Context 155 - July 2018

C O N T E X T 1 5 5 : J U L Y 2 0 1 8 3 buildings’, calls for a national network of community support advisers to foster cross-community relationships and promote the wider use of church buildings. It suggests that the Church of England should simplify church buildings’ management through the faculty system, making it easier to convert church buildings to mixed uses, and that the law should be clarified to establish that local authorities are not prohibited from awarding funding to churches. The review’s second heading, ‘Supporting the good care and timely maintenance of buildings’, recommends a network of fabric support officers to assist churches with maintenance assessments, building management and maintenance, and to guide parochial church councils (PCCs) on how to prioritise and fund works. It suggests that repairs should be funded locally, as much as possible with the aim of engaging local communities. The fabric support officers should visit each listed church annually and develop a ‘minor repairs plan’, and a rolling 10-year ‘major repairs plan’. Each PCC should nominate a named individual to be the liaison with the fabric support officer and to action maintenance and repairs. Major repairs should be financed principally by local fundraising and topped up from the major repairs fund. A national fund to keep cathedrals safe and open, similar to the First World War Centenary Cathedral Repairs Fund, should be considered separately. The final recommendation says that ‘at least two pilot studies, covering both urban and rural contexts, should be conducted to test and develop the recommendations of this report’. My main concern is that diocesan advisory committees (DACs) are being asked to be more lenient with proposals. DACs recommend or refuse applications for faculties, under ecclesiastical exemption, and are responsible for preventing the loss of churches’ historical significance on the nation’s behalf, while also balancing the needs of the church. This seems to be a worrying trend that is also evident in the new draft of the National Planning Policy Framework. A positive outcome from the review is that the government has allocated £1.8 million towards the suggested pilot scheme. Only two pilots are being run, but this is better than nothing. The chosen urban area is Greater Manchester and the rural area is Suffolk. The pilots will cover listed places of worship of all denominations, not just Church of England. This is an excellent, inclusive step, but places of worship of other denominations hold vastly differing religious significance. Quaker meeting houses are to keep the rain off worshippers’ heads and nothing more, while the worship areas in Catholic churches are sacred space and can not be converted to community use in the same way that Church of England churches can. The two chosen areas do not already benefit from a places of worship support officer – a scheme run by Historic England to help dioceses and their equivalent for other denominations to build capacity among their churches. There are currently 13 such officers across the country – I am one of them – but our job descriptions encompass both of the roles set out in the pilot, so we will be interested to see whether dividing means conquering. The major repairs grant suggested by the review has not been put into place (yet) but could represent vital funding. The Heritage Lottery Fund’s Grants for Places of Worship closed late last year. That funding responsibility was essentially foisted on the HLF following the closure of government funding for churches and financial cuts to the then English Heritage. Other countries have different models for funding repairs to their church buildings, many of which were detailed in Appendix 5 of the review. In France the state and Julian Harrap Architects has won the RICS Building Conservation Award for its restoration of No 14 Fournier Street, Spitalfields. The Grade II listed townhouse was built in 1726 by the carpenter William Taylor. Violet Pinwill With reference to the article by Grant Elliott (‘Violet Pinwill, woodcarver’, Context 152, November 2017), readers are directed to a paper by Dr Helen Wilson ‘The Emergence of the Pinwill Sisters’, published in the Devon Buildings Group Newsletter 34, 2016, which was omitted from the sources. An offprint can be obtained via dawnhoneysett@freeuk.com. Dr Wilson has also compiled a detailed catalogue of work carried out by the Pinwill sisters (www. pinwillwoodcarving.org.uk ) and is in the process of writing a book about them.