Green (and very soggy) Day Out

Here in the Heart of the Park office, we don't let the weather dampen our spirits, so when we saw the forecast for last weekend, we all dug out our wellies and waterproofs, because Sunday was our Green Day Out.

National Trust stand (c) NTPL/Victoria Lower

This is an annual festival at the Park, and one of our most popular events. Local green charities, businesses an other organisations all come and set up stalls at Morden Hall Park, providing information and fun ativities to encourage the local community to 'live greener' and inspire them to change the way that they live.

The lovely ladies at Thames Water, smiling through the rain (c) NTPL/Lucy Alfred

We also ran special, behind the scenes tours of the stable yard to give our visitors the opportunity to find out all about our fantastic Heart of the Park sustainable renovation project.

Community Projects Manager, Zoë Adams, entertaining the crowds with the
wonders of cork insultion. NTPL/Lucy Alfred

We might have been unlucky with the weather, but our staff, volunteers and stallholders all battled through the showers to put on a great event for the visitors who braved the conditions. Even though it was wet, we had more stallholders this year than ever before. With live music and morris dancing to entertain the crowds, the event is loads of fun.

The sun came out for the Greensleeves Morris Men... (c) NTPL/Lucy Alfred

...but it didn't for local band Skyline Sketch (c) NTPL/Lucy Alfred

Thank you to everyone who came along to support us - next year we'll be booking sunshine!

Winter warmth from the ground up: underfloor heating

Underfloor heating pipes installed in clay plates NPTL/Caroline Pankhurst

Hot water will be generated in the Stable Yard in a variety of ways: by Photovoltaic-Thermal (PV-T) panels, an air source heat pump and a wood burning stove. It will be stored in large hot water tanks or “thermal stores”. These will feed the domestic hot water supply and the underfloor heating system.

One of the thermal store hot water tanks NTPL/Jon Whitehead

A network of polyethylene underfloor heating pipes has been installed throughout the stable buildings. These are arranged in heating zones, each controlled by its own thermostat. The pipes will run directly under the flooring, providing an even heat distribution, unlike the localised “spot” heating which is produced by traditional radiators.
In order to improve the efficiency of the heating system even further, the pipes are laid in Lithotherm clay plates, which can be seen in the top picture as the orangey-brown filling between the lighter-coloured pipes.
The grooves in the Lithotherm plates are open at the top, increasing the radiating surface towards the floor covering by approximately 60%.The increased upward flow of heat produces a well-balanced floor temperature, ensuring that the heat entering the room is maximised and the heat lost towards the ground is minimised. This is also helped by installing the clay plates on a layer of high-efficiency insulation. We want to squeeze every bit of heat out of our sustainably-produced hot water!

Renovating the waterwheel

The Waterwheel at Morden Hall Park NTPL/Jon Whitehead

The Snuff Mill at Morden Hall Park was one of the numerous mills which could once be found along the River Wandle. It was through the production of snuff, which was once highly fashionable, that the mills at Morden Hall Park became prominent.

There are only four mills with waterwheels remaining, and the cast iron waterwheel attached to the Snuff Mill is all that remains of the milling machinery since milling ceased in 1922.

NTPL/Robert Jameson

On Saturday 25th June we held one in a series of free taster days at which visitors were able to learn more about the waterwheel in the park, meet waterwheel renovation experts and get dirty scrubbing and painting part of the wheel.

In the next few weeks work will begin to conserve the waterwheel and replace its buckets. Later in the year a hydroelectric turbine will be installed behind the waterwheel. The turbine – an Archimedean screw – will be visible as a new modern “wheel” harnessing the power of the water and will provide reliable, renewable electricity to the renovated Stable Yard buildings.

There is one taster day left in the free series: Flooring and materials on Saturday 13 August.
For more information and to book a place please contact Caroline Pankhurst, Project Coordinator at National Trust, Morden Hall Park on 020 8545 6856 or heartofthepark@nationaltrust.org.uk.

Sliding Doors

The heart-stopping moment when a door was launched into the air. NTPL/Lucy Alfred

Like the plot of their cinematic namesake, the tale of our bespoke, triple glazed, sliding doors by Vitrosca has not been straightforward. Although, after two dramatic and failed attempts they have now been installed in the exhibition space of the stable yard.

Two weeks ago we excitedly rushed out to watch them being installed, only to discover that the suction pads used to install them weren’t working on the first machine and the second one was the wrong design for the job. Our hearts were in our mouths when they removed the suction pads on the second attempt as the whole door wobbled from end to end like one of Rolf Harris’s “wobble boards”! The door escaped damage free because, as we were later assured, it can withstand harder wear than that.

This week the ‘third time lucky’ mantra came into full force as the seven doors were painstakingly and expertly manoeuvred by the team who lifted, twisted and inched the doors into place. There were some heart stopping moments such as when the crane lifted two of the doors several metres into the air, but as the experts seemed pretty relaxed we swallowed our panic and busied ourselves with taking photos of the process!

Coming all the way from Portugal the doors are fairly unique in the UK as triple glazing is much more popular in mainland Europe. The energy efficient panels are filled with viscous argon gas which separates the three panes in each sliding door. Argon is used rather than air as it is a much denser gas, making it a poor conductor of heat, meaning greater insulation. During the winter the doors will form as airtight a seal as possible, keeping heat inside the exhibition space, while allowing a comfortable stream of air in the summer months when they can be slid open.

All we have to do now is decide upon the design of the transfers that will go onto the doors, to remind wildlife (and people!) that they are in fact solid glass doors and not open spaces!

Busy Bees

The bees are given a new home. NTPL/Caroline Pankhurst

The stall partitions are put back in place. NTPL/Jon Whitehead

The giant rainwater harvesting tanks. NTPL/Sarah Tebbot

Hi, I’m Caroline and I’ve just taken over as the new Project Coordinator – coordinating the final stages of the building up to its grand opening later in the year!

It’s been a busy and exciting first week. The stable yard looks different every day at the moment, with the builders making the most of all the fine weather. All three sets of solar panels are now shining in the sun, the four giant rainwater harvesting tanks are in place (complete with hand pump for people to pump water into the ladies’ toilets!), the air source heat pump is installed and the original metal stable stall partitions have been put back in place to divide the new craft stalls. Today there’s a big crane filling the stable yard, lifting the triple-glazed glass doors into place for the new exhibition space.

We’ve also had some unexpected visitors to the site one day this week – some bumble bees who decided to make their nest just where the builders wanted to fit the new glass doors. Luckily Wimbledon Beekeepers came to the rescue and moved the bees to a happy new home in a tree in the park.

Are you sitting comfortably?

The reduce, reuse, recycle mantra is very much in our minds at the Heart of the Park project, particularly as we are trying to divert as much site waste from landfill as possible. So when Julie visited the site a few weeks ago for one of our taster days and asked if she could have one of the wooden pallets that were headed for the skip for a recycling project, we were only too happy.

Doing the green thing isn’t without its challenges says Julie, “we thought we had bitten off more than we could chew as it was the 'devils own job' to take it apart. No wonder they are so difficult to recycle!!!

However, Julie and her father persevered and we’re glad that they did, as a few weeks later they have transformed the pallet into this lovely chair. “It's a design we copied from something we saw on the internet so I can't take credit for (it).” We love it though and hope that Julie can now put her feet up and take a well earned rest.

Morden Hall Park looks fantastic in the sunshine, and plenty of visitors are out and about enjoying the beautiful weather. Our Easter Egg Hunt kicks off today too - let's hope the weather stays sunny for the next days of the event on Saturday, Sunday and Monday!

This week the two Zoës (Zoë Colbeck, Property Manager and Zoë Adams, Community Projects Manager) took a trip to our Livinggreen partner project in Ludwigsburg to catch up with the other project teams.

The team in Ludwigsburg are hard at work transforming a listed Flak-hall building (an old barracks gym) to be a demonstration of sustainable reconstruction. They're using a clever 'house-in-house' technique to protect the historic shell of the building, whilst the building inside will allow for innovative energy saving techniques. All very clever stuff! The Flak-hall is going to be a new child and family centre for Ludwigsburg, and it's great to think of the future generations who will be inspired by this eco building. Here's a picture of the outside of the building.

We also had the opportunity to take a quick stroll in the beautiful Baroque gardens surrounding Ludwigsburg Palace.

Finally, our hospitable hosts gave us the chance to try some local Ludwigsburg culture, after all, when in Germany...

Happy Easter from Morden Hall Park!