History, survey, conservation and repair of the Royal Naval Magazine of Cole Island, Esquimalt Harbour, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
This paper is a brief summary of the history of the evolution of the magazine in Esquimalt Harbour that served the Royal Navy’s Pacific Squadron, based in the same harbour after 1862 and which was intimately entwined with the development of the British colony of Vancouver Island after its foundation by the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) during the 1840s. It also chronicles the conservation, repair and informed restoration of the magazine site over the last ten years, in which latter endeavour the author became periodically involved after 2014, culminating in a five-month stay upon the island, as resident mason-conservator and default caretaker, between July and November 2021. The paper draws upon the author’s original 2014 condition survey, and upon a paper ‘Lime in Canada’ written by the author for the Building Limes Forum Journal in 2020, while incorporating subsequent research and additional material and correcting some of the errors and omissions in both earlier accounts. The project was driven by the deployment of traditional skills and like-for-like materials within the modern western Canadian context, within which such skills and such an approach are scarce, seeking to demonstrate the benefits of these to the built heritage across the province of British Columbia and to encourage their widespread use for the conservation and repair of traditional buildings in the province.
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Author's Biography
Nigel Copsey started out as a dry-stone waller in Cornwall, UK, and after 1989 trained as stonemason and carver at Weymouth College, working largely thereafter in the conservation industry across the south and southwest of England, and regularly after 1999 in Vermont, USA, as well as in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. Nigel was masonry consultant on the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York City. Since 2001, Nigel has worked extensively as consultant and practitioner in the field of building conservation and repair in North Yorkshire, UK, upon a wide range of vernacular and high-status buildings, designing, specifying and executing major repair projects to a wide range of historic buildings within the town, as well as researching, designing and specifying a number of building repair and conservation projects on behalf of Natural England. During the last eight years, while mainly repairing historic buildings in York and beyond, Nigel has surveyed and specified the repair of St Luke’s Anglican Cathedral and the Carnegie Library in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and worked as consultant and practitioner at the Cole Island National Historic Site in Vancouver Island, British Columbia, as well as delivering traditional mortars workshops in Chicago and Nebraska in recent years. Nigel has contributed to several volumes of the recently published Historic England Practical Conservation series. A committed SPAB-member, Nigel is also a professionally accredited conservator-restorer and determined advocate for the thoroughgoing use of traditional materials in the care and repair of old buildings and a leading advocate for the routine use of hot mixed lime and traditional earth-lime mortars for most applications, working extensively with Historic England and international partners in the delivery of practical training and education in the informed use of traditional quicklime mortars for the like-for-like and compatible repair of historic buildings. A Research Associate of the Department of Archaeology, York University, Nigel regularly delivers hot mixed earth and lime mortars and traditional skills training. His book, Hot Mixed Lime and Traditional Mortars was published in 2019, as well as his HES Technical Paper 30, a review of historic literature concerning lime. He has more recently been awarded an MA by Research on the same. www.nigelcopsey.com; www.hotmixedmortars.com.
Citation
Copsey, Nigel (2023, September 1). History, survey, conservation and repair of the Royal Naval Magazine of Cole Island, Esquimalt Harbour, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. In the Journal of Building Survey, Appraisal & Valuation, Volume 12, Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.69554/DFVA6205.
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