National Trust - Penrhyn Castle

[009 micro modeller]

On social media (it’s the Narrow Gauge Enthusiasts Group on Facebook but not sure I can post screenshots here as they’re not my photos) some photos have appeared showing a new display area/demonstration line being constructed a short distance away from the old stables, replacing the previous one in the courtyard (and looking like it will be similar, i.e. a set of sidings for shunting demonstrations rather than a single, longer line). It’s potentially a bit concerning that it’s less sheltered, although to be fair I’d imagine the stuff displayed outside will mainly be the wagons that were previously outside in the courtyard anyway (others have said similar in comments on the post mentioned). I can’t quite work out the logistics of how visitors move around and experience the display as a whole, given the distance to the stables where Charles will presumably stay (unless they’re constructing a new display building for it as well - but that seems a bit unlikely). The Ruston diesel seems to still be on site - was this ever stored under cover?

[eldomtom2]

On 15/03/2024 at 22:08, 009 micro modeller said:

Indeed, and I don’t think there is either. The issue I have with some of the more hysterical attempts at “journalism” on this subject is that they don’t seem to want to actually engage in any debate on said definition, or understand why such a debate might exist. I get a similar impression from reading some of the articles opposing the reinterpretation of country houses, research into colonial links and so on - when you get to the root of it, some of this opposition just seems to be rejecting any kind of new research that complicates or challenges previous narratives, even on subjects that aren’t seen as very controversial. Historians have always ‘rewritten history’ in some way or other, and to be honest I find it quite sad that anyone who claims to care about a historic site would not wish to see it researched, explored and written about from the widest range of possible angles.

Hmm, there's a fair bit I'd like to respond to here.

 

"The issue I have with some of the more hysterical attempts at “journalism” on this subject is that they don’t seem to want to actually engage in any debate on said definition, or understand why such a debate might exist." - In all honesty, the organisations they're criticising rarely present it as a debate either...

 

"some of this opposition just seems to be rejecting any kind of new research that complicates or challenges previous narratives, even on subjects that aren’t seen as very controversial." - I think this raises the question of what is the subject and how it is supposedly not seen as "controversial".

 

"I find it quite sad that anyone who claims to care about a historic site would not wish to see it researched, explored and written about from the widest range of possible angles." - I think this statement fundamentally misunderstands the nature of historiography. New perspectives are not merely added to old ones; frequently they replace them, and the old perspectives are deemed invalid. This is even more so the case when comes to things like museums, which rarely if ever deliberately present multiple historiographical perspectives without presenting one as more correct than others. In this context one can understand how different historiographical perspectives can be seen as a threat.

 

On 15/03/2024 at 22:08, 009 micro modeller said:

Clandon Park is possibly relevant here (but bear with me) - the National Trust wanted to conserve it in its damaged state, preserving what was left of the original material and showing the underlying construction of the house. The Restore Trust wanted to try and restore it as far as possible to its condition before the fire. Perhaps not one of their more headline-grabbing or topical moments (unlike their opposition to the Colonial Countryside project, for instance), and not an especially unreasonable position to take (Uppark was restored, after all), but for me the symbolism of the Restore Trust’s take on this is interesting. Not wanting to show how (or by whom?) the country house was constructed, papering over the history and making it look nice, and prioritising giving visitors what they’ve come to expect over the conservation of the remaining original material - only in a more literal sense than usual.

This is an interesting attitude to take on a railway enthusiast forum. The railway preservation movement, with very rare exceptions, is very big on cosmetically restoring stuff to its "original" condition, ensuring modern-day extensions to heritage buildings are in keeping with the style, and other activities of that like that academics tend to take a dim view of.

Therefore by making fairly sweeping speculation about motives you are also implicating the railway preservation movement here.

[Wheatley]

7 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

This is an interesting attitude to take on a railway enthusiast forum.

I dont think it's particularly controversial to point out that there's a fundamental conflict between conserving surviving historical material so it can be studied in detail, and playing with it.  Let's not kid ourselves, the latter is essentially what the heritage railway industry is about. 

 

In most cases it does no real harm, if half the Class 37s currently preserved go for scrap then future historians will still have double figures to try to make head or tail of, but where something is truly unique and truly representative  (not just a bit unusual or slightly different to the other 34) then surely it is right that it is conserved 'as is' rather than stripped and half the bits replaced just to get another one running again. For a few years, until it needs major repairs and goes back in the scrap line to re-await its turn for re-restoration. 

Edited March 20 by Wheatley

[Nearholmer]

Yes, as I argued way back up thread, railway heritage is way over represented in the “available history offering” at the moment.

 

200 years (in practice more like 50/200 years) of the history of one particular family of technology and associated social history is represented hugely, and largely in a way that doesn’t accurately convey the reality of how things (beyond individual objects) actually were “back in the day”, and very poor provision of contextual interpretation of many aspects.
 

If you compare it with, say, coastal and inland-waterway shipping, or horse-drawn road transport, each of which has a far, far longer history, and has made huge social impact, it’s kinda ridiculous at an historical portrayal level. Those other forms of transport have only scattered representation, and barely any “re-enact it every weekend” participation.

 

We could afford to loose a very high proportion of railway heritage, yet still be able to give a balanced/proportionate historical portrayal, ditto gigantic country houses.

 

But, both make for a jolly fine day out, and for the volunteers involved a really brilliant hobby, so we have over-representation.

[009 micro modeller]

7 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

New perspectives are not merely added to old ones; frequently they replace them, and the old perspectives are deemed invalid.

In some cases, and admittedly I’m thinking more of archaeology here, new research actually does prove old perspectives to be invalid by showing that previous understandings of a topic were incomplete. Not sure this entirely applies to the National Trust examples though as the information was in some cases always available but has been ignored by people who are not interested in it, or (more insidiously) who would prefer that others do not dwell on certain aspects of history.

 

8 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

In this context one can understand how different historiographical perspectives can be seen as a threat.

What is it a threat to exactly? Particularly in the National Trust context I mentioned above.

 

8 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

New perspectives are not merely added to old ones; frequently they replace them, and the old perspectives are deemed invalid.

You seem to be arguing from the point of view that museum professionals and academic historians are not aware of the issues around this and the possible limitations of such an approach, when in a lot of cases they are. Look up the term ‘authorised heritage discourse’ for more on this (the point being perhaps that people seem to feel threatened because their partial view of history and the people and stories it centres on are no longer quite as ‘authorised’ or ‘official’ as they once were). As for ‘fundamentally misunderstanding historiography’ that’s what people are doing when they make outraged claims about the supposed ‘rewriting of history’ as if that’s not what’s been going on for years: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n23/richard-j.-evans/short-cuts

 

8 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

This is an interesting attitude to take on a railway enthusiast forum.

 

1 hour ago, Wheatley said:

I dont think it's particularly controversial to point out that there's a fundamental conflict between conserving surviving historical material so it can be studied in detail, and playing with it. 

It’s not particularly controversial (indeed, in the case of Rocket - the original one - for example, I think it would be hugely controversial if someone now suggested restoring it to working order). It’s perhaps a bit unfair to just describe it as ‘playing’ though.

 

8 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

The railway preservation movement, with very rare exceptions, is very big on cosmetically restoring stuff to its "original" condition, ensuring modern-day extensions to heritage buildings are in keeping with the style, and other activities of that like that academics tend to take a dim view of.

Therefore by making fairly sweeping speculation about motives you are also implicating the railway preservation movement here.

I wasn’t making any sweeping speculation about motives in general, merely observing that in the specific case of the Restore Trust it fits in well with the motivations that already seem to be there. I’ve explained above how it’s different from what heritage railways do (so not ‘implicating’ anyone) but there’s another important difference which is that the restored rooms in most National Trust houses are now not used (just looked at in a lot of cases), while the point of a heritage railway station is generally to recreate the experience of travelling by rail in the past (though sometimes only approximately given other constraints), which entails restoration to an appropriate condition (or complete reconstruction, if the original buildings were demolished). When I visited Chinnor station I thought it was superb, and it looks almost exactly like it does in old photos - but it’s not the original building, which was demolished during the line’s freight only period. The replica building is vastly better than the available alternatives of inauthentic or none at all. There’s even a parallel with experimental archaeology in the construction of replica buildings and operation of a railway, so it’s not necessarily something that ‘academics tend to take a dim view of’.

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

200 years (in practice more like 50/200 years)

This is an interesting project, in terms of representing a very early form of railway: https://www.1722waggonway.co.uk

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

largely in a way that doesn’t accurately convey the reality of how things (beyond individual objects) actually were “back in the day”, and very poor provision of contextual interpretation of many aspects.

There are some railways that do this (either with commentary or interpretation panels inside coaches in some cases), but admittedly the kind of interpretation seen in a typical museum is rarer on heritage railways. In some cases it might be that it is easier to do in the more controlled environment of a static museum.

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

If you compare it with, say, coastal and inland-waterway shipping, or horse-drawn road transport, each of which has a far, far longer history, and has made huge social impact, it’s kinda ridiculous at an historical portrayal level. Those other forms of transport have only scattered representation, and barely any “re-enact it every weekend” participation.

Those two examples are interesting because there are preserved canal boats and horse-drawn vehicles, but they are usually more of a private hobby (a bit like classic cars) - possibly a consequence of the canal and road network being publicly open in a way that railways aren’t?

[009 micro modeller]

5 hours ago, Wheatley said:

In most cases it does no real harm, if half the Class 37s currently preserved go for scrap then future historians will still have double figures to try to make head or tail of, but where something is truly unique and truly representative  (not just a bit unusual or slightly different to the other 34) then surely it is right that it is conserved 'as is' rather than stripped and half the bits replaced just to get another one running again.

I’m reminded a bit of object handling and the objects used for it. Most handling objects are either duplicates of something in the ‘main’ collection, or replicas. The replicas might be used where the original object is either very old and valuable and/or fragile, or where original objects are unsafe for the public to handle, as with some objects that contain asbestos. But going back to the ones that are real but duplicates, the general idea is that a genuine artefact (where available and safe to use for object handling) is preferable to a replica. There’s always some risk that they will be damaged during an object handling session, and it’s obviously a higher risk than for stuff that’s just locked in a case and very occasionally handled by collections staff. But where there is another example preserved in the main collection (often in better condition) it doesn’t matter so much if the handling object is at risk of damage.

 

Obviously this isn’t a completely transferable point because it would require that locomotives that are unique survivors are not steamed and have replicas of them built instead, or that there were two examples preserved (one static, one operational), which clearly isn’t feasible. I don’t think it applies directly to large buildings (like National Trust properties) either, but the point when I mentioned Clandon Park was about whether there is much value in creating a pastiche of what was there previously, especially when by doing so you pass up the chance to show the underlying construction of the building. To bring it back on topic it might apply to Kettering Furnaces No. 3, which I gather is currently in a very original condition. You can also preserve original material that is replaced rather than just throwing it away.

[KingEdwardII]

On 20/03/2024 at 08:59, 009 micro modeller said:

There’s even a parallel with experimental archaeology in the construction of replica buildings

Hell, there has been a lot of effort expended on the recreation of some ancient buildings, such as at Butser Ancient Farm. And it is most certainly experimental, since there are only faint traces of many of the originals on which to base the new works. Railway preservation/recreation is largely based on solid evidence that is immediately to hand.

 

Yours, Mike.

[009 micro modeller]

5 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

Railway preservation/recreation is largely based on solid evidence that is immediately to hand.

I agree, perhaps with the exception of something like the Steam Elephant at Beamish, apparently based largely on a painting of such a loco and involving some experimentation to understand how it was actually built - other than that the fact that all of railway history is fairly recent, in the grand scheme of things. I think there’s also a replica early waggonway (even earlier than their Pockerley one) being constructed at Beamish that probably falls more in that category than conventional railway preservation. In this context though I wouldn’t necessarily read as much into the word ‘experimental’ as I would usually - when it’s in a public museum (rather than academic research) context, it seems to be more about demonstrating how people lived as a way to educate visitors about it.

 

I was generally just trying to head off the argument that (paraphrasing) ‘heritage railways are “playing trains” and there isn’t much historical/educational value to that’, which is the opposite extreme from ‘everything should always be restored to working order, regardless of the historical value of retaining it in it’s current condition’.

[KingEdwardII]

It has been interesting to observe the heritage railways initially start by reviving existing lines, locos and rolling stock and then extend to the re-creation of the same. Many later lines are complete rebuilds, such as Swanage and the GWSR, where the originals had been completely removed. Efforts such as the re-creation of Broadway station and the building of Tornado and Lady of Legend are huge efforts for amateurs to undertake - as have been restorations to working order of wrecks such as my own favourite King Edward II.

 

I think that it is valuable to restore items to working order, although I can agree that some historic originals might be best left as they are, with modern replicas being created to show what they would have looked like in working order.

 

Equally, it is invaluable to have re-creations of past structures, such as the houses at Butser or the crannog at Loch Tay. Only by having such constructions "in the flesh" can we really appreciate how our ancestors lived.

 

The big arguments surround the compromises that get made - working items in particular have to conform to modern regulations and this means that they often must be modified from the original. Even simple things like the track on restored lines is now often unhistoric concrete sleepered flat bottom rail - because that is the cost effective solution in the modern age. Lots of tricky choices!

 

Yours, Mike.