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- The objective of the project was to enhance interest in the town by erecting blue plaques on historically important buildings or sites.
- The team comprised four members: Phoebe Merrick (history), Paul Gardner (architecture and buildings), Jean Denham (text) and Geoff Morris (administration, client liaison, planning permission, purchasing and fitting).
- Funding
The Society provided £1500, The Borough Council (TVBC) £1,000 and the Town Council £500 giving a budget of £3000 in all.
- Preliminary work
The Heritage Officer for the Borough Council, Frank Green, attended the initial meeting and gave advice on the general principles established by English Heritage and TVBC requirements concerning planning permission and method of fixing plaques. All existing plaques in the town (of metal, slate and stone) were to be photographed and placed in the Society's archives.
The team studied how civic societies in other small market towns had managed their schemes. This proved to be very instructive both in terms of materials, design of plaques and information content. Crewkerne in Somerset was studied in detail as it is similar in size to Romsey and has been very successful in adding interest to the town. They had also published a blue plaques trail leaflet. Sidmouth civic society had produced a book illustrated with attractive line drawings which gave further details of their sixty buildings which had plaques. Romsey local history society, LTVAS, may do something similar.
- Some general principles
As a result of the preliminary work above, the team agreed that:
- Plaques should be sited where the area was well attended e.g. on the Heritage Trail, the library, railway station, main shopping areas etc.
- They should be fixed without causing damage to masonry using stainless steel screws and plastic plugs.
- Texts should be succinct and limited to 20-30 words.
- In deciding which building or site should be considered, interest in the building or site should be weighed against proximity to other plaques and signs to avoid clutter.
- Plaques should be evenly distributed as far as practical.
- Materials
Plaques can be made in a number of different ways including aluminium casting, printing on aluminium sheet with anti-graffiti coatings, incised aluminium plates and in the case of Norwich City, made from plastic sheet reinforced with aluminium sheet. The latter had a green finish which, at first glance, had an attractive appearance rather like green slate.
Although it was the most expensive, the team chose cast aluminium with raised lettering because of its professional appearance and durability. It was to be painted a dark blue with raised lettering highlighted in white.
- Design
Life-sized colour photocopies of three different designs were made and shown to a number of groups of people. They were: an oval (portrait mode) dark blue design used by Sidmouth civic society, a rectangular light blue plaque from Romsey and a slate-green circular plaque from Norwich City. The majority choice was in favour of the Sidmouth oval shape and blue colour.
- Selection of buildings and sites and approaches to owners
Eighty buildings and sites were initially noted as being of interest and these were subsequently reduced to 20 in subsequent meetings by weighing interest against the general principles outlined in paragraph 5 above. Owners were approached to see if they were interested in the scheme and, in many cases, if they were prepared to allow the team to look at the deeds of their properties. Owners were very co-operative but there were difficulties with larger organisations. Banks for example tend to lease their buildings from their own property company (sometimes in the north of England) and the property company leases the buildings from private owners. Blue plaques are not uppermost in the minds of this chain of people.
- Suppliers
About 10 suppliers were approached but the one selected, Leander Architectural in Derby, was immediately attractive because of the good designs and reasonable prices. The company has a foundry in Derby and another in Wales. They make the cast iron River Test signs on Middlebridge and on the Stockbridge Road. They also made the Peter Johnson Memorial plaque on the new gates to the south Garth of the Abbey. The company was a pleasure to deal with. Their full address is
Leander Architectural Fletcher Foundry, Hallstead Close,
Doves Hole, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 8BP
- Planning permission
Where listed building planning consent was needed, TVBC required a full application (with five copies including photographs, drawings and site plans) for each plaque. Written permission was obtained from building or site owners to enable the Society to make applications on their behalf. This all went fairly smoothly except for The Dolphin (Bradbeers) where permission had to be obtained from the Secretary of State because the building Grade 2* listed and it took much longer than the others.
- Method of fixing plaques to masonry etc
In other towns, plaques are mostly fixed to masonry by gluing metal spikes (welded on to the back of the plaque) in two holes drilled into masonry. Epoxy resin is used for this purpose. TVBC does not allow this method because of damage to the walls which would be difficult to repair and they require that screws should be fixed into the mortar course rather than brickwork. In Romsey we used stainless steel screws and plastic plugs arranging the location of the screws holes in the plaques to coincide with mortar courses. Leander Architectural was happy to go along with that. Cross-head screws were used and these were filled with car body filler and painted blue with matching paint supplied by Leander.
The plaque for the URC graveyard was fixed to the railings using stainless steel bolts and a pair of steel backplates (supplied by Iron Art in Portersbridge Street ) that were powder coated for minimum maintenance. The plaque itself was backed by a blank plaque base to add strength. Slots were made in the rim of the blank to engage with the railings and to prevent the plaque from rotating. Nuts were sealed with ‘Loctite’ and painted black like the railings.
- Purchasing
Size of plaque, colour (pantone 287), number and location of screw-holes and the texts were specified to Leander Architectural who responded with prices, delivery and plans showing the layout as in the example to the left.
Following agreement on the layout of the text, an order was placed and delivery followed in approximately five weeks.
- Ownership
The Society and the two Councils agreed to relinquish their interest in the plaques once they had been supplied and fixed. All owners have been informed of this decision.
- Texts
Fourteen plaques were erected in all. This is probably enough for a small compact town like Romsey. Their texts are are shown in the table on the next page.
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