Profile

Biography

Dr Peter Gouldsborough MA is former Director of Studies for the MA in Historic Building Conservation course, run by the Department of Archaeology. He supervises and provides specialist technical support to PhD students following research projects in conservation-orientated subjects.

His field of interest is the mechanisms which cause the weathering of stone, the way those mechanisms interact, and has studied in particular the way in which mosses and lichens growing on stone monuments influence the weathering of those monuments. He recently undertook three visits to Croatia to lecture on stone weathering at The Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.

His other major role is as consultant to The York Glaziers' Trust The York Glaziers Trust. This is an organisation which undertakes conservation work on stained glass of the medieval period and later, from York Minster, the Oxford Colleges and other ecclesiastical and secular buildings in Britain and Europe.

Publications

Full publications list

• 2005 Nuclear Magnetic Scans: results of tests to determine the extent to which nuclear magnetic resonance scanning techniques can be used to predict the porosity of a range of stone and bone samples. This is a pilot study for a non-destructive on-site test method to detect variations in sub-surface porosities of the stone of historic monuments, in order to indicate areas of stone weathering beneath lichens and mosses.
• 2002 Flora in the Conservation of Historic Buildings with Special Reference to Lichens and Ruins, an unpublished PhD dissertation in which the potential of lichens to provide protection from weathering of ruined stone monuments is investigated.
• 1997 Historic Building Conservation: Working with Wildlife, an unpublished MA dissertation which examines the role of historic buildings as wildlife habitat, and highlighted the conflicts which often occur in conserving historic buildings which have historical as well as wildlife habitat value.

Research

Current projects

• Ongoing research into the influence of mosses and lichens on the weathering of stone. This is particularly in relation to stone from the Carboniferous, Jurassic and Cretaceous systems in Yorkshire which have been used as building stones

Current commissions

• Current on-going commissions include lichen surveys and species analysis of the ruins of Slingsby Castle and Sheriff Hutton Castle in North Yorkshire, and Harewood Castle in West Yorkshire.

Teaching

Undergraduate

First year

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Second year

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Third year

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External activities

Memberships

• Registered as an Architect with the Architect's Registration Board
• member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
• member of The British Lichen Society.