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The Trust hosted 160 visitors at Gunns Mill for our contribution to Heritage Open Day on Sunday 15th September 2024.

Visitors were led on guided tours by trustees and admired the repairs to date particularly the amazingly adept carpentry repairs to the trusses of the Bridge House roof.

 Visitors said;
"Very interesting to learn the history of this site that I have driven past many times."

"We had a fantastic time seeing this really interesting building, learning about its history and the decisions that need to be made about its restoration. Being able to go inside the building was great."

"Fascinating and amazing to see how much work has been done since last year"

"Great to have access to this historic building"

We arranged a special visit for members of the Gloucestershire Society for Industrial Archaeology (GSIA) to inspect the progress of our repairs at Gunns Mill, very much a key example of iron working, not just in the Forest or the county, but in the whole country. GSIA has made a generous grant to support our work at Gunns Mill.

Gloucester Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) visited Gunns Mill on its annual "awayday" and were impressed by the extensive repairs to the roof trusses. Members are  seen here hearing about the original workings of the furnace from trustees Kate Biggs and Laura Stevens.

Lancaut – Tidenham Parish Pilgrimage – June 2024

On a lovely Sunday afternoon FoDBPT Trustees joined Rev. David Treharne, Brother Tom Clammer and members of Tidenham Parish Congregation (33 people and five dogs) who gathered in the ruins of Lancaut for their annual pilgrimage service. The tradition was revived in 1996 -the first time since WW2- by Brother Tom Clammer OC, probably the first Cistercian monk to preach here since the Reformation!

Picture Credit Richard Clammer

For their June committee meeting the Trustees, rather than gathering around a kitchen table as usual, assembled at Gunns Mill to inspect the repair works to the roof trusses. Guided by the project structural enguineer, John Topp, we reviewed what had been done to date and admired the quality of the carpentry to these complex elements dating from about 1680. Progress is slow but sure, we are impressed by the skills and care that our contractors, DA Cook, have brought to the project.

On Friday our FoDBPT trustees David Viner, Laura Stevens and Kate Biggs (pictured far left) welcomed the 2024 SPAB Lethaby Scholars to Gunns Mill.

The nine-month programme, aimed at early career architects, surveyors, and engineers, gives Scholars the skills and knowledge needed to work with traditional buildings.

We were so pleased to meet them and show them the unique site, to share the great work taking place and to give them the change to meet the specialist craftspeople and building conservation experts working on Gunns Mills.

If you would like to visit the site too then get in touch.

To find out more about the SPAB Lethaby Scholarship see https://www.spab.org.uk/learning/scholarship

Our contractors, D A Cook are making progress with repairs to the four 1680's roof trusses over the "bridge" . This requires highly skilled work which is being monitored by Historic England, our architect and structural engineer and trustee David Viner.

Again, this year as part of Open Doors Weekend the trust opened up Gunns Mill for group tours of the site lead by trustees.

Over a hundred visitors were talked through the history of the mill, the work of the FoDBPT, and all the progress that has been made so far on the mill.

People from far and wide were pleased to see behind the scaffold. As ever, the event was free, but the visitors donated generously to our funds.

We are so pleased! Our trustees Laura and David received a Heritage Heros award on behalf the volunteers who opened Gunns Mill for visitors on our Heritage Open Day. It was a busy but rewarding day and it turns out we received the greatest number of visitors of any local site

We have had some great news from Historic England who have agreed £204,765 funding towards the next phase of urgent repairs at Gunns Mill furnace.

As carers for one of Britain’s most important industrial heritage sites it is amazing to get funding like this for the repair of the timber frame of the roof of the bridge house, which once protected charcoal and ore from the weather before being loaded into the furnace.

“The repair works to this rare 17th-century bridge house have been carefully planned to take into account its fragility and structural complexity. It will be great to see work getting under way as a first step towards the building being used again in the future.” - Rebecca Barrett, South West Regional Director

The Trust plans to make this part of the building a usable space in the future!

(photo from Historic England)

Trustee Allan Ockenden trimming the wall cappings. Active maintenance is an essential part of the trustees' duties in managing our historic properties. Not only has the project conserved the ancient ruins it has enhanced the landscape and added an interesting stopping point for ramblers along the south bank of the Wye. (link) The Forest of Dean Building Preservation Trust is active in maintaining its stock of historic sites of which Lancaut is an outstanding example.

FoDBTP partnered with Carrington Lime, a local conservation skills training company to facilitate training in lime pointing on the east boundary wall at our Gunns Mill site (link). The participants, most of whom had travelled from the midlands were joined by trust chairman, Sinclair Johnston. After a day of classroom introduction to the principles and initial practice in the training shed, the masonry was raked out and pointed in freshly prepared lime mortar, all under the watchful eye of Ben Kerslake of Carrington. The results were surprisingly good though this is partly due to Ben’s skilful and diligent tidy-up of the completed work. We hope this event may be repeated.

https://m.workplace.com/bbcgloucestershire/videos/gunns-mill/1287578134979371/

As part of Open House Weekend the trust opened up Gunns Mill (link) for conducted tours by groups of visitors lead by trustees. The visitors were fascinated by the history and close up contact with the great variety of original materials and historic features, stone, brick, timber framing, water wheel, furnace chamber, window frames and roof trusses. The newly completed repairs and rebuilding of the north wall to this Scheduled were much admired. As elsewhere the event was free but the visitors contributed generously to our funds.