Donald Insall, doyen of conservation architects, who has died aged 100, was very clear about the distinction between preserving buildings and conserving them. \u201cPreservation,\u201d he pronounced, \u201cis what you do for marmalade.\u201d Though Insall could see the value of preservation, he was an adroit conservationist rather than a stodgy marmalade maker, always seeing how historic buildings could be revived and put to new uses.<\/p>\n
Marshalling teams of architects, craftsmen and builders, he brought Windsor Castle back from the brink following the devastating \u201cannus horribilis\u201d fire of 1992. The exacting rescue scheme encompassed a range of strategies, from complete restoration to renewal in spirit. \u201cAs well as keeping things as they were, or putting them back as one thinks they were \u2013 which is chancy and not the main aim \u2013 we had to find new solutions to parts that had been irreparably destroyed,\u201d Insall told Country Life in 2018.<\/p>\n
Other high-profile projects included the renovation of Kelmscott Manor, the Oxfordshire country home of the writer, designer and socialist William Morris, following its acquisition by the Society of Antiquaries in 1961, and the restoration of Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, Robert Adam\u2019s Palladian masterpiece, now in the care of the National Trust. \u201cKedleston was our first big job,\u201d Insall recalled. \u201cI used to take a scooter on the train, hop off at Derby and go to the hall, where I was met by the butler and the dogs. Once or twice, Lord Scarsdale, the owner, came on the back of the scooter for a ride around the estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, Robert Adam\u2019s Palladian masterpiece, in the 1960s \u2013 restored as \u2018our first big job\u2019, said Insall. It was then in private family ownership and is now in the care of the National Trust. Photograph: Donald Insall Associates<\/p>\n
Insall was also involved in the lengthy rebuilding of Wotton House in Buckinghamshire, which had previously been remodelled by John Soane following a fire in 1820. Derelict and teetering on the brink of destruction, it was bought in 1957 by the enterprising Elaine Brunner, daughter of King George V\u2019s valet, who had first arrived there, chauffeured by an antique dealer friend, to scavenge columns to adorn her swimming pool and then embarked on a decades-long programme of restoration.<\/p>\n
Commissioned by custodians of the country\u2019s most significant historic buildings, from town halls to royal palaces, Insall changed the scope and ambition of conservation practice, shaping pioneering approaches to heritage management at a time when historic buildings were widely seen as impediments to progress rather than assets to be cherished. In deftly addressing issues of heritage, sustainability and contemporary use, his approach has a renewed resonance and relevance. When Insall once worked for the College of Arms, he was granted a personal coat of arms. Aptly, he chose the motto \u201cBring Forth the Best\u201d.<\/p>\n
The son of Phyllis (nee Hill) and William Insall, he was born in Bristol into a family of long established manufacturers of traditional luggage, such as trunks, cricket bags and portmanteaux. He attended Bristol grammar school, and his interest in architecture was piqued when his father commissioned and built a new family home at Henleaze, in the north of the city. During the blitz, Insall witnessed the wartime destruction of Bristol\u2019s ancient churches and historic buildings, and in 1942 started architectural studies at the Royal West of England Academy School of Architecture<\/a>. He saw wartime service from 1944 in the Coldstream Guards, completing his education after being demobbed in 1948.<\/p>\n Donald Insall holding a ceiling pendant that had fallen to the benches in the House of Lords in the 1980s. Photograph: Donald Insall Associates<\/p>\n