C O N T E X T 8 4 : M A Y 2 0 0 4 3 Many listed churches in the region are Grade II. As English Heritage rarely gets involved in Grade II listed buildings, and the listed building controls still appear to be inadequate for some exempted bodies, the amenity societies may be the only source of expert advice for some church proposals. NorthWest reports two positive developments. First, English Heritage has offered an additional £100-200,000 to be shared by the seven amenity societies over the next three years, specifically to accommodate the planning portal. Electronic consultation would allow for a joint clearing house that could be used by all the amenity societies. Second, the general grant to the amenity societies is also expected to rise over each of the next two years. New life for Cowdray ruins The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded the Cowdray Heritage Trust a grant of almost £2.8 million to conserve Cowdray ruins and the surrounding historic landscapes. The site is due to open in 2006 as a tourist attraction for Midhurst,West Sussex. Cowdray House, a Grade I Tudor mansion that featured in the BBC’s ‘Restoration’ programme, is currently a building at risk. English Heritage has long taken an interest in the site. In the late 1990s it commissioned conservation architect Daryl Fowler to produce a conservation plan. Until his untimely death the bid to save Cowdray was driven by Fowler’s vision of how to rescue the ruins from accelerating dilapidation, and his plan to incorporate the site into a town-wide heritage trail. English Heritage has now agreed to pay the cost of recording the ruins. It will take a leading role in writing a brief and appointing architects to the project. The buildings stand on a flat site below the Norman castle ruins on St Anne’s Hill. Sir David Owen had married the heiress to this ancient feu and used his good position with regard to the newly enthroned Tudors to begin an ambitious mansion. He never completed it, and his rights of succession were purchased by another courtier, Fitzwilliam, who enjoyed a good place at the court of the new king, Henry VIII. Nevertheless, it was not until Fitzwilliam’s half brother Sir Anthony Browne took over that the great stone courtyard house reached completion in the mid-1500s. Browne had also received Battle Abbey in East Sussex after the dissolution of the monasteries, and until the early 18th century the two properties were rivals for the family’s funds. Eventually Battle was sold. For half a century, until the fire that reduced Cowdray to a shell, theWest Sussex mansion became home to a rich art collection and library. The elaborate renaissance fountain that formerly adorned the central courtyard is now on show in the sculpture court of the Victoria and Albert Museum. During the civil war there had been a proposal from Roundhead forces to demolish this Royalist stronghold. Parliament sent a note from London to say that the building should be preserved for the nation’s good. An early instance of listing? Graham Tite Radcliffe Observatory conserved The first phase of a £750,000 conservation project to restore the Radcliffe Observatory, one of Oxford’s most important scientific buildings, has been completed. The Radcliffe Observatory was completed in 1794 to James Wyatt’s design.Wyatt based his design on the Tower of theWinds in Athens, and may have been inspired by a 1762 illustration of the original Greek tower. Around the top of the stonework are figures representing the eight classical winds, sculpted by John Bacon. Below the balcony are signs of the zodiac modelled by J Rossi and manufactured by the Coade factory using Mrs Coade’s secret formula (only recently rediscovered) for the material. Among the signs of the zodiac on the north face are three Morning, Noon and Evening panels, also in Coade stone but sculpted by Robert Smirke. The building was used for its intended purpose of astronomical observation until 1935 when the Radcliffe Trustees eventually abandoned Norman Thelwell: passionate supporter of conservation Older members of the IHBC, who helped found the Association of Conservation Officers in 1981, will know that much of its early success depended on a large circle of friends. Norman Thelwell, who died in February, was one of those. Born in 1923, he developed his skills as an artist in and around Liverpool before joining the army in India. Although remembered as a cartoonist, particularly of small girls on round ponies, he was essentially a landscape artist with a great love of rural England. Thelwell despaired of its destruction at the hands of the bulldozer in the years after the war, and lent his skills as an artist to those who shared his views, including those who opposed gravel extraction in the Test Valley, where he lived just north of Romsey, and those like the ACO who promoted conservation in place of demolition. Michael Pearce, former president of the Association of Conservation Officers Restoring theWinds
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