Page 23 - Bulletin 7 2003

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But there is another, less tangible loss, one which is so admirably illustrated by
Elliott’s photographs: the loss of character in and around so many buildings that have

survived. True, when newly built, the picturesque homesteads whose undulating
walls, cracked plaster and patched-up thatched roofs were recorded by Elliott must

have looked precisely as crisp, smooth and finished as many houses now criticised as

being ‘over-restored’. Surely, plasterers capable of executing intricate work like
Ida’s Valley gables or the pilasters and pediment of the Koopmans-de Wet House,

must have been capable of finishing off a wall smoothly or a corner plumb and
straight? And surely, the thatchers and joiners of two centuries ago must have

worked at least as neatly as those of today? If care is taken or to restore with the
same materials, skills and techniques as those with which the house was built, the

apparent loss of character will not be real. But restorations of this quality have been

far too rare.

Except for actual demolition, the worst fate – and an unnecessary one – that can

befall an old building is deliberate modernisation; but its wrongness is so self-evident
that alert preservation can sometimes prevent it. More difficult to prevent are what

are glossed over as ‘minor adaptations’ with ‘due consideration’ to the age of the
building: the insertion of French windows at back or sides, or of dormers in the roof,

the replacement of small casement windows by ‘old-type’ sashes for more light, or
the addition of wings ‘in the original style’. But how to prevent owners who actually

go to the trouble of ‘restoring’, often incurring financial sacrifices, but think they can

do so without expert advice? Who actually remove their steel windows, but then put
in the wrong type of wooden sashes? Who ‘improve’ their gables or put on spurious

ones? Who hunt the scrap yards and come home with shutters that do not fit and
therefore have to be fixed to the wall?

Even more insidious, because not directly affecting the buildings themselves, is what

one could term ‘environmental modernisation’: the removal of original vegetation,

tarring of driveways, modern fences, powerlines. The effect of factors such as these
is often very gradual and not always immediately offensive, but it is cumulative and,

after several changes of ownership, can irreversibly destroy the original character of