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Hello and welcome to this episode of the National Trust
Podcast. I'm James Grasby, curator of buildings and
historic landscapes for the Trust. Join me as we compare two
remarkable estates that are at risk. The picturesque Blickling
Estate in Norfolk, England, and the enchanting former palace
Bayt al-Razzaz in the heart of Cairo, Egypt.
We will meet the inspiring people who are responsible for
protecting these cultural treasures from destruction
through extreme weather events and political and social
upheaval. Prepare to fly 4,000 miles from the UK to one of the
historical centres of the Arab-Speaking world in Cairo.
Telling the story is producer Jesse Edbrooke.
The flight time is about four and a half hours from London
Heathrow. Emerging from the arrivals hall onto the streets
of Cairo, the sights, sounds and energy of the place are
immediately apparent. Traffic weaves frantically in and out as
we take the highway from the airport to the historic quarter
in the old town.
The destination is a former medieval palace and family home
called Bayt al-Razzaz. Since the 1960s, the property has been
owned by Egypt's Ministry Of Antiquities, and now it's looked
after by the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation. Architect and
historian Omniya Abdul Barr is its manager and the visionary to
restoring the property that had fallen into disrepair.
She's invited Heather Jermy, the general manager of National
Trust's Blickling Estate, to join her. The properties have
been twinned by the International National Trust's
organisation, or INTO, to share knowledge and insight in the
fight against climate change on a program called Withstanding
Change, funded by the British Council.
We join Heather and Omniya in Cairo.
So welcome to Bayt al-Razzaz. I'm Omniya Abdul Barr. I'm happy
to welcome Heather.
It's good to be here. Hi.
So we are standing in the street of Babul Ozir and you see in
front of you this line of minarets, the minaret of the
Blue Mosque. The minaret of Umm Al-Sultan Shaa’ba, which is the
mosque next to Bayt al-Razzaz.
Minarets are towers with distinctive designs. Everything
from squat steeples to soaring pencil-thin spires that project
the call to prayer.
Cairo is called the city of a thousand minarets.
It's so beautiful.
It is amazing, isn't it? It's quite busy out here.
It's always busy.
And there's little cafes, little workshops.
Cairo has always been busy.
Yeah.
Omniya trained as an architect and historian specializing in
the Mamluk period of Egyptian history. Bayt al-Razzaz was
originally constructed by the Sultan Qaytbay in the mid-15th
century.
Take me now into our entrance alley.
So yeah, this is a pretty big wooden door that we're about to
go through.
And it feels a little bit like leaving the busy street behind,
doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're now going down into this corridor and it just feels a bit
darker and almost a little bit quieter.
Wow, look at this. Oh, it's absolutely beautiful. This big,
huge open courtyard space. There 's so much going on, I don't
quite know where to look first.
In Cairene design, the courtyard serves many purposes. For
instance, it's a cooler space used for gathering and working,
with a through breeze to other spaces in the house for cooling.
Omniya explained that in many ways it was the heart of the
House. It also bears the core principle of Islamic design,
that the facade is not glamorous. But the inside is
where the beauty and uniqueness is to be found.
The way to enter places is never direct. You never enter and then
the final place. You have to go through small little alleys.
Even Sultan Hassan, which is the biggest mosque from this period,
you enter, then you go left, then you go right, then you go
left, and then you find the courtyard. And it's as if it's
preparing you to what you're about to see.
So one of the things that is really striking about this
courtyard firstly, it's so quiet compared to the really noisy
street outside. But also everywhere I look, I see these
layers of history that have built up over time. Whether it's
an archway that looks like it's been blocked or there's an
inscription here, paintings there. It's just these beautiful
layers of history.
We're trying to keep as many layers as we can. So you have
the window from the inside and then a window from the outside.
It's part of the history of the place.
Definitely.
But climate change is now threatening Cairo's historic
buildings such as Bayt al-Razzaz. Instead of hotter
weather damaging the structures, heavier bouts of rain have
caused problems in a city where flat roofs and no drainage are
the norm.
The corner House is an important three-story section of Bayt
al-Razzaz that was damaged when the houses adjoining it
collapsed in an unseasonably heavy thunderstorm in 2020. The
Corner House was dismantled and is being rebuilt brick by brick,
as can be heard by the background sounds.
So this used to be, we call it the Corner House, which connects
with the houses which are overlooking the street. The
House next to us collapsed because of the amount of rain
that we are experiencing. And because people are not used to
do- maintenance, like checking their gutters and checking their
roofs and even insulating their roofs.
The core philosophies of architecture and design in the
UK and Egypt are being stretched. And now they are
learning from each other.
In Egypt, we always think, how are we getting rid of the heat?
And in Europe, we're always thinking, how are we keeping the
heat? So it took me a while to understand the wall system.
In Egypt in the medieval times, we built thick walls because we
wanted to create cool areas in the inside, while in here we
wanted to isolate them from the cold outside.
The important work of restoring Bayt al-Razzaz is organized by
the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation. It was started by
volunteers to protect cultural heritage from looting and
destruction. This became a major issue when the Arab Spring
started in 2011. And people rose up to overthrow the government.
In the chaos and political upheaval that followed,
different factions protested and fought. Omniya shares the
details of the truly dramatic day that was the catalyst to
meeting the EHRF team and changing the course of her life.
On the 24th of January 2014, a car bomb took place in front of
the Museum Of Islamic Art. The target was the security building
of Cairo.
It was a huge bomb attack.
It was six in the morning. The sound woke me up.
And on this side of the road.
You can see the historic facade, the Islamic Museum Of Art,
severely damaged by the blast.
I opened the windows and I saw smoke coming out of downtown.
And I looked at Twitter and they said the security building was
hit. And then I looked at my husband and I said, the museum
is in front of the security building. I have to go.
The attack took place outside one of the most important
museums for Islamic art in the world.
Well you can a huge crater that was left after the bomb blast.
It blew through the concrete and twisted metal can be seen
everywhere.
What happened with the explosion is that we lost all the windows.
The doors and windows of the museum were destroyed. Thousands
of protesting Egyptians surrounded the museum. In the
chaos, there was a danger that people would move in and steal
the artifacts to sell on the black market.
We weren't sure if the army will be able to secure the place.
Since we arrived. Riot police have been attempting to control
the crowd.
Despite the extremely dangerous situation, the team of EHRF
gathered at the museum to try to save the priceless artefacts.
These brave volunteers realised that they were the last line of
defence and had to move the artefacts to a secure location
inside the museum. Omniya, who is not yet part of the team, had
just arrived at the museum to see what she could do to help.
And I remember the museum director looked at me and said,
so who are you? I said, Omniya. "Omniya what?" Abdul Barr. I'm
just a citizen, concerned about her head. And he was so sweet.
He said, OK, get along and work.
In the chaos inside the museum, Omniya had a chance encounter
with the chairman of the EHRF, Abdelhamid.
I saw Abdelhamid, who's our chairman. Then I looked at him
and said, "OK, what do you need?" And he said, "I need
boxes, I need bubble wrap, I need pencils and papers.".
In such a high-pressure situation, where could Omniya
find enough bubble wrap to secure a thousand priceless
pieces?
Next to the museum, there is an area called Bab Zuweila, which
is actually medieval from the 14th century. We have a saying
in Arabic, you find everything from the needle to the rocket.
And over there you have lots of carpenters and people do lots of
woodwork, so eventually they have bubble wrap.
And the funny thing, I didn't have money, but I saw someone
else who came from another institution and said, I have
money. So we went together and I was holding the boxes like
proper ancient Egyptian, everything on my hand and
walking inside the museum.
Back at the museum, the police had secured the building and the
teams inside were smashing glass cases that held more than 1,000
artifacts. It was then that another serious setback
occurred.
Because of the fire system, you had water coming down the
ceilings, so we were underwater, and at the same time we have
everything, you were walking on broken glass and broken windows.
Despite the almost overwhelming odds against them, the EHRF team
worked tirelessly. As the day wore on, artefacts that were at
risk of water damage were moved first. Then gradually, the glass
cases were smashed, and the rest of the items were then wrapped
and moved to a secure location in the museum. Everything was
documented before it was removed and numbered when it was stored.
It was a very emotional experience for me because I was
collecting objects I know so well, cracked, broken and in
pieces. There is one specific piece that is now restored,
thankfully, with his name on it.
Qaytbay was the Sultan who originally built Bayt al-Razzaz
and ruled Egypt for a few decades.
I remember collecting it from the rubble and holding it in my
hand after I secured it in a box. And now that it's restored,
I always have to go and see it and as if I'm saluting it in a
way, say, hello. It gives me hope because you see, after all
the destruction we've seen, the museum is now open and it's
fabulous and a wonderful place to be.
Incredibly, the team succeeded in saving every artifact in the
museum and the protesters didn't break into the building.
It's a day I will never, never, ever forget.
I'm grateful I had this experience because the
day-to-day is not easy, but when you remember that you lived a
catastrophe and now it has changed completely, it gives you
hope. It will not always be that negative.
I asked the head of the Egyptian Rescue Heritage Foundation why
he risked his life to save the artefacts, and he responded, if
we can protect our history and through it understand our past,
then nobody can manipulate our future.
The experience of working with other Egyptians who risked so
much to protect their history propelled Omniya to a
life-changing decision.
That day, and after working with all the team of EHRF, I felt how
genuine they are, how loving for Egypt, you know. And immediately
I told Abdelhamid, OK, what do you need? He said, "we need
money and we need to do more training." So I started by
fundraising for the foundation.
After successfully fundraising for EHRF, Omniya decided to
dedicate her time to restoring the property we had been
exploring earlier in the episode, Bayt al-Razzaz. We
rejoin Heather and Omniya in the courtyard at a celebration of
the work completed on the property so far. They have also
been sharing their findings on climate change adaption for
heritage properties with dignitaries from around the
world.
I'm Gareth Bailey, British Ambassador to Egypt. When I was
here last in the 90s, the whole place was a ruin. What we've got
today is nothing other than an oasis, because all around us is
a teeming city of 25 million people. And then right in the
heart of it, there's just a perfectly calm, beautifully
restored courtyard with a charming garden. And it's just a
place I think people will see as a refuge.
I'm called John De Konig, and I work as part of the evaluation
and support team for this project on withstanding climate
change. If you'd been here yesterday, you would have seen a
large group of small children moving around the place and
learning how to plant drought-resistant varieties and
things like that.
It was very nice. On this site, they would find a piece of their
history and a piece of their identity. And what more can you
expect?
The time arrived for Heather to leave, but not before giving an
invitation for Omniya to visit Norfolk for the next chapter of
the exchange. On the way to the airport, Heather shared her
observations and takeaways from the trip.
I'm currently on the bus, having left the hotel and making my way
to the airport at the end of my trip to Cairo. I feel really
overwhelmed by the experiences that I've had. One of the things
that I've really taken away from especially having those
conversations at Bayt al-Razzaz is the work that they do with
community and with local people, with young people, talking to
them about the site.
And mixing into that an understanding of the impact that
climate change is having. It's something that we want to do
more of at Blickling. It's something that we're starting to
do. But actually, I think they're just miles ahead of us
in terms of really understanding how to bring those messages to
the people around them.
Over the following months, both Heather and Omniya were busy
restoring and managing their respective properties. Before
long, it was time for Omniya's return visit to Norfolk, England
and the picturesque Blickling Hall. It's a magnificent
Jacobean Mansion with a rich heritage.
Similar to Bayt al-Razzaz, it was constructed centuries ago
and needs constant maintenance to fight climate change. It
possesses one of the most important libraries in England
with over 12,000 books. Omniya was hoping to gain more insight
into how Heather and her team were adapting to the challenges
of climate change.
Hi Omnyia, it's really great to see you again.
Thanks Heather, and I see the rain is not leaving us.
No, so here we are at Blickling and one of the things we'll be
talking about today is rain and the effect it has on our
buildings and on our gardens and actually the rain is quite
heavily falling at the moment.
Yeah, it's a good start.
Yeah, so we'll get our brollies up and we will go up for a walk
up the front drive and show you the house.
Yalla, let's go.
Alrighty.
And now you'll have to walk over one of our many makeshift
streams that occur when it's raining.
On the left is the wall to our orchard and walled garden. That
has been a kitchen garden for the Hall since the 1600s.
Oh, that's impressive.
Yeah.
And do we know what sort of things they were planting? And
did it change?
One of the great stories is that when we had glass houses along
one of the walls, there used to be a competition between us and
another country estate in the area who could grow the best
pineapples.
You wouldn't think pineapples growing in such weather.
No. Although, speaking of climate change, you never know,
we might be able to grow a pineapple soon.
The Blickling Estate is over 4,600 acres and Blickling Hall
is among the many buildings looked after by the National
Trust on the land. Originally constructed in the 17th century
for Sir Henry Hobart, it came into the National Trust's hands
in 1940 by Philip Kerr, Lord Lothian. It welcomes hundreds of
thousands of visitors annually.
I like to call this front drive bit the warm hug of Blickling.
If you look at how the two wings come down the side and the
mansion is there, it feels almost a little bit like the
wings are coming around to give you a Blickling hug.
As we're going to cross over the bridge, you'll see that there's
two bulls here. These are the Henry Hobart bulls. So he was
the first real owner of the estate of Blickling, but they're
kind of also based on the Boleyn bulls. So you know Anne Boleyn?
Yes.
Famous Anne Boleyn. She was born here.
How interesting. Yeah.
Actually, she wasn't born in this House. Anne Boleyn was born
at Blickling, as far as we know. Yeah. But it was a different
House at the time.
The bull is a symbol that the Hobart family used, and
historical records suggest it was from a desire to associate
themselves with Anne Boleyn, whose family's symbol was a
bull.
Omniya, I'm really excited because I'm about to take you
into Blickling Hall and we're about to go and knock, then we
can show you around some of our fantastic spaces and talk about
actually how climate change is affecting them.
The rain has stopped.
It's letting up a little bit.
Yeah, we need to open our umbrellas.
Omniya, why don't you knock on the knocker for us?
I love that.
Someone will let us in.
Hello, we've just been greeted by our property curator, Megan
Dennis. Hi, Megan.
Hi nice to meet you.
I'm Omniya. I'm from Cairo.
Over the years, Blickling Hall has seen many owners and even
housed soldiers during the Second World War.
Okay, Omniya, here we are. We're in the Great Hall Of Blickling.
I think it's pretty spectacular. What do you think?
It's very impressive with the coloured glass in front of us.
Heather and Omniya note similarities between Blickling's
ornate ceilings and window decorations and those at Bayt
al-Razzaz. The murals in the main library of Blickling Hall
are likely to have been influenced by Victorian
Egyptomania, featuring Egyptian plants and animals.
So actually the canvas panels applied onto the ceiling.
Really? Because we have a canvas ceiling as well in Bayt
al-Razzaz and it's very, very weird to find such a thing. I
don't think it exists anywhere else in Cairo.
We have a spare one kind of rolled up in the store as well.
I'd love to see that!
That canvas one at Bayt al-Razzaz is that beautiful,
chevron, kind of zigzag pattern, isn't it?
Yeah, like on a Sony ceiling!
It is, yeah.
Blickling Hall suffers from similar water-related issues to
Bayt al-Razzaz, with the drainage systems in the roof
unable to cope with the amount of rainfall. Damp leaks into the
house cause water ingress. This creates a perfect environment
for invasive bugs.
We're trying to do a lot more work with engaging young people
and families. It's kind of under the banner of'conservation
conversations' say that 10 times fast!
But it was all about bugs because one of the things that
we face, especially with water ingress and humidity levels, is
lots of bugs. And so it was connecting particularly young
people from the local schools and areas like that with the
impact that bugs have on our buildings and collection.
Here's Megan Dennis, the property curator.
We've been monitoring pests within the house for decades and
in the last couple of years we've really noticed enormous
increases in the number of silverfish in this room, which
is a real concern because of the hand-painted wallpaper.
These little creatures, they vary between kind of 5mm to
about 10mm long. They look a little bit like wood lice.
They're kind of silvery, hence the name, and they've got two
little things that come out of their back end. You commonly see
them in a kitchen or a bathroom because they like it where it's
nice and damp.
And so we now have silverfish infestation as a result of the
water ingress above. They're coming in, they're loving all
the damp wood, then they're coming down here and they're
loving all the juicy wallpaper, which is a real issue. We can't
stop them coming in. They've got the perfect habitat here. What
we try and do is get rid of them as quickly as we can before they
do too much damage.
So how do you get rid of silverfish as quickly as
possible?
We use a desiccant powder, but we dry them out. Basically, they
kind of get dried and then we just hoover them up.
We're now outside of the hall. Omniya, I hope you had an
amazing time looking around inside.
It's fabulous!
And we talked a little bit about all of the issues we have with
water management here and really proud of a project that we've
just completed, all to do with how we manage water.
This is Katherine, who was head of this National Trust funded
project as an example of climate adaption best practice in
heritage buildings to explain more about what was going wrong
and the danger posed to Blickling Hall.
And historically, if we had prolonged heavy rainfall, it
would be so wet here, the water would be nearly up to the window
level in the basement and we would have the fire brigade here
pumping out and it was a regular occurrence.
So how did the team go about fixing this issue?
Yes so it kicked off a couple of years ago with actually some
repairs to the lake wall that we needed to do and we needed to
drop the lake level and we couldn't do it because the
sluice was broken.
The sluice is a sliding gate in the dam wall that can be opened
or closed to let out water from the lake.
So that then sparked a larger piece of work to fix the broken
sluice and in doing the sort of pre-work on that we realised
that the lakeside culvert was completely blocked and that
takes all of the surface water from the gardens and the
mansion.
After discovering that the main drainage tunnel for the water
was blocked, emergency work went ahead to try and clear the
blockage. The team used a remote-controlled drain
inspection vehicle to check the 300 meter distance. The findings
were surprising.
It starts off a big brick culvert about 300 millimeter
diameter. And then when they replaced the final section, they
put a clay pipe in that was about half of the size. So when
you get a lot of water charging down the culvert, it suddenly
meets a point where it gets a lot smaller. And that's where
all the sludge and the silt will then gather. And that was
blocking up the pipe.
A culvert is a tunnel-like structure that directs water
away from a road, railway or building to prevent flooding. It
can be in different forms such as a pipe, tunnel or ditch.
So we cleared that. Which enabled us to get into the lake.
We had to dam the lake so we've drained the top end of the lake,
we've repaired the wall, we've replaced the sluice, got all of
that functioning.
The work was soon put to the test.
And during that work, so we went through three major storms and
for the first time in I think 20 years the basement didn't flood
because we cleared the surface water culvert.
Congratulations.
So we were, time we had the high rainfall, we kind of looked
around the project team and looked at Heather and went we
think we might have fixed the flooding problem, but we're not
going to get too excited. And then after the second heavy
rainfall event, we did have some high fives at that point and
said I think we've cracked it.
And then after the third one, we were actually quite relaxed
going, I think we've solved the problem. Yeah, let the rain
come. So we now know that that lakeside culvert is absolutely
key to keeping the mansion dry. And also now we can lower the
lake levels so we can pre-empt heavy rainfall and we can
actually lower the lake so that it's got more capacity because
it will take all of the water runoff.
The project was successful, and the team now regularly clean the
clay culvert to allow the water to flow through. But it is
showing signs of wear, so it will need to be replaced soon.
The fight to keep Blickling Hall from flooding will continue.
Heather shared her thoughts on the work so far.
This project is gold star all around because from concept
through to completion was, I think, what, 18 months?
In the heritage world, that's a very speedy project.
It was so important that we got on top of that conservation of
the lake wall.
It's quite a delicate process, but it's all underground and
underwater and you spend a lot of money and you don't see a lot
of change other than knowing that the water's going where it
needs to go.
I have to say, it's a lot of work. That's quite impressive.
Well done.
Thank you.
When these places were built, they didn't anticipate the
amount of rainfall that we're now seeing, so that's that other
added kind of headache that we now need to look at.
After the tour of Blickling, Heather and Omniya shared what
they feel they have gained from the twinning so far.
For me, straight away, I'm seeing a team. And I'd love to
see a team. And Bayt al-Razzaz is as functioning and loving as
the Blickling team. And I think I was just telling Heather, I'd
love to know as well how engagement, your volunteer
system must be also something very exciting to explore.
We don't have that volunteer system yet. So, yeah, so I think
for me, it's just that seeing that the team exists, that
encourages me to create my own.
I am endlessly impressed by you, Omniya, actually. Just when
somebody cares so much. I really like the way that you were kind
of inviting people into Bayt al-Razzaz because, you know,
once they get in there, they're going to understand it, they're
going to love it and they're going to want to help.
Isn't it interesting? It's about people. Climate change is real.
We're seeing the impact of it. We can share the practical
stuff. We can share things about, you know, here's a report
I did and here's my monitoring but actually all of that is
driven by people.
Totally yes yeah.
What an inspiring place to end this episode a relationship
built between people who are now friends and between cultures
that are vastly different but facing each challenge together.
If you want to find out more about the INTO twinning
partnership, Bayt al-Razzaz or Blickling, please search for
INTO Withstanding Change or INTO on the National Trust website.
The Withstanding Change project has been funded by the British
Council. To hear more episodes of the National Trust Podcast,
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