46 C O N T E X T 1 3 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4 representation. In only a handful of authorities is there no physical separation between the management of the HER and the local planning authority’s conservation officers, thus making it even harder to have a direct influence on the direction of the HER.One such exception, Bristol, has created one of the most interesting HER projects in Know Your Place, with significant community involvement and the clever use of the latest inmobile technology. InContext 134 (May 2014) Seán O’Reilly reported the IHBC’s concern at this disconnect and its recommendation that specialist local advisory commissions should be established to agree priorities for individual HERs. The variety of place-related information that may be made available through the HER is almost limitless, as has been highlighted by this series of articles. In Lincolnshire, the desire to have a resource shareable between conservation officers in different local authorities led to an extensive programme of scanning printed photographs. For many of us, in these days of flexible working arrangements and limited storage space, only documents available electronically may be reliably accessed every working day, so dealing with our existing records is a challenge for which Paul Cuming’s article provides insight. Worcester’s project took an enviable resource of historic plans from the archives and made them available to a wider audience. Not everyone will have such a collection but the process would be essentially the same for all manner of deeds and other documents. Very few, if any, HERs can yet boast a full complement of mapped buildings, and the scale of the task of identifying sites for inclusion can be daunting. The Wiltshire and Swindon SMR had no post-medieval records, and only a handful of buildings. In a county of two unitary authorities the number of unlisted buildings of historic interest is expected to be immense. English Heritage provides GIS information for listed buildings and the other designations they make.These are readily imported and were already widely used by the local planning authorities. Assuming that the undesignated buildings are the least likely to be understood and therefore at the most risk, acquiring this information must be a high priority. We are very fortunate to have theWiltshire Buildings Record (WBR), an independent charity with a member of staff based in theWiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham. They have an archive of some 17,000 items, developed over 35 years, of their own detailed investigative surveys and reports, some submitted through the planning process by others, photographs and sales particulars, relating to both designated and undesignated sites. Volunteers for the WBR have now taken on the challenge of locating and plotting these records for the HER, both by visiting Chippenham to use the dedicated HER software, and externally by plotting on a GIS layer which is capable of being imported later. With this done, there will still be many thousands of buildings of local historic interest unrecorded, and there seems to be an ideal way forward: community engagement.With 277 parishes, it would be an impossible task for officers to undertake alone in any event, and the opportunities for communities to get involved in learning about their own history, and thereby value it more highly, and to contribute to our understanding of social values (as discussed inContext 133, March 2014, by Siân Jones), should not be missed.The increased interest in conserving their historic environment by parishes inWiltshire that have undertaken village design statements and similar projects supports this proposal on a small scale. At a recent HER user workshop, the ability to exploit HERs for all levels of education is something HER officers are particularly keen to develop.This could be vital if seeking heritage lottery funding for projects. Other potential user groups could also provide valuable contributions, depending on what research exists. This does not need to be made technologically challenging. At the simplest level it may be achieved by recording the essential information about the site, which could be a hyperlink or a bibliographic reference, and a grid reference on a spreadsheet. This can be imported into GIS systems and included within the HER. Tithe maps often provide the most useful pre-Ordnance Survey plans of settlements and pre-industrial era buildings.They are among the most requested primary sources in record offices. Some are already available online, and they can be especially useful for community projects. TheWiltshire Family History Society has embarked on the transcription of tithe apportionments with a view to publication online.With digitised versions of the maps, no minor task in itself, the association of names to buildings would open up many other avenues of research for all users of the HER, and could enable other classes of record in the archives to be cross-referenced. The publications of most local history societies will have articles about buildings. Only a few of them have indexed online content but the increased access to their documents promised through the HER may be an opportunity they could be encouraged to pursue. How many planning and conservation students have unpublished research that could be useful to others? Gazetteers of building types may be the subject of dissertations, and may already include grid references. With a little prompting from their tutors, students could provide these to the HER, allowing for its quality and data standards. Those collecting dust on a shelf could be scanned and the buildings plotted. Those of us blessed with a relevant Royal Commission volume will know that they are now available online at British History Online. Salisbury’s sites have been plotted as a GIS layer and linked to the relevant section of the text online, for future inclusion within the HER. Pevsner and other publications were discussed by Richard Morrice inContext 130 (July 2013), highlighting the broad range of secondary sources at a national level. Perhaps the strongest message from both the IHBC’s research project and the case studies is that improvement of the quality of built environment data in HERs will best, or possibly only, be achieved by proactive engagement between conservation officers andHER staff, and that the resourcing and technological challenges may be overcome. Thanks to Faye Glover, Wiltshire and Swindon HER officer, and Sarah Reilly, English Heritage. Andrew Minting is a conservation officer at Wiltshire County Council.
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