She played a leading role in bringing Kingston Barn back into use following the demise of Shoreham Arts Workshop, which used the building from the early 1970s until 1981.

Beryl Ferrers-Guy suggests that barn users should have alerted the council to obvious signs of deterioration of the building.

This would be fair comment if there were obvious indications that all was not well with the structure.

There certainly weren't any signs that would be noticed by a layman, prior to Adur District Council's discovery of the movement of the wall plate on the south side of the barn.

After closure, one of the members of the community association sponsored a survey of the structure by a firm of specialists in restoration of ancient barns.

As a result of this survey, we now know that some of the timber bases which support the upright part of the main frames had decayed, causing the whole structure to sink and lean southwards.

This movement predated the introduction of partitioning into the building (pre-1985).

Also, a number of beams called aisle ties had been removed, either before or when the heating system was installed (early 1970s).

The report says: "Deprived of its aisle ties, one would expect the frame to become rather flexible and the wall having to carry all the loads on the wall plate."

It was this wall plate and the condition of the wall beneath it which aroused the suspicions of the council that there was a structural problem with the barn.

This led to the closure of the building.

To barn users, there was no obvious change in the look of the building over the years.

But nobody suspected that certain important parts of the structure were missing.

Brian Taylor
Brighton Road
Shoreham-by-Sea

NOTE: All letters must include a name and address which can be withheld by request.

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