Learning from the Past: A Review of Treatments carried out to Clunch in 1985

Abstract

Clunch has been widely used as a building stone in the south and east of England since the fourteenth century; it can be subject to significant and severe deterioration principally through a characteristic lamination of the surface. In August 1985 a series of comparative consolidation treatments was undertaken on the clunch of the west elevation of the south stable block at Woburn Abbey. Half of this elevation had been dressed back to behind the decay zone and the other had not; the same treatments were applied to both types of surface. It is rare that the opportunity arises to carry out an assessment of such a variety of treatments, but in 2011 a thorough investigation of the elevation was undertaken. Simple field techniques such as drill resistance, permeability measurements and decay mapping were used to provide some objective measurements of the effect of treatments. This paper describes the results and places them in a wider context of past, current and possible future treatments of clunch.