Hartsop Hogg House
The Brief
A stitch-in-time repair, doing as little as possible while making sure the building remains standing for generations to come.
Hartsop Hogg House is a remote agricultural building on a steep slope at the foothills of the High Street range. It sits directly beside a public footpath and has become a familiar part of the landscape: a low field barn beneath a tree, with moss and ferns growing across its roof.
The National Trust owns the building, and it remains in use for overwintering livestock and storing food. The Farming in Protected Landscapes programme funded the repair work, which was carried out between August and October 2024.
An early decision was to retain the growth on the roof. The ferns, in particular, had become part of the building’s character, and an investigation of the timber roof structure showed it was relatively dry, with very little decay in the primary timbers or slating battens. Removing the roof covering simply to rebuild it would have involved losing something that did not need to be lost.
Key features
- Farming in Protected Landscapes funded repair project
- National Trust-owned agricultural building
- Existing moss and fern-covered roof retained
- Localised slate and rafter repairs to the north gable
- Masonry repaired and roof structure cross-braced
- Internal floor stabilised and tied into the walls
- Localised underpinning to walls showing outward movement
- Completed October 2024
Minimal intervention with maximum preservation
Where repairs were needed, we worked around the existing roof rather than removing it. At the north gable, slipped slates had allowed decay into the ends of the rafters, so this area was repaired locally.
The masonry structure was repaired and the roof cross-braced to stop the walls deflecting outwards. We also stabilised the internal floor and tied it more securely into the walls so the different parts of the building work together. In places, walls were underpinned where they had begun to rotate outwards.
The aim throughout was a stitch-in-time repair: as little intervention as possible to make sure the building remains standing for at least another hundred years.
On a building like this, we do not want the repair work to announce itself. There should be no heavy hand. It is about retaining the building’s character, and in turn, its character in the landscape. When we leave a site like this, the ideal result is that it looks as though we were never there.
The remote location and difficult access added to the challenge of the job, but the contractor worked closely with us throughout. It is a small project, but one we are particularly proud of.
