C O N T E X T 9 3 : M A R C H 2 0 0 6 Context Briefing Copy deadlines Context is published five times a year, in March, May, July, September and November. Copy deadlines in 2006 are: Issue Date May, Issue 94 17 March July, Issue 95 19 May September, Issue 96 14 July November, Issue 97 15 September Editor Robert Cowan Editorial Coordinator Mike Brown, 54 High Road, Essendon, Hertfordshire AL9 6AP Tel 020 8379 3865 email mike.brown@enfield.gov.uk Editorial Board Mike Brown (chair) Susan Brook (treasurer) Nigel Crowe (main features) Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Michael Taylor (main features) Cartoons by Robert Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2006 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Published for the Institute of Historic Building Conservation by Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury,Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA Tel 01747 871717 Fax 01747 871718 email context@cathcomm.demon.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to non-members of the IHBC at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £50.00 Elsewhere £75.00 Subscription orders, together with remittances payable to Institute of Historic Building Conservation, should be sent to the IHBC Business Office at Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily those held by the IHBC nor the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication.While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Action on parish churches Inspired! is a campaign led by English Heritage to secure a future for church buildings. It will involve research, pilot projects, training and capacity building to identify how to keep parish churches thriving, and to attract government support. In some places groups of volunteers are struggling to maintain their buildings, while in others successful churches with growing congregations urgently need to adapt and expand to accommodate new patterns of worship.Without forward thinking, says English Heritage, both trends threaten the survival of historic church buildings. Often the buildings provide the only remaining physical and spiritual focus for rural communities. In urban areas, redevelopment and shifting populations may mean that they are of significance’ should describe what is particularly special about the architecture and character of a church building to inform decisions on changes.Too often they are just a list of facts. EH will encourage congregations to draw in local sources of knowledge when creating them.The statements can be part of denominational reviews and inform the new unified designations to be created under the Heritage Protection Review proposals. Further information from churches@ english-heritage.org.uk Dorchester Abbey Cloister Gallery A new display of medieval stonework at Dorchester Abbey, near Oxford, sets around 100 pieces of the former monastic buildings against a 12th century wall (which could not be drilled into) in a new traditionally built gallery created where the abbey cloister once stood. The Abbey Church at Dorchester onThames, the surviving part of a 12th-century Augustinian Abbey, has undergone a five-year restoration and refurbishment.The monastic buildings were demolished after the dissolution in the 1530s, but a number of carved stones survived stored behind the altar. A new ‘pentice’, built of green oak and roofed with Cotswold stone, has been added on the site of the south range of the original cloister. A hundred worked stones were selected to form the basis of an exhibition.The brief was to give visitors an idea of monastic life and suggest the appearance of the missing buildings. Chris Hudson and Sally Rousham the only remaining physical link to the origins of that part of town.Whatever denomination or faith built them, they may be valued by believers and nonbelievers alike. An audit of the physical condition of listed church buildings will help to estimate outstanding repair bills for all historic places of worship in England and the average cost of annual maintenance. Questionnaires have already been sent to the 137 congregations in Manchester, Newcastle, Suffolk, Cheltenham and Portsmouth who took part in a similar survey in 1994/5, providing a comparison. English Heritage will also be surveying other areas, including nonChristian listed places of worship. Places of worship in need will be mapped to identify the areas of the country with the most vulnerable places of worship.The criteria will include statistical data on repair costs, expenditure on repairs, congregational and community support, and contributions. An important question is whether grants might be better used to fund maintenance as well as repair. English Heritage is funding two maintenance pilots (in the dioceses of London and St Edmundsbury and Ipswich) and hopes to commission others. English Heritage says that ‘statements
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=