Context 160 - July 2019

16 C O N T E X T 1 6 0 : J U L Y 2 0 1 9 Today, we care for an important historic estate, with structures and sites designed by some of the most renowned architects and artists of the last century.The CWGC’s cemeteries and memorials represent a unique commemorative, cultural, horticultural and architectural heritage. In a number of countries our sites are becoming listed or sometimes even under consideration for world heritage site status. With that recognition comes additional responsibility. The CWGC follows a conservation approach to ensure that our work is sustainable, and that we follow best practice for the care and upkeep of our sites. Looking after our estate is a massive global undertaking.We employ 850 gardeners and 160 skilled craftsmen – stonemasons, blacksmiths and carpenters – all over the world. Our teams are locally employed and the vast majority of gardening and maintenance work is done by our own staff. To give a sense of scale, the area of ground controlled by the CWGC is equivalent to 994 football pitches. We look after well over a million headstones, nearly 14,000 Crosses of Sacrifice and over 330 Stones of Remembrance. Caring for these historic and sensitive sites is quite a challenge. Our first world war cemeteries are now 100 years old, in locations that are fully exposed to the elements. We must deal with weathering, the effects of a changing climate and sometimes external factors, including vandal- ism. We contend with a huge range of climate, geography, and access restrictions with local standards, laws and regulations, not to mention cultural differences and language barriers. The challenge for us a century on is finding the bal- ance between maintaining these places so that they fulfil the function they were designed for, and understanding, maintaining and conserving them for the future. We take a long-term approach to the mainte- nance and management of the estate. We make sure that we consider our sites holistically in operational decisions we take – the built ele- ments, the headstones and the landscape. We produce conservation statements before making any interventions, to ensure that the site and its significance has been fully understood. We produced detailed condition surveys of our larger ‘constructed’ sites (about 2,200 of them) on a rolling programme every five years, high- lighting the need for repairs or maintenance and identifying priorities.We have our own surveyors across the world all using the same software for condition surveys. We have an overarching heritage strategy and conservation standards which are set out in a number of internal policy and guidance docu- ments, translated into various languages. The commission invests heavily in training and shar- ing skills between teams across the organisation. Our staff specify and carry out maintenance and conservation work using traditional methods and materials wherever possible. Historic or significant built fabric is retained in situ, with conservation work being carried out on a minimal intervention basis with an understanding of local skills, materials, cultures and legislation.This can be hard to achieve. Even the term ‘conservation’ as we understand it in the UK means different things in different countries, or is simply not established at all. We have found the use of lime mortars, for example, to be almost impossible in A Cross of Sacrifice under repair New names being added to a panel Opposite: Runnymede Memorial, Surrey (the Air Forces Memorial, second world war)