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Silbury Hill
When Silbury is tunnelled
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Nigel wrote...

>When Silbury is tunnelled and Thornborough is quarried I'm sure you (refering to smallblueplanet) and your dedicated passionate friends will rationalise it and move on...<

Some of you will know by now that I'm a conservator (have been for nearly forty years) and I've watched with sadness as the debate over the future of Silbury has raged this way and that on these pages and elsewhere. Perhaps, as a conservator, I should have said something before now but to be honest I know next to nothing about the conservation of ancient monuments. However, there are certain rules in conservation (the most important of which is a bit like the Hippocratic Oath) that must be observed and must never, <i>never</i> be broken or compromised; it is from the platform of that rule that I offer the following.

The first and most important rule in conservation is the one that says that any treatment to an object, whether that object be an oil painting, a marble statue, a castle or a temple, must take nothing away from the original and must be <i>completely</i> reversible. In the case of Silbury, the idea of cutting a new tunnel, or changing anything that would destroy part of its original structure, is completely and utterly unacceptable from a conservation standpoint. I repeat, completely and utterly unacceptable. There is no way around that rule and those of you who are fighting against the bureaucratic incompetence of those who should know better must quote it at each an every opportunity. Further, for what it's worth, you are not standing alone; behind you are the thousands of members of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic Works who are scattered across the globe and who are working day and night to save mankind's cultural heritage from loss and destruction. There are also the hundreds of conservators belonging to the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation and other similar conservation bodies both here and abroad; I doubt if a single member of any of those bodies would condone the cutting of a new tunnel at Silbury - not a single member.

I'm afraid I do not know enough about the politics behind the decisions being made about the future of Silbury and in a way I do not need to know. All I need is for someone from English Heritage, Heritage Action or any other body to furnish me with indisputable evidence that there are definite plans to contravene this first rule of conservation and I promise I will pull out every stop that I know of to prevent that miscarriage of conservation taking place.

Meanwhile, may I add that I have the utmost respect for everyone, both here and elsewhere, who is passionate about the future of Silbury, Thornborough and other places under threat. But may I also add that we do nothing at all to help save those places by squabbling amongst ourselves.

Littlestone

Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artist Works.


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Littlestone
Posted by Littlestone
30th May 2005ce
23:46

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