Questions for the National Trust about Clandon Park
The ceiling of the Marble Hall with stucco by Giuseppe Artari
The fire
• The Fire Investigation Report (FIR) published in November 2015 noted that the fire would not
have spread with the extreme speed that it did had the electrical distributor (ED) been
sufficiently compartmentalised so as to prevent further spread in the event of a fire.1
• The report noted that the National Trust (NT) had been informed of the need to
compartmentalise the ED in an electrical contractor’s report of 2010.2
Therefore:
Why did the National Trust not act on the recommendation of the report of 2010?
Why has the 2010 report not been published?
Were there any other steps identified in this report that were not followed by the Trust?
• The FIR states that on the evening of the fire the fire was discovered by a member of staff at the
Surrey Infantry Museum, then housed in the basement of Clandon Park.3
• The member of staff only discovered the fire upon investigating the ED when his computer ran
out of power. At this stage, the fire appears to have been contained to the ED and the enclosure
housing it.
• Instead of attempting to extinguish the fire himself, the FIR states that he went to a member of
NT staff, who then made the decision preventatively to shut off power to the whole house.4
• By the time that the first firefighters had arrived at the scene at 16:17 and presumably after they
had been called at 16:08, when, judging from the report, the fire was small, the fire had been
detected in the roof, meaning that the fire department’s efforts were by necessity going to be
limited to salvage rather than stopping the progression of the fire.5
Had the member of staff at the Surrey Infantry Museum received adequate fire safety
training? If so, why did he feel the need to approach a member of NT staff. If not, why not?
Why was it that the fire was not detected in the smoke alarm system until after the
emergency services had been called at 16:08 (but before they arrived at 16:17)?
The insurance payout
• When the NT launched a competition to find an architect to rescue Clandon after the fire, it
made clear that the winning architect’s proposals were to include a full restoration of the
principal ground floor rooms of the house: the Marble Hall, the Saloon, and the Speaker’s
Parlour.
• The reason for this was articulated in a letter to the Times written by the NT’s then-Director
Dame Helen Ghosh. In response to suggestions that the money from the insurance payout
would better be spent on another NT property, Ghosh stated that the money would only be paid
by the insurer of Clandon, Zurich Municipal, if the Trust spent it on a restitution. The property,
she said, was only insured for restitution and not for a more minimal approach.6
Why has the insurer seen fit to endorse the minimalist approach that the NT has now
decided to pursue?
• Shortly after Allies and Morrison were chosen as the architects for the project, another company
that had entered the competition, Purcell, was also engaged on the project.7
Why was this decision taken and not a straightforward winner chosen according to the terms
of the competition?
• In 2020, the NT was widely reported in the press as being in the process of suing the contractors
Cuffe PLC and Tuffin Ferraby Taylor inthat had been involved in the installation of a lift at
Clandon about ten years before the fire.8
• According to press reports, the NT, in conjunction with its insurer, alleged that the contractors’
placing of the lift adjacent to the ED had been responsible for the speed with which the fire had
spread throughout the building.
• It was reported in the press that the NT also alleged that the materials with which the lift was
built did not adhere to the relevant fire safety regulations.
• The NT claimed that ‘damage would have been minimal and/or very significantly reduced’ had
the lift been built properly.9
• Defending themselves against these allegations, Tuffin Ferraby Taylor, one of the two
contractors claimed that they were not the first parties from whom the NT had tried to extract
money in relation to Clandon.10
• In court papers quoted in the press, the NT claimed that a ‘conservative’ estimate for the
restitution of Clandon was £115 million. Along with their insurers, they claimed that the
contractors were liable for this.
What was the outcome of this Writ?
Why in 2021 was only £66.3 million paid out by the insurers when the NT had claimed in court the previous year that £115 million was needed?
On what was the estimate of £115 million based?
Which other parties had the NT attempted to extract money from in relation to this claim?
The FIR did not mention the situation of the lift in relation to the spread of the fire. What was the internal report commissioned by the NT that made them conclude that the lift had been responsible for spreading the fire?
The restoration
• Per the FIR report, 95% of Clandon was damaged in the fire.
• Nonetheless, large amounts of material were saved, as was detailed in a number of blogs written
on the NT’s website after the fire.
• Earlier in the restoration process, the NT was boasting of the amount that had been salvaged
from some rooms in Clandon.
o 1,200 of the 3,600 objects in the Clandon inventory were saved.11
▪ 28% of saved and salvaged collection of highest significance.
▪ 28% of considerable significance.
▪ Of remaining objects, 43% given highest condition rating.
▪ Only 8% given a ‘total loss’ rating.
o A blog on the NT website in 2016 stated that given ‘the fact that so many original
features have survived, we believe we should restore the magnificent state rooms on the
ground floor’.12
o In 2016, the Project Curator and Salvage Lead at Clandon stated that ‘we certainly have
enough there [in the Marble Hall] to be able to reconstruct those ceilings and really bring
back those kind of glorious interiors’.13
o In 2017, Chessum wrote that ‘we have thousands of plaster fragments from the Marble
Hall and from the other significant plaster ceilings in the house and we’re gradually able
to assess what has survived [...] there is certainly enough of the wonderful historic
sculpture to reconstruct these beautiful, ornate ceilings’.14
o In 2019, Project Director at Clandon Kent Rawlinson stated that ‘The Trust’s vision for
Clandon is restoring the most important spaces within the building, so really bringing
them back to be as magnificent and sumptuous as they were, especially the iconic
plasterwork piece at the centre’.15
• By 2021, however, the NT had changed its tone.
o ‘Great house laid bare’.16
o In 2022, however, Kent Rawlinson, the Project Director at Clandon stated that ‘given
the scale of the internal loss, we’d essentially be creating replica spaces or decorative
schemes, rather than restoring surviving fabric’.17
Why did the NT reverse its position between 2019 and 2021?
How can it be possible that the NT’s current, scaled-back plans are in excess of the £63 million paid by the insurers when, according to Helen Ghosh, the money would only be paid out for a restitution?18
Did the NT insure Clandon for enough?
Notes:
1 Surrey Fire & Rescue Service, ‘Report of Fire’, 18th November 2015, p. 8
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., p. 2
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 6
6 Helen Ghosh, ‘National Treasure’, The Times, 16th December 2015 [online edition, accessed: 11th September
2022].
7 ‘Allies and Morrison Wins Competition to Restore and Renovate Clandon Park Mansion in Surrey’, Arch Daily, 6th December 2017, https://www.archdaily.com/885005/allies-and-morrison-wins-competition-to-restore-and-renovate-clandon-park-mansion-in-surrey [accessed 12th September 2022].
8 For instance, ‘Clandon Park fire: National Trust insurers seek damages’, BBC News, 13th July 2020 [online
edition https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-53396657, accessed: 11th September 2022].
9 ‘Legal row erupts over cause of fire that gutted Clandon Park’, Building Design, 15th July 2020 [online edition
https://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/legal-row-erupts-over-cause-of-fire-that-gutted-clandon-
park/5107017.article , accessed: 11th September 2022].
10 Ibid.
11 ‘Clandon Park: Assessing the Collection’, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/clandon-park/features/clandon-
park-assessing-the-collection [accessed 11th September 2022]
12 ‘A new life for Clandon’, 18th January 2016, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/news/a-new-life-for-clandon
[accessed 11th September 2022]
13 Sophie Chessum, ‘Clandon Park’s Marble Hall Ceiling’, 6th October 2017,
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/clandon-park/features/clandon-parks-marble-hall-ceiling [accessed 11th
September 2022].
14 Ibid.
15 ‘Meet Project Director Kent Rawlinson at CLandon Park’, 22nd May 2019,
https://www.facebook.com/223432794437944/videos/1624933297651210?__so__=permalink [accessed 11th
September 2022].
16 ‘Discovering the Many Layers of Clandon Park’, 21st April 2021,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pasbhVbDcFI [accessed 11th September 2022].
17 Kent Rawlinson, ‘Celebrating a new chapter for Clandon’, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/blogs/curators-
blog/celebrating-a-new-chapter-for-clandon [accessed 11th September 2022].
18 ‘A New Life for Clandon’, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/news/a-new-life-for-clandon [accessed 11th
September 2022].