Grade 2 cottage, ceiling removal advise ?

[Sarah Ship]

Hello,
We have recently purchased a Grade 2 listed cottage.
It has stood empty for approx a year. In that time a lathe & plaster ceiling in the one bedroom collapsed. We have removed what little remained.
The Conservation Officer is now involved & insisting we replace it as was (although the other bedroom ceiling has been replaced with new timbers & plasterboard, with consent back in 1989). We would prefer to leave it open/vaulted, exposing the original beams as a feature. They are 300 years old & in poor condition, they can't bear weight so we can't walk above them.
Has anyone had experience of doing this with a listed property ? (I've seen it done in listed restaurants & hotels etc)
We are new to working with a listed property & can't find any guidelines anywhere. It appears very much the Conservation Officer's opinion.
Any advise on where to find any 'rules' etc would be appreciated.

 

[Cubist]

Is the listing Grade 2 Star or just G2?

 

[Sarah Ship]

Is the listing Grade 2 Star or just G2?

Hello.
It’s just Grade 2

 

[Cubist]

G2 typically gives you more latitude. Did the CO offer a rationale in support of his/her opinion?

 

[Sarah Ship]

No, just do as she said ‘return to original design’
No dialogue, no explanation.
No acknowledgement of our suggestion/request.

 

[Flyfisher]

I'm not sure if there are any hard and fast rules to find anywhere, and it would be an incredibly difficult task to define any such rules that could be applied acorss the huge variety of things to be considered regarding listed properties. In fact it would be practically impossible.

Without a better understanding of the property in question, it's very difficult to make a judgement on the CO's decision. It certainly IS possible to obtain consent to alter listed properties, after all that's what the LBC process is designed for, but there will be a myriad of things and circumstances to take into account.

In my experience (limited to one very dilapidated G2* property), an early dialogue with the CO regarding repairs and alterations to the property in order to make it suitable for 'modern living' (itself a difficult thing to define) is essential. It's difficult to navigate the fine line between modernising a property to the point of destroying all historic value and preserving all the historic value to the point of making it unfit, or more importantly, un-suited to modern living. Thus, I can't imagine there are many (any?) listed properties with no connection to mains electricity, though of course this can be easily argued to be an addition to the house rather than a loss of historic fabric (unless you wish to argue that gas lamps should be preserved).

In this particular case (the repair of a lath and plaster ceiling), it could be argued that the original historic fabric has been lost through natural decay and poor maintenance and that to reinstate it with lath and plaster would be merely a facsimilie of the original ceiling and that it might be appropriate to make an 'honest repair' using modern materials. The fact that previous repairs of this nature were granted LBC could be a point it's favour But context is also important and if, for example, this argument was extended to every ceiling in the property then it's clear that it would constitute a significant loss of historic fabric and character of the property.

All of which probably only reinforces how difficult these sorts of issues can be when owners and COs end up in confrontation.