trust staff have shared their plans and made sure we have been involved. I cried for joy when the last Director-General, Helen Ghosh, announced that Clandon Park would be restored. I had a deep love of the house before the fire but knew in my heart that Clandon Park couldn’t be rebuilt as it was, and the new designs have so much potential to create spaces for education, performances and exhibitions.

Overwhelmingly visitors have been positive about the Trust’s plans for Clandon Park. Many people visiting for the first time since the fire are very affected seeing it as it is now. We have visitors returning every year since the fire to track our progress.

The next phase

Architect Paul Appleton

Paul, from Allies and Morrison, is pleased to be part of the team shaping Clandon Park’s story.

It was an unbelievable feeling when we found out we had been appointed. It’s a fascinating project and my colleagues and I all felt we could contribute to something wonderful coming out of the disaster. Seeing Clandon Park for the first time was a shock. It was not so much the damage, but how beautiful the place still was in its bones. I had no idea that it would be so emotionally powerful. We want to capture that spirit and make sure it’s not lost.

Restoring Clandon Park is about as architecturally challenging as it gets. Our design approach was to work out which parts of the building needed to be entirely restored and which could tell Clandon’s story in a different way. The Marble Hall, for example, was a masterpiece before the fire and you can still see this, so the plan is to restore it. But the upper floors, which were totally destroyed, could become something new.

Teamwork and coordination are very important. There will be between five and 10 architects working on the project. Beyond our own firm, there’s a team of engineers, conservation architects and other specialists, and we’ll all be working closely with the Trust. It’s a big responsibility, but it’s the kind of challenge we love.

Learn more about Clandon Park