World heritage sites Pontcysyllte aqueduct and canal Idealists, colonialists and engineers The view from Jodrell Bank No 176 June 2023 Institute of Historic Building Conservation
VELUX Heritage conservation roof window Preserve, transform, enhance The Heritage conservation roof window has been co-created with conservation officers and architects. The result is an authentic top-hung roof window that complies with the building requirements for historic or listed properties in conservation areas while meeting all modern housing standards. Find out what our new Heritage conservation roof window can do for your project. Original hand-winder for natural ventilation. Sleek, slim-fit profile. Flush installation blends into roofing material. NEW
World heritage sites Pontcysyllte aqueduct and canal Idealists, colonialists and engineers The view from Jodrell Bank No 176 June 2023 Institute of Historic Building Conservation CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 1 www.ihbc.org.uk @IHBCtweet Registered as a charity in England and Wales number 1061593 and in Scotland number SC041945. Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in England number 3333780. Registered Office: Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA Officers President Mike Brown, president@ihbc.org.uk Chair David McDonald, chair@ihbc.org.uk Vice Chair Lone Le Vay, vchair@ihbc.org.uk Secretary Jo Evans, ihbcsecretary@ihbc.org.uk Treasurer Jill Kerry, treasurer@ihbc.org.uk National Office Director Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk Operations Director Fiona Newton, operations@ihbc.org.uk Consultations Coordinator consultations@ihbc.org.uk Administration Officer Lydia Porter, admin@ihbc.org.uk Professional Services Officer Michael Netter, services@ihbc.org.uk Membership Services Officer Carmen Moran, membershipservices@ihbc.org.uk Education,Training and Application Support Officer Anna Hart, training@ihbc.org.uk Committee Chairs Policy Roy Lewis, policy@ihbc.org.uk Membership & Ethics Andrew Shepherd, membership@ihbc.org.uk Education Chris Wood, education@ihbc.org.uk Communications & Outreach Dave Chetwyn, communications@ihbc.org.uk Branch Contacts North north@ihbc.org.uk North West northwest@ihbc.org.uk Yorkshire yorkshire@ihbc.org.uk West Midlands westmids@ihbc.org.uk East Midlands eastmids@ihbc.org.uk South south@ihbc.org.uk South West southwest@ihbc.org.uk East Anglia eastanglia@ihbc.org.uk South East southeast@ihbc.org.uk London london@ihbc.org.uk Scotland scotland@ihbc.org.uk Wales wales@ihbc.org.uk Northern Ireland northernireland@ihbc.org.uk Republic of Ireland republicofireland@ihbc.org.uk Rest of the World overseas@ihbc.org.uk Cover: Ty Craig Bridge, spanning the Llangollen Canal in the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site. (Photo: Chris Davies) See page 20 2 Briefing 4 The writer’s voice 5 Out of Context 7 Periodically 11 Editorial 12 Idealists, colonialists and engineers Ian Wray 16 World heritage in the UK: an overview Chris Blandford 20 Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site Peter Chowns 24 The view from Jodrell Bank Teresa Anderson 28 Where is the data on listed buildings? Alfie Robinson 30 Restoring the Odisha East Coast Canal Gobinda Ballava Dalai and Kathryn Davies 32 The Kasbah: where's that? Emilie Wales 35 From Armageddon to listing Graham Tite 38 A world-wide precedent for solar panels? John Preston 41 Notes from the chair 42 New members 43 Director’s cut 45 Vox pop 47 Book reviews 52 Inter alia 53 Products and services 56 Specialist suppliers index
Editor Rob Cowan Editorial Coordinator Michael Taylor, ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com Editorial Board Tom Copp Nigel Crowe Aimée Felton Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Rebecca Madgin Duncan McCallum Andrew McClelland Fiona Newton Gordon Sorensen Jonathan Taylor Michael Taylor (chair) Cartoons by Rob Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2023 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA 01747 871717 context@cathcomm.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to corporate bodies at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £60.00 Elsewhere £90.00 Context on-line archive Past issues of Context can be viewed on the IHBC website. The archive provides a searchable database and reference for key articles. See www.ihbc.org.uk/page55/ context_archive. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily held by the IHBC or the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication. While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Context themes and copy deadlines Context is published four times a year in March, June, September and December. The next three themes and copy deadlines are: Glass, September, issue 177 (7 July) Rural buildings, December, issue 178 (6 October) Hadrian's Wall, March, issue 179 (22 January) Please contact Michael Taylor at ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com to discuss any editorial submissions or for information about the Context editorial board. 2 CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 Briefing World heritage status for Odesa Louise Priestman writes: Since January Unesco has formally recognised Odesa as a world heritage site. It describes the city as a ‘stand-out testimony to multicultural and multi-ethnic traditions of eastern European cities of the 19th century.’ The application was approved following the submission of recognition by President Zelenskyy in October 2022. Additional protective status has been granted as the city is also included in the list of world heritage sites in danger. Unesco’s decision was based on giving Odesa ‘reinforced technical and financial international assistance’. The area around Odesa has been inhabited since the sixth century BC. The city as we know it today was founded in 1794 by Empress Catherine II to provide protection and access to a warm sea port. The planning and architectural character of Odesa stems from the rapid construction completed during the 19th century, when the benefits of its location became widely recognised. The central core of the city is laid out on a gridsystem, with tree-lined streets and rectangular blocks. The buildings, primarily stone or brick with render, are often finished in bright colours and ornate decoration. Much of the influence stems from the Italian architects, engineers and builders who moved to the area to build it. Odesa’s most prominent and significant buildings and places include the port itself, which stretches for several miles, the Opera House and the Odesa Passage to the Palais-Royal House. Below ground are the city’s 200-year-old catacombs, a network The shopping arcade Odesa Passage (Photo: Sіlіch Marіja, Wikimedia) The Palais de Justice and Pantelimon Church in Odesa at the end of the 19th century (Photo: Wikimedia)
CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 3 of limestone mines that sheltered criminals and, in the second world war, partisans. ‘Odesa, a free city, a world city, a legendary port that has left its mark on cinema, literature and the arts, is thus placed under the reinforced protection of the international community,’ says Unesco director-general Audrey Azoulay. ‘While the war continues, this inscription embodies our collective determination to ensure that this city, which has always surmounted global upheavals, is preserved from further destruction.’ Louise Priestman, senior conservation architect with Wighton Jagger Shaw Architects Dockyard church conserved Sheerness Dockyard Church, at the entrance to the former Royal Dockyard on the Isle of Sheppey, is being restored. Designed by George Ledwell Taylor, surveyor of buildings to the navy, the Grade II* listed church was built in 1828 and gutted by fire in 2001. The building will be brought back into use as a business incubator hub for young people, while conservating its remaining historical features, including its structure of cast-iron columns. Funds raised by the Sheerness Dockyard Preservation Trust include a £4.2 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The heritage plasterwork specialists are Artisan Plastercraft. Coventry’s Charterhouse Coventry’s Grade I listed Charterhouse has reopened to the public after more than a decade of fundraising and restoration work by Historic Coventry Trust. Funding included £6 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Featuring three conserved wall paintings of national importance, the 14th-century building is the only Carthusian monastery in the country with surviving interiors. Founded by Richard II in 1385, it later became a private house owned by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and has had many other roles over the years. It was bequeathed to the people of Coventry by its last resident in 1940 as a museum and park, and the building’s most recent use was as part of Coventry College until 2011. Historic Coventry Trust, supported by local residents, was formed to acquire it with the aim of opening it up to the public. The surrounding land forming part of Charterhouse Fields that remained under Coventry City Council’s control has since been reunited with the Charterhouse in trust ownership, to be used as part of the heritage park, which will be accessible to the public. The new visitor attraction will include interactive displays charting the site’s history, and the relandscaping of the inner precinct as a walled garden. Work in progress on Sheerness Dockyard Church (Photo: Church Artisan Plastercraft) Charterhouse was founded in 1385 as a Carthusian monastery. One of the three wall paintings that have been conserved at Charterhouse
4 CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 Climate change update John Preston writes: The King’s College solar PV decision reported on page 38 coincided with the government’s creation of a new Department for Energy Security, followed shortly by its ‘Powering up Britain’ blueprint for energy in the UK. This follows its energy security and net zero growth plans. Buildings-related proposals include the ‘Great British Insulation Scheme’ (based on ECO+) to deliver £1 billion additional investment by March 2026, and large-scale promotion of new solar PV on and off buildings. Forthcoming consultations will include a minimum energyefficiency standard for the social rented sector, and how to improve the energy efficiency of owneroccupied homes. Many people have criticised ‘Powering up Britain’ for being too cautious. The IPCC’s Climate Change 2023: synthesis report was reported in the Guardian as ‘Scientists deliver “final warning” on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late’. The Climate Change Committee’s Progress in Adapting to Climate Change: 2023 report to Parliament recommends ‘mandatory adaptation interventions on all builtenvironment project applications’. The pressures for change are ever more urgent, but still no sign of the report (originally due last December) on the outcome of the DCMS/BEIS/DLUHC roundtables last autumn. The King’s College Chapel case highlights the inadequacy of planning policies which do not cross-reference national and international standards such as BS 7913 and BS EN 16883. Six years after the latter recognised culture (and heritage within it) as one of the four pillars of sustainability, there is no hint of this being recognised within the planning system. While it is rumoured that the next iteration of PAS 2035 may be free, this needs to apply to all relevant standards, enabling them to be cross-referenced in planning policies. We are still fighting the same uphill battles to get traditional buildings recognised as requiring a different approach, now in relation to the new National Retrofit Hub, which it now seems may not include a traditional buildings workstream. We all need to be better informed, better aware, and better prepared (in Oliver Caroe’s words), and better at communicating our messages to wider, different audiences. We need to find ways of being heard: five of us are waiting on news of our bid for guest editorship of the ‘Today’ programme in August. What about you? John Preston, heritage chair, Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance Unpublished letter to the Times by William Morris, 1878 To replace [the roof of St Albans Cathedral] with a high-pitched one is an undertaking involving so much expense that the Restoration Committee shrink from the task of raising money to carry out the work with proper materials, and propose to use deal and slate instead of the present oak and lead. If this is done it will lay on the future guardians of St Albans a heavy burden of expenses for the repair of such perishable substitutes: but whatever material is used, the proposed new roof will involve possible danger to the fabric of the walls, and certain change in some of their architectural features, such as the parapets for instance: nor can we hide from ourselves that under cover of these necessary (and in any case regrettable) changes, the mistaken zeal of the restorers will probably lead to quite unnecessary changes most destructive to the artistic and historical interest of the building… If the fabric of St Albans Abbey is watchfully, constantly and reverently repaired, it will not be too late, when the views of our Society are proved to be wrong beyond all question, to put a highpitched roof on the nave; or indeed to pull down the whole church and rebuild it: but if the proposed alteration take place, and it be found some few years hence that our views are reasonable, as we confidently think it will be, then indeed it will be all too late for reparation, and no regrets will wish back the inimitable work of our forefathers, which our rashness and egotism will have destroyed forever. An image from the Great British Insulation Scheme
CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 5 ‘SO MUCH dedication, scholarship and belief, all delivered with that wonderful raucous voice and style that was very much not that of your usual architectural historian. The best in the business.’ The architecture critic Rowan Moore mourning the death of the Elain Harwood on Twitter @rowanmoore ‘ELAIN was unafraid about being a champion for the more controversial forms of modernism, including brutalism… ‘Throughout her busy life, she still had time to lecture in very lively style on her architectural passions, including at IHBC events. She will be very sadly missed, but her legacy will live on in her writing’. From IHBC chair David McDonald’s appreciation of Elain Harwood on the IHBC NewsBlog ‘CURRENTLY have one project on indefinite hold due to predicted costs now being 2.5 times the budget, and a retrofit shifting to phased approach for similar reasons. At least retrofits can be phased to spread costs – a lot harder to do that with new build.’ John Butler on Twitter @the_woodlouse ‘I NEVER imagined that I would see a planning inspector order a developer to put back what he’d just knocked down, to look exactly as it was. I thought the developer would get a slap on the wrist, a £6,000 fine. I was flabbergasted. It has set an incredibly useful precedent: other planning inspectors will remember it – and so will developers.’ James Watson, pub protection adviser for the Campaign for Pubs, speaking to the Guardian after a judge had ordered that the Grade II listed Punch Bowl Inn at Hurst Green in Lancashire must be rebuilt, at a cost that the developers have put at £1.5million, plus £70,000 in fines and court costs. ‘ONE OF MY main reasons was that we have a relatively new visitor centre with a glass roof. It leaks, there’s glare, it overheats, and it has a huge air-handling unit for an area that’s less than half as large as the Orangery. I thought, why on earth are we spending all this money, £2 million, doing the same thing? Kelly Whitton, head of building heritage at Blenheim Palace, explaining to the i Newspaper why the 19th-century glass roof to the Orangery will be replaced by a traditional slate roof, enabling the building to better weather extreme heat and heavy rainfall. The new roof will allow a wider gutter, which should remove the problem of the old one flooding and sending water cascading down the walls. Insulation will be fitted, reducing the heating bill and making the room more tolerable in summer. ‘THERE ARE decades of evidence that window replacement has the worst bang for the buck of any action to reduce heat loss. And who in their right mind would toss something made of natural oldgrowth wood that has lasted 100 years for plastic and sealed glazing units that won’t last for a fraction of that time? As historic buildings consultant Donovan Rypkema has noted: “That is why they are called ‘replacement’ windows; you have to replace them every 30 years”… ‘Blower door tests on properly restored 200-year-old windows have demonstrated that they are as airtight as new windows. And if they are still draughty, add window inserts or exterior storm windows, and you have pretty good thermal performance without all the upfront carbon emissions of making new windows… Blenheim Palace: coping with the climate (Photo: DeFacto, Wikimedia)
6 CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 ‘So instead of having blocks of wonderful old houses covered in vinyl windows and acrylic stucco with combo gas boilers, all of which come with significant upfront and operating carbon emissions, we can now concentrate on insulating lofts, air sealing, and eliminating operating carbon with heat pumps.’ Canadian sustainable design teacher Lloyd Alter at lloydalter.substack.com ‘I DON’T understand why it has caused them to be so angry, I can’t understand that emotion about the colour of a door. These homes were built as entertainment spaces. They are incredible spaces and I have leaned into the bones of the rooms to maximise their beauty. ‘I have restored all the windows, and kept the cornices and mouldings as well as the shutters. I have been much more sympathetic than more modern refits. And I saw a pink door on EastEnders last night, so it really isn’t that weird.’ Homeowner Miranda Dickson talking to the BBC after losing her appeal against the enforcement notice that has made her change the colour of her pink front door in Edinburgh New Town. ‘SINCE the purpose of designating or extending conservation areas is to preserve or enhance areas of “special architectural or historic interest”, the designation or extension of a conservation area which is motivated principally by a desire to protect a specific building and prevent its demolition will be unlawful.’ A High Court judge ruling in the case of Future High Street Living (Staines) Ltd v Spelthorne Borough Council ‘NO RISKS to the integrity of the mechanism have been identified… ‘It is not uncommon for issues like this to arise as the clock mechanism beds down after an intensive conservation programme.’ A House of Commons spokesperson explaining that the Great Clock of Westminster, which contains Big Ben, stopping twice in a week, following the tower’s £80 million refurbishment, was ‘all part of the bedding-in process’. Extra lubricant has been applied. ‘AT ONE point in the inquiry, a member of British Rail’s legal team stood and grandiloquently suggested that, in view of LISSCA’s commitment to saving historic buildings, it should donate its entire funds to the rail operator to assist with preservation efforts. ‘I responded by saying we would be very glad to make over the entire contents of our bank account to British Rail immediately. The fact that it was several thousand pounds overdrawn would be largely unnoticed given the size of British Rail’s deficit.’ Campaigner George Allen of the Liverpool Street Station Campaign (LISSCA), a coalition including Save, the Twentieth Century Society and the Victorian Society, recalling its mostly successful earlier opposition to the demolition of the station in the 1970s. The latest proposals would see much of the existing station demolished and office space built over the Grade-II listed Andaz hotel. ‘THIS IS THE modern city today which looks alive. There are the pictures of the tragedies of Hiroshima, and then the pictures of what we can see today. ‘I consider that the same will take place in Bakhmut and other cities and settlements and villages and so on. Definitely, it will be like that. ‘Unfortunately, today it is a tragedy but in the future there will be reconstruction and recovery.’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking in Hiroshima, Japan Liverpool Street Station: under threat (Photo: Rebroad, Wikimedia)
CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 7 Periodically Heritage Now The Winter 2022–2023 edition of Heritage Now introduces the new director of Historic Buildings and Places, Liz Power, to a wider audience. Its articles include a forceful polemic on the importance of retaining, reinforcing and perhaps reinventing the high street, and the need for high streets to change in order to survive. One feature discusses the perhaps nationally under-appreciated sisters Mary, Ethel and Violet Pinwell, who audaciously set up their own professional woodworking company in the 1890s. In the west country they are acknowledged to be among the foremost woodcarvers in the region at the end of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. A number of splendid detailed examples of their work are illustrated in colour. In the regular Comment section, Damien Williams, the founder of Williams Conservation in South Wales, argues that most active lime quarries are now used for concurrent cement and concrete manufacturing, with no untapped area that could start a revolutionary return to a UK source for lime. He feels that the best chance is either for small-scale lime burning (possibly reusing existing historic lime kilns), or for existing quarry owners to produce natural hydraulic limes alongside the production of cement and concrete. Williams believes that the restoration of the UK’s lime industry would have many benefits, not least reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Anna Eavis explains the enduring popularity of the London Blue Plaque Scheme, founded in 1866 and believed to be the world’s oldest commemoration of its kind. The Association of Preservation Technology Bulletin Regular readers will be aware of this reviewer’s strong advocacy of the Association of Preservation Technology Bulletin, notwithstanding that by being published in the USA it is not always easily accessible in the UK. Its technical content, at the cutting edge of the history of historic environment management, leads to this reviewer considering it to be essential reading. The most recently received joint issue from 2022 (Vol LIII, Nos 2–3) deals with materials and the architectural assemblies of historic building construction. Since its inception, the APT Technical Committee for Materials has concentrated on the exchange and dissemination of information on materials by a wide range of means. The team has expounded not only the fundamental physical properties of building and repair materials, but also their chemical composition, how physical and chemical properties relate to performance, and the mechanisms involved in loss of that performance. Frank Matero focuses on an examination of education in architectural material studies and its influence in shaping the disciplines and professional practice so fundamental to good heritage management practice. Shirley Cefai and JoAnn Cassar generate an informative discussion on aspects of reconstruction and authenticity, probing how new material used in architectural preservation is important in considering how this concept is addressed, especially when there is a dramatic loss of material and use. There are two instructive examples from southern Europe. The church of Saint Anthony of Padua in Malta, commissioned by the grandmaster Manuel De Vilhena, built in 1727 and destroyed during the second HERITAGE NOW The Magazine of Historic Buildings & Places | www.hbap.org.uk (01/2023) WINTER 2023 CELEBRATING LONDON’S BLUE PLAQUE SCHEME
8 CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 world war, is compared with the reconstruction of the templecathedral of St Procolus in Pozzuoli, Italy, after being damaged by fire in 1964. The cathedral of Pozzuoli was originally commissioned around 1630, while the temple of Augustus dates from the first century AD. The two rebuilt structures resulted in diametrically opposite solutions, utilising very different materials. Original limestone was used in the church in Malta, while glass and metal were used in Pozzuoli, resulting in very different architectural solutions. The paper discusses how the authenticity of both churches was impinged on due to the form of the materials used, which in turn affected their appearance and the experience created. The most truthful application of historic finishes of architectural elements undergoing multiple restoration and maintenance campaigns is the subject of a paper by Emily Macdonald. She explains the use of materials science to determine appropriate interventions using a combination of historical research, in-situ investigation and laboratory analysis to discover more than just the earliest colours. Tim Michiels and Dan Bergsagel focus on how a range of building demolition, replacement and renovation scenarios can direct heritage management practice in aiding sustainability and rehabilitation choices, helping to reduce embodied carbon and furthering the idea of sustainable materials preservation. Brian Goekin provides a focus on how the term ‘substitute material’ is used and how alternative materials might be incorporated in building conservation, by referencing the US National Park Service guidance on substitute materials embedded in Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties since the 1970s. The issue concludes with Richard Piper describing the stylistic evolution of cast stone as one of the iconic substitute materials in architecture, and citing helpful references to the origins of its manufacture and use, ubiquity, repair, conservation and replacement. One valuable element of the APT Bulletin is its regular Practice Point centre section. The series has reached No 24, addressing the subject of terrazzo. Anne T Sullivan presents a full discussion of the material from its history of utilising scrap from the marble industry in Italy through late 19th- and 20th-century cementitious systems to its modern transformation into a polymerbased floor finish. Anybody dealing with conservation or substitution of this material will find Sullivan’s nine-page exposition extremely helpful. The Victorian The March 2023 issue of The Victorian (No 72) has a most informative article by Jess Jenkinson about the fine commercial, institutional and domestic architecture of Victorian Grimsby. This will perhaps encourage greater recognition for the town and particularly its notable Italianate architectural aspects. Following the death in September 2022 of the outstanding architectural historian of the late 20th century, The Victorian presents a considered obituary of Mark Girouard, one of the founding members of the society in 1958. The obituary notes how his scholarship and considerable body of published works changed many people’s perceptions of Victorian architecture. SPAB Magazine For those who have not had the opportunity to digest Historic England’s Listed Building Owners and Occupiers Survey for 2022, Matthew Slocombe highlights some telling statistics in the SPAB Magazine (Spring 2023). In some respects, the survey results are encouraging, with 89 per cent of residents feeling proud of the listed place in which they live, and 86 per cent concluding that they are able to keep on top of repair and maintenance issues. However, while 81 per cent supported the concept of listed building consent, satisfaction with the operation of the system has fallen from 51 per cent in 2017 (the date of the last survey) to 35 per cent in 2022. This is despite only 15 per cent of respondents having had their listed building applications refused. Slocombe concludes that the response presumably reflects the perceived difficulties or both appropriately authoritative expertise and administration within the planning system. That is likely to come as no surprise to readers here. What may also be of interest in this issue is an exploration of the philosophical arguments surrounding the treatment of Clandon Park, owned by the National Trust and gutted by fire in 2015. The then National Trust director Helen Ghosh said that Clandon would be rebuilt ‘in some shape or form’, sparking a vigorous debate on the merits of alternative approaches. Diametrically opposed arguments were voiced ranging from full restoration to accepting Clandon’s fate and leaving it as a ruin while spending the insurance money on conservation of other houses in the trust’s care. An international design competition, held in 2017, was won by Allies and Morrison with a
CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 9 TWENTIETH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE Holy Houses proposal to ‘restore, reimagine and rebuild’. Those proposals have now been significantly revised in the light of a growing understanding and appreciation of what survives, and what is achievable in terms of reinstating lost interiors. This shift in the National Trust’s thinking about how the house might best be used, interpreted and presented led to the launch of new proposals in July 2022. It is now being argued that, post-fire, Clandon represents a new and exciting chapter in the house’s rich history. This has prompted a rethink of received knowledge and revised comprehension of the multifaceted nature of the materials and layers that make up the house, and acknowledgment and admiration for often unknown, but highly skilled minds and dexterous craftsmanship that had contributed to the building as a whole. Clearly this is proving to be a very long-drawn-out project, and it might be argued that the longer it continues, the more additional scholarship and further evidence might inform yet further revisions to the proposed renovation work. Finally, Eleanor Jolliffe considers the emergence of architects, and the changing nature of their profession, particularly with reference to the 19th century; the founding of the RIBA and the SPAB; and the architects’ presently evolving role. The relationship between what prospective architects are taught about building construction and building history; and the specific needs of authenticity, appropriate heritage management, construction and the use of traditional materials, are aspects of conservation that the SPAB is particularly well placed to address. Bob Kindred MBE C20 One of the great benefits of membership of the Twentieth Century Society, in addition to its excellent regular magazine C20, is the periodic publication of the splendid and important series of monographs on modern architecture. This is consistently supported in particular by the Mark Fitch Fund and by others including, from time to time, Historic England. The latest, Volume No 15, edited by Elain Harwood and Alan Powers, is entitled Holy Houses: places of worship in twentieth-century Britain. This invaluable collection of essays, well-illustrated with most of the photographs of buildings in colour, should act as a stimulus to motivate readers towards the care and management of these buildings as an integral aspect of our built environment and cultural heritage. Sadly, we recently learned of the death of Elain Harwood, who will be greatly missed. Within its 192 pages, the society brings together a wide range of ecclesiastical subject matter from twelve contributors. It is enterprisingly broad, ranging from denominations like the Salvation Army (by Stephen Spencer) and Christian Scientists (by Alan Powers), rarely considered as serious architectural clients, to the Quakers (by Johanna Roethe), a denomination more readily associated with the architecture of earlier eras. The volume also covers several individual architects, some of them well known, like Percy Thomas (by Robert Proctor) and Robert Potter and Richard Hare (by Elain Harwood). Others, like Ernest Bower Norris and Richard Twentyman, receive the wider recognition seemingly only formerly accorded within the limited geographical areas where their work was dominant. Bob Kindred MBE
CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 11 WORLD HERITAGE SITES Opposite: The mid-19th-century Arklid Barn at Nibthwaite in the Lake District World Heritage Site after restoration (Photo: Historic England, James O Davies) See page 19 Editorial Wonders of the world The new Tentative List, the UK government’s latest attempt to add to Unesco’s list of world heritage sites, now has seven sites from across the UK and Overseas Territories. Most, if not all of them, will never make it to Unesco’s list, but the government, local authorities and devolved administrations will now work hard to develop their bids. ‘Site’ in the phrase ‘world heritage site’ is defined rather broadly, as the UK’s tentative seven show. The first two on the list are distinct places. ‘Birkenhead the People’s Park’ as the list describes it, is the pioneering municipal park. It opened in 1847, across the River Mersey from Liverpool, which no longer has a world heritage site. Next comes York, which the government announcement breathlessly tells us has ‘fantastic civic and religious buildings including its Minster as well as a rich history left behind by its Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman inhabitants’. ‘The Zenith of Iron Age Shetland’ is a collection of three ancient settlements, one on the island of Mousa, the other two on the Shetland mainland, all three including the remains of round towers known as brochs. The proposed site of ‘Gracehill Moravian Church Settlement in Northern Ireland’ is part of a joint bid alongside other Moravian religious sites in Denmark, the USA and Germany, celebrating that religious community. The other three ‘sites’ on the tentative list are what are classified as ‘natural’ rather than ‘cultural’. ‘East Atlantic Flyway: England East Coast Wetlands’ is not so much a place as a migratory bird route over western parts of Europe, including parts of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent. ‘The Flow Country’ is a vast expanse of blanket bog (a rare type of peatland) in the north of Scotland. Apparently it is more fun than it sounds. According to the Flow Country website, you can become a volunteer, staying ‘for a few weeks or a few months – some folk end up staying for years’. Finally, the ‘Little Cayman Marine Parks and Protected Areas’, situated in the UK Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands, have been put forward, not for their contribution to dodgy banking, but for ‘their exceptional importance to marine biodiversity and their incredible natural beauty’. The ancient world, keeping it simple, celebrated Seven Wonders. Unesco has more than 1,000 on its list of ‘sites of outstanding universal value’. The task of selecting even that number from what must surely be potentially tens of thousands of places of such value is inevitably often the cause of furious debate. Unesco defines outstanding universal value as ‘cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity’. Those of us who have not been landed with the almost impossible job of applying that definition can enjoy the fruits of the process that highlights some of the very best of what the world has to offer.
12 CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 IAN WRAY Idealists, colonialists and engineers Underlining the importance of industrial heritage and technology depends on new ways of telling the story, perhaps through a new statutory designation of national heritage areas. Danny Boyle’s unforgettably spectacular opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics paid homage to all the usual symbols of Britain’s cultural and creative achievement.The examples ran from the boat race, punk rock, Sergeant Pepper uniforms and maypoles, through to Elgar, medieval village greens, cricket, Shakespeare, the suffragettes and the National Health Service. But pride of place was given to one great phenomenon, with the village green transformed into industrial Britain, maypoles replaced by towering, smoking chimneys and villagers replaced by the toiling urban masses, all supervised by top-hatted Victorian entrepreneurs and starring Kenneth Branagh as the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It was a shrewd choice (if we can overlook the fact that Brunel was half French), as the industrial revolution is by common consent the long event that transformed Britain. Stonehenge may be an intriguing relic, but it is ultimately no more than that. Britain’s industrial society changed the world and, especially in the fastgrowing nations of the far east, it does so today. It was forged in large part not by elites and experts, but by ordinary people in ordinary provincial places. Boyle had understood the common power of industry and its place in the national psyche. Consciously or not, the process of identifying and inscribing UK-based world heritage sites has reflected the central importance of industrial heritage and technology. No less than a third of the inscribed sites (10 out of 27 sites on the UK mainland) have this theme. They are Blaenavon Industrial Landscape, Wales; the Slate Landscapes, Wales; Mining Landscapes of Cornwall and West Devon, England; Derwent Valley Mills, England; Forth Bridge, Scotland; Ironbridge Gorge, England; New Lanark, The south end of The Forth Bridge, viewed from the Hawes Pier in Queensferry, a few months before its inscription in 2015 (Photo: Miles Oglethorpe, Historic Environment Scotland)
CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 13 WORLD HERITAGE SITES Scotland; Pontcysyllte Aqueduct,Wales; Saltaire, England; and Jodrell Bank, England. While the Lake District also contains some industrial heritage, it was inscribed as a world heritage site as a cultural landscape for its harmonious mountain landscape, shaped by a particular land use and farming system. There are very many other places in the UK with strong claims to connections with industry and technology, including Liverpool (sadly deleted as a world heritage site by Unesco1), the Stockton and Darlington Railway (the world’s first), and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (the first modern intercity railway). Other sites with a strong industrial revolution component are waiting to be considered for the UK’s tentative list of world heritage sites, including Birkenhead Park (a critical early example of a public park) and Port Sunlight (a model village). Both these places are examples of pioneering developments designed to mitigate and compensate for the worst excesses of industrialism, by injecting new green space and designing new suburban garden city developments. Both have had a huge impact on the development of town planning throughout the world. The only comprehensive review of UK sites was carried out by World Heritage UK in 2019. It briefly noted the importance of industrial heritage: ‘A large part of the world heritage site collection relates to sites that reflect preindustrial town and landscape planning, the impact of the industrial revolution and the environmental mitigation of its worst effects, often through town planning and the creation of model communities. Many of these sites resonate with Britain’s global role as a great power and shaper of world events, especially through the British Empire, the industrial revolution and the export of ideas for town planning and environmental management…They are of central importance in understanding Britain’s island story.’2 However, the review did not specifically carry the issue forward into its recommendations. By common consent Britain was the first industrial nation. The industrial revolution was the most fundamental transformation of human life in history, arguably the greatest sea-change in history since the advent of agriculture. Technology became the main agent of economic and social change, and for a brief period all this coincided with the history of Britain. First into the experience, there was no external guidance, and the British had to evolve new mechanisms (social, technical and legislative) to support the growth of industry, while managing the worst excesses of headlong growth and industrial society. In Eric Hobsbawm’s words: ‘An entire world economy was built on or rather around Britain, and the country therefore temporarily rose to an unparalleled position of global influence and power... There was a moment in the history of the world where Britain can be described, if we are not pedantic, as its only workshop, its only massive importer and exporter, its only carrier, its only imperialist, almost its only foreign investor, and for that reason its only naval power and the only one which had a genuine world policy.’³ Following Britain’s example, many countries not yet industrialised set about creating industrialisation by decree. Britain, by contrast, had seen an industrial revolution by general agreement. In the words of Peter Mathias: ‘Britain saw an industrial revolution by consent. It owed nothing to planners and nothing to policemen.’⁴ In Britain, the state did not aim to drive change or shape development, or to act as counter to the social and environmental problems unleashed by industrialisation, although later it simply had to assume these roles. In many senses all nations seeking economic growth in the 20th and 21st centuries are following the path Britain pioneered in the 18th century. It follows that the sites most closely associated with this process assume national and international status, whether or not they are world heritage sites. It is sometimes thought that the industrial revolution proceeded purely on the basis of craft skills among uneducated workers. There is doubtless some truth in this. Yet, as Joel Mokyr argues, the relative importance of science to the productive economy kept growing through the late-18th and 19th centuries.⁵ After 1870, science and technology became indispensable, as evidenced in partnerships between scientists and industrialists, and most dramatically in the growth and development of scientific institutions: the religious dissenters’ academies, which provided the skills needed for the first phase Penrhyn Slate Quarry in the Slate Landscape of North West Wales World Heritage Site (Photo: Crown copyright, RCAHMW) 1 See Dave Chetwyn and Ian Wray (2021) ‘What was Unesco up to in Liverpool?’ Context 170, December ² World Heritage UK (2019) UK World Heritage: an asset for the future ³ Eric Hobsbawm (1969) Industry and Empire, Pelican Books ⁴ Peter Mathias (1983) The First Industrial Nation: an economic history of Britain, 1700– 1914, Routledge ⁵ Joel Mokyr (2009) The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1850, Yale University Press
14 CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 of industrialisation, and later the ‘redbrick’ universities in northern cities.⁶ The story of industrialisation feeds naturally into the story of science and technology. In many areas of knowledge Britain still retains a world leading role, not least in fields stimulated by wartime priorities, including aviation, radar (thus radio astronomy), computing (thus robotics, autonomy and artificial intelligence) and nuclear physics.⁷ Similarly, Britain retains a world-leading role in addressing the adverse impact of economic growth, in town planning and the management of environmental change. British planners are respected throughout the world (arguably not so much at home these days). Old connections remain valid. Wei Yang, the Chinese/British town planner consultant, was recently president of the Royal Town Planning Institute. She and her colleagues have practised extensively in China. Thousands of Chinese students have come to Britain to be educated as planners, returning to the challenge of China’s fast-growing cities.They follow in the footsteps of Chen Zhanxiang, also known as Charles Chen. An architect planner, Chen studied at Liverpool University’s school of architecture and its department of civic design (the world’s first planning school) between 1938 and 1944. He was invited by architect and historian Liang Sicheng to return to China and contribute to the planning of Beijing. They proposed a new administrative zone for the western edge of the city and championed the protection of the historic core and architectural heritage of the ancient capital.⁸ Any narrative for industrial and scientific world heritage would intersect with a number of agendas that are of particular interest to government and the wider community. They include: Scientific education Government and industry in Britain and throughout the world are concerned to secure high standards of educational attainment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). These subjects are vital to economic growth and the growth of innovation and productivity, but they are not always popular and standards of attainment can be lacking. One key issue is encouraging brighter students to pursue studies in these subjects. Building knowledge of Britain’s history of success as a scientific and industrial powerhouse could help to inspire future students and build a sense of national pride. As the birthplace of industrial society, Britain is at the centre of debates on economic growth and climate change. Soft power The government is committed to developing a new global and international role for Britain after Brexit, and as part of this sees a role for soft power and influence. World heritage sites themselves can be seen as a component of national soft power, status and global influence, especially when the sites reflect a history of technological and scientific achievement of global significance. Regeneration ‘Levelling up’ is the present government’s term for regenerating old industrial communities and tackling regional inequalities. Industrial heritage, concentrated in the north of Britain and in old industrial communities, could be a source of local pride and achievement in left-behind places, and a useful tool for supporting tourist development. National purpose There is a case for building a sense of national pride and purpose. As with soft power, technological achievements are a legitimate element in national pride, so long as the narrative is honest about the less-than-benign elements of economic history, including exploitation, slavery and the negative environmental impact of industrial growth built on fossil fuels. The connections between Britain’s imperial past, slavery and industrial wealth are controversial, and even academics are divided. Joel Mokyr, author of recent seminal study of Britain’s industrial revolution, argues that research has not substantiated the thesis that profits from the slave trade provided mainstream funding for the industrial revolution. He allows one exception: Britain’s cotton industries, clustered around Manchester, became dependent on raw material produced by slave labour in the American southern states.⁹ Recent research by American academics takes a different view, arguing that by the 1830s slavery wealth was strongly correlated geographically with Britain’s economic development.1⁰ Yet their evidence appears to be circumstantial, if not counter-intuitive: the cities with the biggest concentrations of slave-holding wealth – London, Bristol/Bath and Liverpool – were not the great centres of industry and innovation, or of manufacturing employment. London and Liverpool had no cotton mills, and Bristol only one. Innovation occurred in other places, such as the north east of England, West Yorkshire, Manchester and the Midlands, which had little or no slave-holding wealth. A new positive narrative for international industrial and world heritage could be developed and communicated in several ways. The first, and in some ways the most obvious, would be through the media, including books, podcasts, social media, documentaries, videos, museums, theatre and the visual arts. Taking this strand forward would call for professional marketing and PR advice on narrative, branding, audiences and preferred media. The second and perhaps more interesting approach would be to replicate the industrial ⁶ See Ian Wray (2016) Great British Plans, Routledge and Jenny Uglow (2002) The Lunar Men, Faber ⁷ See David Edgerton (2011) Britain’s War Machine: weapons, resources and experts in the second world war, Harmondsworth ⁸ University of Liverpool Alumni Profile https:// www.liverpool. ac.uk/architecture/ our-people/alumni/ chenzhanxiang/ ⁹ Joel Mokyr, op. cit 1⁰ Stephan Heblich, Stephen Redding and Hans Joachim Voth (September 2022) Slavery and the British Industrial Revolution, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 30451
CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 15 WORLD HERITAGE SITES festivals.The inspiration for the idea comes from extraordinary and successful events in Germany and Poland: the ExtraSchicht, which celebrates the industrial culture of the Ruhrgebeit, and the Industriada project in Silesia. An attempt in 2017 to investigate replicating these events in Britain foundered through lack of resources. Event management teams in Germany and Poland were keen to provide mentoring roles for the project. Individual sites might be linked together to form industrial trails. A particularly simple and effective device might be the celebration of key anniversaries, such as the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. A project to mark this particular bicentenary is already under way, with support from the respective cities, museums and Network Rail.11 Raising the profile of issues like biodiversity and climate change has been hugely influenced by a small number of thought leaders such as Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough. Could similarly influential individuals take forward the narrative for industrial heritage? The final and perhaps most interesting possibility is the establishment of a new statutory designation of national heritage areas, similar to those designated in the USA. The American national heritage areas are places where historic, cultural and natural resources combine to form cohesive, nationally important landscapes. Unlike national parks, national heritage areas are large lived-in landscapes, collaborating with communities to determine how to make heritage relevant to local interests and needs. By 2022, 55 national heritage areas had been designated in the USA1², marrying heritage conservation, recreation and economic development. As with national parks, areas of outstanding national beauty and national nature reserves, UK national heritage areas could enjoy national specific national planning policy and, like our rural environmental designations, a specific management budget from central government for enhancement, management and interpretation. While there are several national designations for sites of environmental and landscape significance (with attached central government funding and support), there is no equivalent for historic urban sites, other than conservation areas, which are essentially a local designation, with many thousands now identified. National heritage areas could embrace, but need not be confined to, existing world heritage sites. There are many other extremely important locations for the industrial and scientific narrative which are not, and may never become, world heritage sites. Britain’s industrial and scientific heritage is closely woven with the best and the worst of its global role, as an engineering innovator, as a scientific and technological giant, and as colonial power, part of whose elite wealth was generated by the cruel trade of slavery. Arguably 21st-century Britain needs to know much more about these subjects. We cannot build a new future for ourselves unless we understand where we have come from, both good and bad. 11 David Thrower and Ian Wray (2022) ‘Rocket 200’, Town and Country Planning, March–April 1² www.nps. gov/subjects/ heritageareas/visit_ nhas_online.htm Ian Wray is a past vice chair of World Heritage UK and an honorary professor at Liverpool University’s Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place. Cromford Mill in the early morning mist. The world’s first successful water-powered cotton spinning mill, Cromford Mill is the centrepiece of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. (Photo: Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site)
ihbc.org.ukRkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=