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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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