Bat Spotting and the Return of the Photographers

I can’t believe I’m writing this but we are coming up to the third anniversary of the fire at Betley Court. The unprecedented recent hot weather in the UK (up to 39° on the formal beds in our gardens) leading to shocking images on the news of wildfires incinerating people’s homes has been quite triggering. Our hearts went out to those that lost everything, and we know the life-altering wringer they are beginning to go through from first-hand experience.

Tradie at work in the tenants' corridor (Darren Washington/Sarah Peart)

We’re marking the third anniversary by inviting people to come and see the interior of Betley Court now that we have rudimentary floors in. It is a little bit easier to imagine the place being lived in one day, now that the interior walls are all present, along with doorways and windows. There is such a lot to do! Nigel and I will put some photographs together of ‘before‘ and ‘after’ to help visitors understand how the building used to look. If you’d like to find out more and book a ticket for one of the tours on the 20/21^st August, there’s information on our website TICKETS.

Sometimes, I can still see how the place was in my mind’s eye, with the Brown family’s nick-knacks and furniture in place. It is still hard (and quite emotional) to reconcile the images in my mind and the reality of how Betley Court looks today. None the less, so much progress has been made in almost three years.

The new staircase in the main house, a temporary measure to allow us access. Not quite as grand as the one we lost in the fire! (photo: Darren Washington/Sarah Peart)

The wonderful team from Midland Conservation Ltd are still on site, and this week, site manager Derrick and joiner Conrad even built us a staircase up to the first floor of the main house. Its not quite as grand as the one we lost in the fire, but it is functional. The roofers, from Attley’s Roofing Ltd are also making fantastic progress, cloaking the roof frame with handsome rows of Vermont green slate.

Tiling in progress. Laths and Vermont green slates, with modern roofing membrane underneath

While we’re on the subject of the roof, we conducted a bat survey last Thursday. I say ‘we’ but we actually hired a team of professional ecologists to conduct it.  Our contractors have had to take a slight pause on part of the roof, as bat droppings were spotted as tiles were being stripped on part of the roof that survived the fire. Bats are protected by UK law, so it became imperative that we establish if bats are roosting in the roof before we continued. A protective plastic wrap was placed over the roof while we waited for our experts to inspected.

The area of roof that survived the fire, showing the protective layer of plastic. This is the area of roof that has stopped retiling here, due to potential bat presence (photo: Darren Wasshington/Sarah Peart)

The visitors hub at night 

Last Thursday found us standing in the gathering gloom of the evening. Bats come out of their roosts about 20 minutes after sunset, so we positioned ourselves out of the way of our experts, in the tree line, as they pointed heat sensors and sonar devises at the house.

Nigel showing the ecologists the area of concern

Heat detecting equipment, used to detect bats. Useful when establishing if bats are entering and leaving a building when it is dark.

It didn’t take long for Nigel and I to have to duck as bats darted around the woodland margins in search of their evening meal. We spotted several swooping around the scaffolding, but they didn’t seem to be coming from the roof, which is good news. The ecologists return in two weeks to repeat the survey, and depending on the results, we can decide a course of action.

Incidentally, the bat the ecologists detected are brown long-eared bats (Plecotus auratus), so called because they are brown, and their ears are almost the same length as their body – quite out of scale! They hunt by hearing the noises moths make to each other, by echolocation, hence the super-developed ears.

Brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auratus) Photo: Woodland Trust

The ecologists also became very excited about another creature they heard, a long-eared owl (Asio otus), hooting in the woodland. It is the first time they’ve heard one in the area for about 20 years. I'm taking it as a good indicator of a diverse ecology around Betley Court that we are privileged to maintain.

Long-eared owl (Asio otus) Photo: Woodland Trust

Our photographer friends, Darren and Sarah joined us again this week, continuing their photographic record of the rebuild, and we’ve been delighted with the results. We hope to be able to share the images  with the public around Christmas time. We’ll also be saving them to special archival disks, so they can be placed within public collections like the Staffordshire County Records Office. That way, historians in the future will have access to how Betley Court was rebuilt after the fire. Part of the brief we set Darren and Sarah too was to celebrate the contractors who were putting Betley Court back together and we now have a superb visual record of the different trades working on site, along with those ‘tradies’, their skills, and the craftsmanship they produce.

Replacement skylight installation (Photo: Darren Washington/Sarah Peart)

As I sat and had a cup of tea with Sarah and Darren, during their photoshoot, I expressed regret that we hadn’t commissioned them sooner, to record the early days after the fire; the shock and devastation, the dark days of demolition. Sarah offered me this, “Actually, what you’ve done is got us in to record the positive bits, of Betley Court being built up again. It’s all positive!”. She’s absolutely right of course. We have our grainy mobile pictures taken by the family as we came to terms with the fire to remember those early heart-breaking days. Much better to commemorate the actions that have been taken since, through these uplifting photos showing the progress we’ve made. The fire was just one of those bits of bad luck that happen to us once. With every day, it moves further into the past, and we move nearer to a time when Betley Court is a home again.

All best wishes

Ladybird Su