Holm sweet Holm

13th October 2006

• Steep Holm

JUST off the coast of Weston lies a small unassuming island called Steep Holm.
Looking at it from the seafront it looks like very little happens there at all.
But for some time now, work has being going on to restore the buildings on the island which were falling into rack and ruin.
Here former Weston GP Howard Smith, the author of the popular Notes from an Even Smaller Island in the Weston & Somerset Mercury, describes the hard work that has gone into the Steep Holm restoration project.

ANYONE who has followed my occasional Weston & Somerset Mercury articles on Steep Holm over the past few years will know about the ongoing saga of repair work to the island’s Victorian barracks.

Steep Holm was taken over in 1974 (and eventually bought in 1976) by the Kenneth Allsop Memorial Trust to be maintained as a nature preserve in remembrance of the campaigning environmental journalist who had inspired so much affection.

Back then, even though nearly 30 years had passed since the Second World War, the island was in a sorry state.

The detritus of war was everywhere: rusting ammunition silos, caved in Nissen huts, decaying concrete. In their book Steep Holm, Stan and Joan Rendell describe the barracks as having a roof with missing slates, windows and doors smashed, rotten rafters, peeling paint and plants growing merrily in the guttering.

Rubbish and clutter had to be cleared and made safe. Many of the Victorian gun emplacements were covered with rubble and had virtually disappeared - clearing the sites revealed them for the first time since the 1930s. These emplacements were later to become scheduled as Ancient Monuments.

• A Huge Project

For the first few years of the trust, a lot of effort went into restoring the island’s 1832 inn, which had been partially demolished by the army during the Second World War to make way for a winched supplies railway.

Sadly, this project eventually ran out of steam when it became clear that keeping the building dry was going to be an impossibly difficult task - well beyond the resources of the trust. It also became clear that the barracks, which had become the island’s visitor centre, was in dire need of major refurbishment.

The earlier, patchwork repairs to the roof were failing. In 2000, island wardens Chris Maslen and Jenny Smith, who were by then spending extended periods living on the island, decided to take on the re-roofing of the barracks themselves.

This was a huge project and one that was never going to be undertaken by a contractor at a price the trust could afford.

• A Swimming Hedgehog

First of all, scaffolding (which had been found in the grounds of a house near Weston and donated by the owner!) had to be brought across from the mainland.

Two trailers of poles were transported to Knightstone Harbour and loaded into Chris’ boat Skylark.

The boat took on the appearance of a swimming hedgehog as it made its way across the water to Steep Holm.

Arriving on the beach at high water allowed 30 minutes of unloading time - a desperate race against the falling tide to get the ironwork above the tide line, with enough time to spare to get back into Knightstone.

Somehow these things were achieved: through a combination of determination and bloody-mindedness.

• Honda Load Carrier Number 2

Throughout the winter and Spring of 2000/01, Skylark was pressed into service. After the scaffolding, timber, often in lengths of up to 17ft, had to be transported.

hen the tide suited and with longer days, it was possible to beach Skylark for the day and unload at a more relaxed pace.

It was around this time the trust purchased a second Honda load-carrier (the first appeared worn out and close to collapse - needless to say, in 2006, it’s still going!) which made the task of hauling all this stuff to the top of the island a little easier.

By the beginning of summer, with the help of Dave Wallace, Mike Prangle and Jenny’s brother Mark, much of the roofing materials, including the slates, had arrived at the barracks - nearly six tons in all.

• Re-roofing under way

Once the scaffolding had been put up along the building’s south side, a Second World War chimney was taken down to below the roof line.

Broken slates and rotten timbers, including rafters, were removed and replaced - all this going on despite the breaks for visitor days when, somehow, the barracks were always clean, tidy and welcoming.

Chris and Jenny continued working on the roof, with the occasional help of Mark, right through until mid-December by which time they had completed re-slating the south-facing side of the barracks’ western block.

• Electricity at last!

During 2002, Skylark was pressed into further delivery service as additional slates and timber were brought to the island. About this time, life was made simpler for Jenny and Chris when trust member John Watts donated a diesel powered generator to supply reliable electricity! No more night-time oil-lamps.

Towards the end of the year, repairs to the main barracks’ roof were complete, but already work had started on the smaller eastern block whose roof was in a very sorry state.

This building, which had originally served as a kitchen and storerooms, was now earmarked to become an education and display area. By mid-December, Chris and Jenny had succeeded in making the eastern block watertight with slates in position within a few rows of the roof’s ridge.

 
• Barracks weatherproof

By early summer 2003, the important roof work was complete and the final ridge tiles were cemented into place on May 28.

Now it was time to organise and submit the trust’s application for a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The trust had decided that to complete the barracks’ restoration, all the south-facing windows and doors would have to be replaced.

These windows had been partially bricked up in 1941 when the barracks had been reoccupied by the army. It had made the main hall a gloomy place with the views out over Bridgwater Bay completely obscured. The doors were just plain worn out.

• Lottery Application

Most of the complicated business of the lottery application was carried out by Joan and Stan Rendell with Chris Maslen’s support. This required photographs, drawings and files (totalling over 200 sheets) for the lottery commission, as well as a less formidable planning application to North Somerset Council.

It was all sent off in February 2005. Meanwhile, Chris and Jenny carried on with work to the barracks’ various, adjoining, flat roofs using a fibreglass membrane to make them weather proof.

They also re-slated a small storehouse which stood separate to the east of the barracks blocks - it had been decided that this would become ‘the generator house’ to accommodate Big Bertha, a 1950s diesel engine restored by John Watts. Bertha, made by R L Lister of Dursley, Gloucestershire, had previously pumped well water to the village of Ebbesbourne Wake, near Salisbury.

• Success!

To our delight, in April 2005, we heard that our Heritage Lottery Fund application had been successful: £31,400 towards the windows, doors and education centre - an amount that had to be matched by the trust’s own fund-raising.

Very soon after, a grant of £9,920 was made by the Weston Building Trust to pay for the barracks’ new English oak doors. During July, the doors, made by Shapet Joinery of Bristol, were brought to Steep Holm on Skylark - I remember them stacked tenderly in the barracks, and the sweet smell of freshly finished wood.

They were hugely heavy and it took a posse of volunteers to fit them in place. Back in Weston, David Huish’s joinery was busy making the eight sets of sash windows and, in early September, I was accompanying them to the island on Skylark - and contributing a certain number of thumbprints to the soft putty.

Some weeks later, David Huish made the same journey a few times to fit the windows - Chris Maslen reported that ‘They look great and are working perfectly.’

• The Best of Celebrations

I was able to get to the island a short time after the installation and the effect of sunlight streaming through the eight foot high windows was dazzling.

They face due south and capture most of the day’s sunshine while, at the same time, providing the wonderful panorama across Bridgwater Bay to the west Somerset coast and the Quantock Hills - which had been blocked out for so long.

Now, in September 2006, the whole restoration project is approaching a kind of conclusion - although in Steep Holm’s fierce environment wear and its repair is unceasing. Big Bertha has arrived and is chugging away, contentedly, in her own generator house.

The walls of the East Block have dried out and have been painted. It’s light and bright, and will soon receive the display cases and cabinets that will help tell Steep Holm’s long story.

It is now 30 years since the Kenneth Allsop Memorial Trust was able to buy the island - completing the restoration of the barracks has been the very best of anniversary celebrations.

• Howard Smith’s Weston & Somerset Mercury Steep Holm articles: Notes from an Even Smaller Island, are being brought together as a book, beautifully illustrated with colour pencil drawings by Rosie Smith. The book will be available at local bookshops from mid-November and all proceeds will go to support Steep Holm.

• Aboard 'Skylark'

• Chris Maslen on the zigzag path.

• John Watts and Big Bertha.

• Door work.

• East block with new door and windows.

• Fitting the doors.

• New doors for the Master Gunner's quarters.

• September sunset.

• The Barracks from the sea.

• The Barracks' terrace.

• Winching the windows.

• Tree mallow along the zigzag path.

• Unloading 'Skylark'