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Old deeds in Gloucestershire record office quickly resolved the first question by actually naming the stonemason responsible as Paul Tuffley. He had built the Bee Shelter in the garden of the house in which he lived until 1852 (when his mortgagee repossessed and sold it!). Local geologist and historian Arthur Price was consulted. He knew of successive generations of the Tuffley family who Victorian stonemasons and quarry masters, who used the canal network to supply Cotswold stone throughout Britain. | |
| When Sir Charles Barry was appointed the architect
for the new Houses of Parliament, he made Gloucestershire sculptor John
Thomas supervisor of all the stone carving and specified the Tuffleys'
stone for parts of the interior work. Thomas would have known and probably
worked with the Tuffleys at the start of his career. He had been Barry's
foreman when King Edward VI Grammar School in Birmingham was built also
using stone from their quarries, so it was no surprise when it was again
chosen for Westminster.
Price established that the Bee Shelter was also constructed from Cotswold
limestone, partly weatherstone and partly freestone. The original freestone
slabs had been cut with a crosscut (two man) or frigbob (one man) saw
from squared and scabbled blocks. Axe marks can be seen beneath some
of the shelves, showing that they were the first pieces to have been
sawn from the block. This axe and saw work would have been performed
underground. The visible tooling marks are all typically Victorian,
using all the then current technology - routing, core-drilling, sawing,
fretting and chiselling. The ornamentation was described by restoration
consultant Rory Young as being within the vocabulary of a provincial
stonemason of the period, although architecturally ungrammatical! The
partition brackets he considered utterly curious and unique. |
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| In 1957 the Bee Shelter had been rediscovered by the International Bee Research Association (IBRA) in the garden of Nailsworth police station, which in 1968, was replaced and the site cleared for redevelopment. The then Chief Constable asked that the Bee Shelter should not be destroyed so volunteers from Gloucestershire Beekeeping Association dismantled and moved it to a new site in the grounds of Hartpury Agricultural College. |  |
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Over the years, with the expansion of Hartpury College, the site there had become unsuitable and the foundations were proving inadequate. Large structural cracks had appeared and decorative elements broken and lost. The Bee Shelter was considered 'at risk' and Hartpury's local conservation trust had been asked to save it. However, our first challenge would be to resolve the conflicting historical traditions. |
| It is rare to have the option of relocating a listed building however, as it had been moved on at least one previous occasion, English Heritage agreed that this could again be considered. Listed Building consent was granted and a new site, in Hartpury's churchyard, agreed. The most extensive weatherstone quarries were on Minchinhampton Common in Gloucestershire. These were leased by the Tuffleys. The Tuffleys also leased the Balls Green lower freestone quarries. It was agreed that our restoration should use stone from the same sources. Weatherstone was available from local reclamation yards and we were lucky enough to obtain sufficient freestone from the abandoned underground workings at Balls Green. Fund-raising could commence! The whole project was to cost £180,000. | |
| Specialist contractors Nimbus Conservation from Frome in Somerset, under the watchful eye of Chartered Surveyor and project manager Richard Basnett, dismantled the structure, photographing, recording and individually wrapping every piece ready for transporting to the churchyard. There, using early photographs of it when still in Nailsworth, the Shelter was reassembled in its original form, with its symmetry, that had been lost in the move to Hartpury College, restored. |  |
| In September 2002 it was 'reopened' by the widow of the late principal of Hartpury College who had done so much to facilitate the original rescue. | |
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Many of those involved in that move were able to join in the celebrations including the present Chief Constable of Gloucestershire |
| The Bishop of Tewkesbury, blessed and dedicated the restored
building.
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| From Anglo-Saxon times bees were kept in skeps, initially of wicker, but later of coiled straw. For protection from the weather, some form of covering had to be provided. A 'hackle' or bundle of straw gathered together at the top by an iron ring was often used. | |
| In less protected areas recesses or boles were built into cottage walls and the skeps were put in them. Much has been done by IBRA and in particular by Dr. Eva Crane and Penelope Walker, to trace and record these structures. They found that in a few cases freestanding structures had been built, whose only purpose was the protection of the skeps. These they called bee shelters. They were generally small and very simple three sided structures, however in one unique case a far larger and highly decorative example was found. This extraordinary building could accommodate at least 28 working skeps(840,000 bees!) with storage for many more spare skeps beneath. It is this Bee Shelter, now restored by Hartpury Historic Land and Buildings Trust, that stands in Hartpury's churchyard. |  |
| Before the Norman invasion, the Domesday Book
recorded that Gloucester paid annually 12 sesters (24lbs.) of honey to
the King and market records from 14th century reveal that the trade in
honey came principally from west of Severn parishes. Hartpury, five miles
west of Gloucester, has a long tradition of bee keeping. In 1260 some
of the tenants held land in return for payments of honey and there are
fields that are still known as 'honeylands'. Many theories have been advanced to explain why a Gloucestershire stonemason should have erected such an extravagantly large and decorative a structure in his garden. It has been suggested that the Bee Shelter was built to order, which for some reason was not fulfilled. Supporting this theory, there is some evidence that it was not originally intended for Tuffley's garden, but might have been reduced in size to fit there. The repossession of his home by the mortgagee would be explained if an intending purchaser had defaulted on payment. A second theory is that the Tuffley family may have intended the Bee Shelter as an advertisement for their business. In the 1840s, when they supplied stone for the new Houses of Parliament they faced fierce opposition (which eventually prevailed) from, ironically, Caen in Normandy. A structure such as a bee shelter might well have been prepared as an exhibition piece illustrating the versatility and suitability of Cotswold stone for that contract, or ones more local such as Woodchester Priory or perhaps even Woodchester Park, that remarkable unfinished Victorian country house nearby, which was first planned in 1845. |
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The explanation may be even simpler. In 1832 Paul Tuffley appears on the polling list living in Nailsworth, while his father, another Paul, is shown as living at Nags Head, Avening. There, there is an intriguing set of bee boles contained in a window seat, with the entrance holes concealed in the decorative carved stone head of the main doorway. Was a beekeeping son merely seeking to eclipse his father's earlier work when he constructed the extraordinary Bee Shelter now at Hartpury? ……… we may never know!
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| Following the loss of his house, Paul Tuffley left Nailsworth and moved to Paddington, London, which was then the centre of the stone trade - block stone by then being brought by rail. London trade directories show he headed a masonry business but it is not known how successful it was. He died in 1873 aged 72 after a short bronchial illness. | |