Book Reviews

Precious Inheritance by Cliff Blundell

Review by Michael Wingate (February 2008)

Cliff Blundell has given us a book to fire the Welsh nation with an enthusiasm for lime which is in complete contrast to its author’s lack of respect for cement, for plastic paints and for building inspectors.

The book is easy on the eye, full of inspiring colour and well designed by Ian Findlay who also contributed some of the photographs. Another photo was contributed by Rory Young, to whom the book is dedicated and whose own teachings are often echoed. The book does many things, but the forceful promotion of lime is its main theme and its subtitle could easily have been Warm and dry again with lime in West Wales. After so many decades of the misunderstanding and abuse of vernacular buildings there this is certainly something worth celebrating.

There are ten chapters which work over and over the benefits of “breathability” achieved through lime magic: the technical benefits, the emotional and economic benefits, preservative powers, green credentials, and so on and so on. Even chapters headed “Roofs and Floors” or “Windows and Doors” continue the eulogy for “the right stuff”. But could it all be true? The text does not attempt detailed technical explanations and some of the concepts offered will be questioned, if only by the building inspectors. What it does do is to record that we did this and this and this, and the cold wet houses became warm, dry, and more beautiful houses. Just what was needed.

The title anchors the book to an audience in Wales and most firmly to West Wales. The message to use lime is as clear as clear could be and would apply directly in any other areas with a similar vernacular of solid rubble walling. The boundaries of the book have been set to deliver that message, reinforced by six case studies which lead neatly into a list of fourteen training providers. Cliff has avoided, here, the whole subject of how to use lime and has left the reader with a commitment to liming and a thirst for further instruction.
The lime movement has been waiting for a coffee table book and this is probably too small to fill that role, but it is certainly pretty enough. It will lure its readers into the world of lime under the cover of the beauty of the vernacular. It will save many more Welsh vernacular buildings which are presently in peril. Bravo.