| Summary: | This paper summarises a scientific methodology for
assessing masonry decay, developed over the course
of a four-year research project on Reigate Stone at
the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace.
Reigate Stone is a vulnerable building stone with
a complex history of use, high cultural value and
poorly understood decay processes. The Tower of
London and Hampton Court Palace, managed by
Historic Royal Palaces, contain a large amount of
Reigate Stone masonry. As such, these important historic sites provided a range of different case
studies for investigating Reigate Stone decay.
Masonry decay is increasingly being understood
in terms of complex system dynamics, in which
the interactions between primary building stone,
replacement stones, mortar and invasive agents
of anthropogenic or environmental origin are as
important as the nature of the building stones
themselves in controlling non-linear response
to environmental mechanisms. Integrating this
diverse set of variables significantly increases the
complexity of scientifically robust stone conservation. Non-destructive techniques (NDT) play an
important role in addressing this complexity, but
in order to make sense of the data they capture, it
is vital to appreciate different scales of investigation and distinguish between rapid and in-depth
protocols.
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