An exercise in conservation

Christopher Booker

Last week I wrote about the campaign to save Mentmore Towers, and began to ruminate on some of the deeper questions raised by 'the great mania for conservation presently sweeping the world.' I also said that I would continue this week by reporting on one of the most 'extraordinary conservation scandals' of the post-war years, and one which, unlike Mentmore, has received surprisingly little attention from the press.

In a sense my story begins exactly 150 years ago, in 1827, when the first stone was laid of the most ambitious engineering project London had ever seen. Under the direction of the great engineer Thomas Telford, a vast area of more than 1,250 mean little houses just beyond the Tower of London had been razed to the ground (and the 11,500 inhabitants scattered to the winds). Here, over the next two years, rose the first and finest of the great new docks which were to lay the foundations of London's nineteenthcentury prosperity as the richest port in the world.

The centrepiece of the new St Katharine Dock was a group of three great cavernous and colonnaded brick warehouses, designed partly by Telford and partly by the architect Philip Hardwick (later of Euston Arch and City Club fame). No one who ever saw these majestic buildings looming out of a London fog round their ten-acre basin could dispute that, along with the Albert Dock in Liverpool, they were 'the finest complex of nineteenth-century dock buildings in Europe.' And although they sustained some damage during the Blitz, their unique importance was rightly recognised after the war when they were listed as being of outstanding 'architectural and historical importance.'

In 1968, St Katharine Docks were closed down, and it was agreed that the Port of London Authority should sell the site to the Greater London Council for a mere £1.5 million (slightly less than the entire project had cost to build in 1827). The reason the figure was so negligible was partly that it was planned that a large part of the site should be used for local authority housing, and partly that it was recognised that any future developer would have to spend a considerable amount of money in preserving the unique dock buildings (although, at the last minute, the PLA withdrew one of the listed warehouses from the sale).

Indeed, in their brief to prospective developers in January 1969, the GLC stated that 'the retention of the listed historic buildings is considered desirable, wherever possible'—and of these there were only three, known as 'A,' 'B' and 'C' warehouses. 'C' was the one retained by the PLA.

By November 1969, the winner of the

seven firms which tendered for the site was the giant construction firm of Taylor Woodrow—who produced a highly imaginative scheme for the rehabilitation and redevelopment of the dock, including nearly, 400 luxury flats and 'fishermen's cottages, 300 council flats, a yachting marina, fourteen restaurants, a chapel on a concrete peninsula, a 'theatrevision complex' of cinemas, theatre and TV studios, and, in the largest and finest of the listed ware'

houses, a 'British Export Centre.'

The only snag for conservationists was that Taylor Woodrow also proposed the demolition of 'A' warehouse, to make waY for the third largest hotel in London. Bat this seemed a fair price to pay for such an otherwise sensitive scheme—and by the end of 1970, all planning approvals had beeh received, the bomb-damaged 'A warehouse had been burnt down for the benefit or a film company reconstructing the blitz, and, work on the huge £22 million scheme hiu begun. Then, in January 1972, Taylor Woodrow bought from the PLA (again at a highlY advantageous price) the last remaining corner of the site, including 'C' warehouse. The PLA had made informal inquiries froln the relevant authorities as to whether theY would ever get permission to demolish this listed building, and were told 'no.' Taylor Woodrow, however, were more determined' and almost immediately their plans for St Katharine Dock (which they Were already talking of as a 'World Trade Centre') underwent an astonishing transformation. They applied to the planners 101'1 permission to put up the largest corn mercia development ever seen in Britain, more than a million square feet in all, involving among other things the demolition of 'C' warehouse. Taylor Woodrow were ob‘:ously sensii tive of the storm which such a proposa might arouse. Their promotional literature still continued to carry pictures of how the, scheme would look 'on its comPletion,t showing 'C' warehouse still in place.' behind behind the scenes, a first snag arose wile° the awestruck Tower Hamlets Plahnfr: insisted that they could not approve suc",,,colossal development, even for ,Woriu Trade Centre' use, unless Taylor Woodr°vii managed to get an 'office developrnerl permit' from the government. A few months later, in April 1973, a rivree serious threat arose. In two articles thif Sunday Times, Bennie Gray and nlYs,e t revealed for the first time in detail just wnad was going on at St Katharine Dock, ah that Taylor Woodrow might well be ablVt: to pull off the most remarkable and POP ,. able coup of Britain's entire Post -wt property boom (then just reaching its latstil dizzy height). The articles, coinciding the GLC elections and the great'arl'a developer backlash' of 1973, provoked tremendous row. The new GLC Lad leadership refused to support Taylor W°°_,t row's application for an office developnl% permit, and called in the whole World Trau Centre scheme for review. By September 1973, the entire project seemed to be grind

ing to a halt. Three hundred men and thirty architects were laid off. And on the night of 4 November, a mysterious fire gutted a fifth of '13' warehouse (a man was later jailed for arson).

Finally, Taylor Woodrow hit back. First they effectively managed to silence their most relentless critics, by tying up Bennie ,Gray and myself for nearly two years in a libel action of Kafkaesque absurdity. Secondly, they embarked on anextraordinarily effective campaign of wooing the rest of the press to all the wonderful things they were doing in the name of 'conservation' at St Katharine, such as restoring two

Warehouses which had not originally been

listed. They even published a special booklet entitled Conservation, making great play

,with the fact that the 'splendid' B warehouse Pavilion,' as it was now called, would be even more carefully restored than had been Planned in 1970—and from The Times to the Evening Standard, the press lapped it up. Behind this smokescreen, by February 1975 Taylor Woodrow had been given all the relevant permissions for the demolition of the second of the three original listed buildings, 'C' warehouse, although only on condition that materials from the building

'B,' be used to help in the restoration of B,' which still stood as the centrepiece of the entire 'conservation exercise.' By 1976, Taylor Woodrow were ready for the final stage. Last September they put out Yet another remarkable document. It opened with a platitude from Mao Tse-tung that 'we should make the old serve the new' (a

curious text for such a capitalist enterprise

,to quote). It went on to compare 'B' warehouse to 'a brontosaurus.' It was 'rotted.' It

Was :Partly burnt.' Social historians may ,s3Y it is evocative of a period that is best 1°rgotten.' It must be the first time in history that anyone has gone to the expense of producing an entire glossy booklet simply with the Purpose of enabling him to pull a historic building down.

But it has done the trick. Within months, approval for the complete demolition of 'B

warehouse had passed the GLC planners nd historic buildings experts. In December the Tower Hamlets. And any day now h final assent is expected from Mr Peter 'Bore and the Department of the Environ

itent,

w in other words, in less than a decade, pat was originally hailed as the best way • saYing 'the finest complex of dock build,g8 in Europe' has evolved, step by tortuous

'_ie13 i , nto a triumphant plan for their '°InPlete destruction (although Taylor ‘,.

the continue to point with pride to !ne three buildings they have restored, 'ncluding a footbridge by Telford, which

have now been listed'). To anyone who has ',10wed the twists and turns of this remark!Die story, it leaves a pretty nasty taste in the in, outh. The developers themselves have h_,one nothing less than was their commercial uhty: they have sought to maximise their profits. and to use all the tricks of public relations to further that end. The GLC on the other hand comes out of the story appallingly at every stage, financially (with a ground rent of a pitiful £165,000 a year), as planners, and as the supposed guardians of our 'architectural heritage.' The conservationists (with the gallant exception of Dan Cruickshank of the Architects Journal) have either been bamboozled, or just remained silent.

Yet once again, in the end, the deeper questions intrude: what else really could have been done to save the great warehouses of St Katharine Dock ? What do we save buildings for when they have survived the purpose for which they were originally put up? Why today should we be so worried to protect so many buildings which, even fifty years ago, would have been pulled down without a thought ? Again I fear I must postpone my concluding meditations on this theme to a final article next week.