This week I’m running the Conservation of Historic Concrete course at West Dean in Sussex.   Great bunch of students from Canada, Malta, Switzerland and Italy, as well as the UK,  and my usual team of experts has been joined by Bill Fleeton from Dublin.  We’ve done a succesful mock up of the concrete of the elephant house at London Zoo, and enjoyed getting the authentic ragged corduroy effect by bashing the cast concrete ribs with a selection of large hammers—suprisingly effective…and cathartic….  Next year’s course is in September 2012 and hopefully by then we will have apprentice members of a team restoring Dudley Zoo along too, and we’ll be studying the problems at the zoo as part of the course.