HR. I. ENT. NAT. HIST., (> 1993 191 



In the meantime, application for planning permission was made on 7th June 1991 

 and this was provisionally agreed on 21st August, pending the signing of the lease. 

 According to the draft lease the reverse was necessary and we didn't finally hear that 

 permission was officially granted until two weeks after the builders had taken up 

 residence on the site! 



The provisional decision of the planning committee became known on the same 

 day to the Wokingham News and I was telephoned by a reporter who asked about 

 the project. The Thursday 29th August 1991 edition of the News then included a short 

 article entitled "Top Nature Society to Pastures New" (reported verbatim in Br. J. 

 Ent. Nat. Hist. 1992; 5: 134), in which it was stated that the news that we had chosen 

 to move to Wokingham had "been greeted with excitement from all sides", perhaps 

 an over optimistic view but they had not considered it remotely likely that any of 

 our members might not want to go to Wokingham! The article referred to our 

 "internationally famous" . . . "mammoth collection of insects". The claim was also 

 made that our move would "do the town of Wokingham no end of good" and be 

 a "massive boost" to their environmental programme, so a great future for the Society 

 there was anticipated. 



On 27th August, the architect was asked to produce the detailed drawings required 

 for the tender to builders, which took him about three months to complete. However, 

 at the end of September another possible location in London was investigated by 

 Andrew Halstead, John Muggleton and myself and the final decision to go ahead 

 with 'Dinton Pastures' did not come until after the terms of the lease had been 

 approved by our solicitor (in November) and then by the Society's council on 

 5th December 1991. Some of the further changes in detail asked for by us then were 

 considered favourably by the local authority and were incorporated in the final 

 document presented to our trustees for signing. We had, however, to admit to not 

 having a 'common seal' with which to embellish the lease. 



The architect's drawings and his building specification running to 116 pages 

 (largely a standard document, providing detailed instructions on the finer points of 

 workmanship such as the correct composition of concrete) were completed and 

 submitted to five builders during December. The tenders were available by 16th 

 January 1992 when we agreed to accept that by C. F. Rawling & Son of Reading, 

 who had the advantages of the lowest estimate and being well known to the architect. 

 Morris & Young had been selected as a subcontractor to fit an air conditioning system 

 as we wished to control the temperature and humidity precisely; I was assured that 

 any combination would be possible and we have experienced a wide range of these 

 during the subsequent teething problems. Three manufacturers were investigated before 

 finding a system that fitted the building design. 



The commencement of building then awaited the signing of a building agreement 

 with the local authority, achieved on 4th February. Agreement of the terms of 

 the lease was implicit in this, but the lease itself had to be signed later, within 

 28 days of "practical completion" of the building, by both trustees. Stephen Miles. 

 John Muggleton and I had met the builder's representatives on 3 1st January and they 

 were invited to occupy the site on 24th February. Completion was expected by 

 3rd July. Delays, however, arose due to several factors outside their control and they 

 must be congratulated for limiting these delays to achieve completion during August. 



The barn superstructure had been demolished by another contractor, but after 

 removal of its concrete floor by our builder, a further unexpected slab was found 

 below ground level. As this had to be cut through for the foundations, a new design, 

 involving a suspended concrete floor slab with additional steel reinforcement had to be 

 introduced, requiring fresh involvement of the structural engineers Board & Gloyens. 



