C O N T E X T 1 1 0 : J U LY 2 0 0 9 41 Vox pop Tarnia McAlester (see p29) is employed by English Heritage as project manager of the Strategic Stone Study. What is your favourite building? Witley Court. I am passionate about romantic ruins.Witley Court is on a par with Chatsworth in grandeur. It is very sad that it caught fire and quickly lost its contents, roof and much else to salvage. It boasts ‘the largest fountain in Europe’: the Persius and Andromeda fountain (see p30), designed and built over a three year period byWilliam Nesfield from 1857 – well worth a visit. Your favourite place? The Solomon Islands. I went sailing around the islands for six months. The people, their way of life, the turquoise sea and white beaches can not be matched in my eyes. Your favourite book? Books that are special to me tend to be reference books that I use when my brain fails me. For example, Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, JS Curl’s Encyclopaedia of Architectural Terms and practical building conservation books. What do you do in your spare time? I breathe life into my recently purchased timber-framed cottage and study for an MA in historic environment conservation at the Ironbridge Institute. What organisations are you a member of? IHBC, SPAB Which one issue would you particularly like the IHBC to campaign on? This will be a biased answer: Minerals Policy Statement 1 (MPS1), Annex 3, Natural Building and Roofing Stone.The Strategic Stone Study aims to address the source and supply issues surrounding the safeguarding of building stone in support of Annex 3. Mineral planners need to be aware of the importance of safeguarding this finite resource in their local development documents. Who has been your greatest inspiration? Roy Lewis, my lecturer for my architectural conservation BA (Hons) course at Derby University. Unfortunately, it is another architectural conservation course in the UK that has been pulled. What has been your best idea? Taking the plunge by going to university and studying building conservation. I will never look back. What would you like to have been if you had not become a conservationist? A historic building surveyor. How do you reply when at a party someone asks what you do? It is very difficult to compress the answer into a sentence without losing either their concentration or their ability to grasp the Strategic Stone Study’s concept, but generally ‘I work on a project which looks to safeguard building stone sources for conservation work and new build, now and in the future’. What is the biggest frustration in your job? As I work from home, I find the lack of people to bounce ideas off extremely frustrating. What would you like to be doing in five years time? Putting life back into Pitchford Hall. Pitchford Hall, Shropshire, dating mainly from 1560–70: a conservation challenge.
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