C O N T E X T 9 3 : M A R C H 2 0 0 6 Periodically… Your reviewer was recently asked why the Newsletter of the Ancient Monuments Society was not among the publications appearing with varying frequencies in this column. My response was that its wide-ranging and compendious content makes it, in the best possible sense, unreviewable. If you want to tap in to its coverage, the only answer really is to join the AMS. The most recent newsletter had 64 densely packed pages (A5 format), full of nuggets of information, interest and insight. There are three issues a year and a further volume of annual Transactions covering conservation issues, subjects or research in depth. This runs to another 150 pages. If this all reads a bit like a plug, well it is. As a longstanding member, the Newsletter is one of the few I read from cover to cover as soon as it arrives. If you haven’t done already – join. Several publications pass this way only rarely. One noted recently was Architectural Heritage XVI, the journal of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland. The interest beyond the usual individual historic buildings is in this case an extended essay by Miles Glendinning about the role of Sir Robert Matthew in the burgeoning conservation movement in Scotland, and the ground-breaking work in establishing the Edinburgh New Town Committee at a time when the district was physically disintegrating. Matthew had been a convinced modernist but came increasingly to believe that the reconciliation of globalism and localism, imbued by a growing sense of Scottish nationalism, could find particular expression through conservation. Matthew had at one point become known in some circles as ‘the destroyer of George Square’ – a (partial) destruction of which the Scottish Georgian Society, ancestor of the AHSS, had been founded to oppose. This story of the sinner who repenteth should be required reading by the current proponents of redevelopment rather than regeneration. It is surprising how undervalued the art and archival value of photography would appear to be if judged by the recent coverage in conservation publications. SPAB News (Winter 2005, Vol 26, No 4) is therefore welcome in helping to redress this deficiency by focusing on the very early days of recording historic buildings in this way. Many will be familiar with Francis Frith and his aim to record, albeit commercially and with a team of assistants, a photographic image of every city, town and village in Britain. A sort of photographic Pevsner, he started in 1860 and ended only in 1898 when he died in Cannes. His family continued his work and the company ceased trading only in 1971. One wonders what Frith would have made of digital photography? Less known for his photography than his repair of ancient buildings was a stalwart supporter of the SPAB, WilliamWeir. As an architect and SPAB committee member until 1950, he was a prodigious and methodical recorder of ancient buildings. He visited an average of 21 new locations a year for 64 years, and made return visits amounting to another 1,000 outings, many by cycle with bulky photographic kit and many over long distances. The same issue also highlights the importance of surviving historic decorative leadwork, which is often disregarded and under threat.We are also alerted to the society’s new technical publication (No 17) Conservation of Decorative Leadwork by Peter Rumley. It will probably be available by the time you read this. To hit 40 is something of a milestone and an opportunity for reflection. The latest edition of the RICS Building Conservation Group Journal (No 40) has also prompted a redesign. It has certainly come a long way since the five photocopied pages of its mid-1988 first issue. Recently the number of longer, authoritative articles seems to have declined, as have the informative green centre-spread Do’s and Don’ts Guides.
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