OXFORD CONFERENCE (continued.) the role of central government, Day Two conservation control, including the role of the local authority Conservation Officer and the voluntary and independent bodies at local and national level; and Day Three the implementation of conservation legislation. Roger France of Oxford Polytechnic, who was primarily responsible, in collaboration with the ACOConnnittee, for the content and management of the course, introduced the first sessi0n. His welcome to ACOmembers (and other ranks) was echoed by Mike Pearce as Chairman of ACOwho reiterated that the main purpose of the Assocation was to bring together local authority conservation staff with connnon interests and problems, so that no-one need feel isolated in their job. This course was therefore also a first conference for ACO and he hoped that the opportunity would be taken to make new contacts within the Association and extend the membership. DAY ONE: USTING THEUSTING OF 19th AND20th CENTURY BUILDINGS: JUUAN ORBACH Julian Orbach is an Assistant Inspector specialising in the buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is consequently familiar with the aesthetic and practical problems of the preservation of the recent past - problems that have existed since the beginning of the preservation initiative in the 1870s. The listing of post1840 buildings over the past few years has caused far more controversy than the listing of buildings of earlier periods, with complaints of 11eyesores 11 being listed and of exceptional buildings being missed. Criteria are necessarily differ -ent in some respects -for example, 11intactness 11 is not in itself a qualifying factor, as it is with pre-1840 build -ings. Post 1840, only buildings of definite quality and character are included, and for 1914-39 the criteria are even more stringent. The terminal date for listing has constantly to be revised - Morris regarded 1700 as being the limit of respectability. Mr. Orbach summarised the principal problems of listing buildings of 1840 - 1939. The correlation of age with interest that is valid for earlier buildings may often have to be abandoned as the earlier examples of a style are often of lesser interest than later buildings of greater confidence and sophistication. He acknowledged 9. that personal taste does influence choice, but stressed that this taste is always based on wide experience on the ground, and if there is an element of doubt the problem will be submitted to a consensus of Inspectors. When dealing with the Victorian period, there is a problem of establishing a national standard, even though the coverage of the country is more uniform than with buildings of other periods; quality is hi~her in the large metropolitan Centres. Consequently, uniqueness in a particular context does have to be acknowledged as a qualifying factor; otherwise, seaside towns, for example, would be represented by only a few monuments not characteristic of the general flavour of the architecture. How definitive should the new lists aim to be? The 11greenbacks 11 (bound volumes) produced from 1970 onwards have now been published for most urban areas, and are being produced at an accelerated rate for the rural areas. These were intended to be definitive, and therefore closed lists, to minimise requests for the spot-listing of buildings which had already been surveyed and rejected. Since the process of re-survey is adding numerous Cl9 and C20 buildings - more, proportionally, than were added during the last decade -there is likely to be continued pressure to re-open supposedly definitive lists, compiled 5 or 10 years ago, for the purpose of adding buildings of this period, particularly the C20. Following the demolition of the Firestone factory in 1981, a new initiative resulted in 150 outstanding buildings of 1914-39 being added to the lists. There is always going to be a problem in attempting to fix standards of quality when public and professional interest constantly alters perspect -ives. THEUSTING OF VERNACULAR BUILDINGS: MICHAELGREEN Continuing the analysis of the process and rationale of listing, Michael Green -Inspector of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings,-spoke on the listir:g of vernacular buildings. He described the current re-survey as probably the last opportunity to examine our national stock of historic buildings; the later this is left, the more will be lost. The result of the change of heart during the re-survey is that the new lists contain up to 10 times as many buildings in rural areas as the old lists did.
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