Flint Wall Campaign - TrustNews Summer 1986
This has grown into a Boundary and Garden Wall affair because brick and flint are so often mixed together, but also because what we risk losing is nothing less than one of the most familiar but least acknowledged elements of our heritage. These humble walls, like hedgerows, are an essential part of the English scene and are in their own way masterpieces of craftsmanship which we can ill afford to lose. But half a century of neglect, the rising cost of labour and the disappearance of traditional techniques leads inexorably towards an age of barbed-wire, chain-link and close-boarded fencing. They have their place but not, we insist, as replacements for walls which can still be saved.
Walls, like hedges, need repair and mainten¬ance, and when they have been built in a special and very clever way, they cannot be mended with "chewing gum", as one eminent member of a very responsible body recently suggested, in a facetious and misguided attempt to save money. Mind you, chewing gum might be better than the clumsy use of cement rich mortar, which does almost as much harm as simple neglect.
The first object of our campaign, therefore, is to dispel this ignorance which sees no importance in old walls, and would replace them with fencing, or bodge them up in ignorance of how these things should be done. Trust members can help with this by spreading the word that walls are important and that repairs should be done properly.
The second objective of the campaign is to make sure that the proper knowledge is available to all, whether owner-repairer, odd-jobber or builder. The Historic Buildings Bureau of Hampshire County Council knows most of the answers and will be helpful on the telephone, but we hope to see this extended to more practical help in the form of official wall advisers who could look in and show people what to do and, maybe, hold owners' wall repair courses from time to time, not only for D.I.Y. owners but for those who would like to know how to instruct others. Mean¬while the author of this article has written an owners' guide to wall repair which it hoped that the Trust will publish shortly.
The third objective will be to try and establish a central source of the materials which are no longer available locally, especially an all-important lime pit because slaked lime mortar was the fundamental ingredient of old walls and it cannot be replaced with other mortars for repair work (as opposed to new walls) without storing up more trouble for the future.
And finally, we are campaigning for more direct financial aid to owners who are prepared to do the work properly. In Conservation Areas there may be some hope, but grant money is so short at present that increasingly it can go only to special cases. This makes the indirect financial aid of the remainder of our campaign even more important.