Durham Castle Buildings Archive

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Introduction

	Durham Castle repairs
	Contents
	Arrangement
	Related material (internal)
	Bibliography

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Catalogue

• Documentary material, photograph albums and loose contact prints, and lantern slides
• Photographic negatives
• Photographic negatives: Edis, full plate
• Photographic negatives: Edis, half plate
• Photographic negatives: miscellaneous
• Negatives taken 1930-38 by C.A. Linge: half plate
• Negatives taken 1930-38 by C.A. Linge: quarter plate
• Negatives taken 1930-38 by C.A. Linge: miscellaneous
• Original wrappers for the negatives
• Plans, drawings, publicity materials
• Plans and drawings
• Publicity material

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Durham Castle repairs

Structural reports on Durham Castle in 1925 and 1927 drew attention to its state of advanced disrepair, and the likelihood that parts of the building would eventually slide into the river unless urgent measures were taken to stabilise the foundations. The contents of this collection relate primarily to the extensive programme of repairs carried out between 1924 and 1939, and to the appeal launched by the Durham Castle Preservation Fund to raise the necessary resources.

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Contents

The documentary material includes reports on the structural state of the castle, correspondence between architect and contractors, estimates of costs, accounts of expenditure, appeal committee minutes, correspondence, publicity and press cuttings. The negatives (over 400) provide a detailed visual record of the main programme of work between 1929 and 1938, with more selective coverage of earlier work in the 1920's. The plans and drawings number almost 700. The architects for the project were W.T. Jones F.R.I.B.A., until his death in 1932, and later Sir Charles Peers. The consulting engineer was Dr. Oscar Faber. The Clerk of Works, C.A. Linge, was also the photographer for the main phase of work from 1930 onwards, and compiled a detailed inventory of photographic work undertaken. Most of the earlier negatives appear to have been taken by Edis, the leading Durham firm of photographers. The main contractors were John Thompson and Sons, Peterborough, and the borings were done by Andrew Brydon Ltd of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The collection also includes two files, one volume and one photograph of a drawing relating to proposals for work on the Norman chapel, etc., 1944-1957 (CAS/B19 and P41, original architectural consultant Sir Charles Peers, architects for the actual work Seely & Paget, contractors George Gradon & Son, Ltd). There are also two earlier drawings c.1885 and 1919 (CAS/P40 and 42) of the Tunstall Chapel and castle kitchen respectively.

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Accession details

Most of the plans, albums, slides and documentary material were deposited with the University Library by the University's central administration at some time in the late 1950's or early 1960's. An additional small group of photographs was deposited by University College in 1992, and two further files relating to work on the Norman chapel were deposited by the University's Department of Estates and Buildings in 1995. The negatives were discovered among a miscellaneous photographic deposit received in 1995 from the University's Department of Archaeology, which also included contact prints of some of them. The records of the Preservation Fund committee were transferred from the basement of Old Shire Hall in 2008.

Arrangement

CAS/B: Documentary material, photograph albums and loose contact prints, and lantern slides, stored in boxes
CAS/N: Negatives
CAS/P: Plans, drawings and publicity material stored in plan files
The section covering the negatives in CAS/N indicates for each negative whether a print from it is included in the albums or sequence of loose contact prints in CAS/B, and whether a slide from it is included in the boxes of lantern slides.

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Related material (internal)

W.T.Jones' Durham Lantern Slides Lantern slides (3.25 x 3.25 in.) chiefly of Durham city, particularly Durham castle, mostly (perhaps all) from the collection of the architect W.T. Jones, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. (1864-1932), and probably including a number taken by him. 125 slides.
Edis Negatives Negatives, almost all glass, taken by the Edis firm of photographers, which was in business in Durham from the 1890's until 1964, mainly relating to Co. Durham, particularly Durham city and university. c.1840 items (various sizes).

Bibliography

Bythell, Duncan, Durham Castle: an illustrated guidebook (Norwich, 1974)
Faber, Oscar, “The underpinning of Durham Castle”, The structural engineer, n.s. 12.11 (1934), 438-463.
Jones, W.T., “The Walls and Towers of Durham”, Durham University Journal, v. 22 (1920/21), 241-6, 237-8 and plate, 314-7, 357-61, 389-92.

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Catalogue

Documentary material, photograph albums and loose contact prints, and lantern slides
Reference: CAS.B
Dates of creation: c.1924-1939; 1944-1957
Extent: 16 files and 3 boxes of photographs
Photographic negatives
Reference: CAS.N
Dates of creation: 1924-1939
Extent: 390 items
Contents The contents of CAS/N all relate to the preservation work on Durham Castle c.1924-39. The list is based on the detailed register of photographic work done for the project (CAS/B13) which was compiled by C.A. Linge, the Clerk of Works, and it preserves the numbers used in Linge's register, which commonly also appear on the negatives. Most of the negatives are glass, but a number are film.
For the period 1930-39 Linge himself took the photographs, and his register is in chronological order, giving the precise date on which each photograph was taken, a brief description of what it shows, information about the copies which were produced, and frequently details of exposure times, etc. His register also records all but group NE/C of the earlier photographs of the work done in the 1920's and early months of 1930 which also form part of the archive; these probably represent only a selection of the photographs taken in this earlier period (gaps in the numeration of those for 1929-30 suggest this), but virtually all which Linge recorded are still present. These earlier photographs (except group NE/C) were taken by the Edis firm of Durham photographers. The small group of negatives (quarter plates with one half plate) now numbered as NE/C are not recorded by Linge's register, although they were found with the rest of the archive. They were made for, or possibly in some cases taken by the architect W.T. Jones; lantern slides made from a number of them are among his Durham Lantern Slide Collection. Since they relate to the Castle preservation work and include a number of precisely dated photographs of work in progress, they have been incorporated in the archive.
Arrangement NE: negatives taken c. 1924-1930, predating Linge's photographic work
NL: negatives taken by Linge, 1930-39
NW: original envelopes/wrappers for negatives; these have been preserved where they give descriptive information about the negative. The descriptions in Linge's register closely match the captions on envelopes/wrappers. Where there is an occasional conflict, the caption/wrapper information is earlier and usually to be preferred. Linge's register has been amended from the evidence of the captions where necessary in this list.
Within sections NE and NL negatives are arranged by Linge's numeration, producing sequences chronological within size; group NE/C has been added to Linge's numeration.
Envelopes/wrappers in section NW are arranged in negative number order.
Cross-references to prints and lantern slides
The list below indicates where there is a print of a negative in the albums or contact prints in CAS/B16-17, or a lantern slide in CAS/B18.

Plans, drawings, publicity materials
Reference: CAS.P
Dates of creation: c.1924-1939; 1944-1957
Extent: 39 files; 3 pictures
Contents The material in CAS/P1-39 relates to the 1924-39 preservation work (but incorporates a few earlier plans). CAS/P1-37 contain plans and drawings, CAS/P38-39 consist of publicity materials (CAS/P38, posters, newspaper articles,etc.; CAS/P39 large mounted publicity photographs, all or most derived from negatives in CAS/N). CAS/P40-42 are miscellaneous drawings, two relating to the 19th century, and one (actually a photograph of a drawing) to the 1951 work on the Norman Chapel.
Arrangement Packaging around the plans when they reached the University Library suggested that they had at one time had some elements of structured grouping, but any such arrangement no longer survived when they came to be listed. Since published citations have been made to some of the groupings in which they now survive, these have been retained, and the plans and drawings have been listed in that order. Regrettably, however, the contents and order of the groups is quite arbitrary, except for CAS/P13 which contains the plans for the scale model of the castle made by C.A. Linge.