Conversion of Traditional Buildings Part 1: Principles and Practice
Illus 3.8 Category B listed former Victorian railway station converted to a variety of uses, including tearoom, shop and tourist information centre (Photo: D Urquhart).
Most changes of use are from the more usual masonryclad buildings constructed from loadbearing stone walls. They may be framed buildings with frames formed from cast iron, wrought iron, mild steel (or a combination of these) or reinforced concrete beneath a stone or brick cladding. These often respond well to changes of use in which non-traditional approaches to some elements may be appropriate (Swailes 2006).
3.1.4 Other structural systems Other structural materials encountered in historic buildings are: • cast-iron beams, commonly early to late C19, • cast-iron columns, commonly late C18 to early C20, • wrought iron, commonly mid to late C19,
3.2 Traditional materials and components
• mild steel, late C19 onwards, • filler-joist floors, late C19 to early C20,
3.2.1 Stone walls
• flitch beams combining timber and iron, late C18 to mid C19,
The traditional wall in Scotland is of rubble because it was the cheapest local material available for building masonry walls of all kinds. For more important buildings or façades, ashlar masonry was used, which may have a polished, stugged, droved or broached finish.
• reinforced concrete. Many C20 buildings were constructed of reinforced concrete and a relatively small number of these are listed as of architectural or historic interest. Unfortunately, reinforcement corrosion is common, principally associated with carbonation, which causes substantial spalling of the concrete. Dealing with this problem is outside the scope of this book and specialist advice should be sought.
A comparison of typical traditional and modern wall construction methods is shown in Illus 3.10 and 3.11, and the principal differences are summarised in Table 1. Traditional construction in the table refers to sandstone and similar porous stones. Walls constructed from stones that are non-porous, such as granite and whinstone,
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