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
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