C O N T E X T 1 1 0 : J U LY 2 0 0 9 1 Context Cover: Weald Barkfold: a restored 17th century timber framed farmhouse inWest Sussex. (Photo: Jonathan Taylor) Change and tradition in the countryside Editorial What is the countryside, anyway? A place where lucky people who can afford to buy their way out of cities live uneasily alongside the relics of a decayed agricultural economy? Or a place of the future, where resourceful people find new ways of post-urban living in real and virtual communities made inevitable by new technologies and the challenge of climate change? The IHBC is continually making the case that historic building conservation is intimately involved with processes of regeneration. This issue of Context shows that this is as true in the countryside as in urban areas. Terry Levinthal (p14) points to some of the difficulties of bringing new life to rural Scotland, which his personal experience of improving a historic house painfully confirmed. Inflexible regulations are one problem. Scotland’s patterns of land ownership are another. Some large public or organisational land owners allow many buildings to remain unoccupied. Yet there is a desperate need for affordable rural housing in Scotland: ‘largely for single or smallfamily units, not the five-bedroom executive bungalows pushed off the back of a lorry on to a levelled site,’ Levinthal writes. The adaptive repair and rehabilitation of small historic properties offers an excellent means of providing local cheap housing or other accommodation. But first there needs to be a fuller understanding of the potential of the rural heritage in meeting wider government policy objectives. The same is true in England. As Stephen Trow explains (p31), rural communities need a mix of people of different ages and backgrounds if they are to retain their vitality. That depends on a supply of locally-available affordable homes. English Heritage, for one, is campaigning for the adaptive re-use of redundant and at-risk historic buildings to provide affordable homes. Carrying out regeneration sensitively depends on understanding the rural context, and finding new ways of building in the countryside. John Sewell, who is in the business of providing the design advice that should make that possible, is well aware that each generation seems as confident as the next that it at last understands what looks right (p17). Technological advances have always generated new designs. Today we face the challenge of designing adaptations to reduce and mitigate the effects of climate change, without spoiling the harmony between old and new. Sewell is optimistic: vernacular buildings are more robust than we sometimes think, he suggests, and building owners are increasingly willing to correct the past mistakes of others. The Institute of historic building conservation www.ihbc.org.uk Registered as a Charity Number 1061593. Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in England Number 3333780. Registered Office: 3 Stafford Road,TunbridgeWells, Kent TN2 4QZ. Officers President Eddie Booth email president@ihbc.org.uk Chairman Dave Chetwyn email chair@ihbc.org.uk Vice Chair Sheila Stones email vchair@ihbc.org.uk Secretary Richard Morrice email secretary@ihbc.org.uk Treasurer Michael Knights email treasurer@ihbc.org.uk Membership Secretary Jo Evans email membership@ihbc.org.uk Education Secretary John Preston email education@ihbc.org.uk Publicity Secretary Doug Black email publicity@ihbc.org.uk Law & Practice Coordinator vacant email law@ihbc.org.uk Director Seán O’Reilly email director@ihbc.org.uk Projects Officer Fiona Newton email projects@ihbc.org.uk Consultant Consultations Coordinator James Caird email consultations@ihbc.org.uk Membership Services Officer Devon DeCelles email membershipservices@ihbc.org.uk Administration Officer Lydia Porter email admin@ihbc.org.uk Committee Chairs Policy Mike Brown email policy@ihbc.org.uk Membership & Ethics Jo Evans email membership@ihbc.org.uk Finance & Resources Richard Morrice email resources@ihbc.org.uk Education John Preston email education@ihbc.org.uk Communications & Outreach Charles Strang email communications@ihbc.org.uk Branch Officers North Geoff Underwood Tel 0191 433 3435 NorthWest Kate Borland Tel 0161 2344556 Yorkshire Keith Knight Tel 01904 658482 West Midlands Charles Shapcott Tel 0121 7044312 East Midlands Roy Lewis Tel 01636 653060 South Julia Foster Tel 01296 585888 SouthWest Ian LundTel 01225 477687 East Anglia StaceyWeiser-Jones Tel 01954 713178 South East David Kincaid Tel 01227 862185 London David McDonald Tel 020 8881 6724 Scotland Stuart Eydmann Tel 01506 775279 Wales Nathan Blanchard Tel 01492 583443 Northern Ireland Sharon BrownTel 028 9754 3087 Republic of Ireland Cormac O’Sullivan Tel 00353 5677 62907 Business Office Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA England Tel 01747 873133 Fax 01747 871718 email admin@ihbc.org.uk No stone unturned Tarnia McAlester 29 Affordable housing in the countryside Stephen Trow 31 The secret garden suburb Charles Hippisley-Cox 34 Architecturally speaking 37 Notes from the chair 38 Director’s cut 39 Membership notes 40 Vox pop 41 Book reviews 42 The IHBC responds 44 Products and services 45 Advertisers index 48 Briefing 2 Out of Context 4 Remembering Mickey King 5 The writer’s voice 6 Material matters 7 Letters 7 Periodically 8 Conference report: Cambridge Heritage Seminar Dennis Rodwell 10 Supporting columns 11 Scotland’s rural heritage Terry Levinthal 14 Design advice in the Peak District John Sewell 17 Vehicle strikes to historic bridges Andrew Tegg 22 Restoration through agri-environment schemes Susan Hardwick 27 Institute ofHistoricBuildingConservation No 110 July 2009 The rural dimension
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