John Moore Heritage Services

Such an assessment was undertaken for Rycote Wood College in Thame, which was a built as a Workhouse in 1836 and modified before 1850.  In 1950s it was converted into a technical college.

The building is being converted to residential use with the design attempting to retain or reinstate as much as possible of the original internal spacing of the workhouse rooms.

*On the left different windows in Rycote Wood College showing the different building and alteration phase.

In other cases an assessment report can be useful where a listed building is being sold and potential purchasers can be shown where or where not alterations to the building would be possible.  Such a report was carried out for Eastington Manor where more than one prospective buyer had concerns with the layout of the kitchen and the adjacent hall.  This part of the house was 14^th century in date, added to in 15^th century and extensively remodelled in the 17^th century.

The existing partition between the kitchen and hall was shown to be 19^th century in date and there is no evidence of how these rooms were divided prior to this date.  It should therefore be possible to modify the layout of these two rooms

      Elsewhere full or partial recording of buildings can be necessary prior to or during alterations.  Analysis and recording of 34 Upper High Street, Thame during recent refurbishment showed that the jettied range was earlier than the adjacent mid 16^th house and probably dates to the 15^th century not to the late 17^th century as thought during a previous survey