HERITAGE

The Architectural Press

The Architectural Press was a publishing house that produced the journals The Architects Journal and the Architectural Review. The Journal was considered the poor relative of the two.

Hubert de Cronin Hastings's (1902-1986) father founded The Architectural Review. As a young man he had switched from being taught architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture to learning art at the Slade School of Fine Art. He had a taste for Cubism and became an innovative graphic designer. He had ensured that the Architectural Press campaigned for something to be done about the almost derelict canal system. He appreciated that if it could be not re-established on a commercial basis then there might be scope for using it for tourism.

After the Second World War, the Architectural Review was edited by (Sir) (James) Jim Richards (1907-1992). He was an enthusiastic Modernist, a taste that prompted his junior colleague (Sir) John Betjeman (1906-1984) to dub him Karl Marx . The magazine's contributors included: (Sir) Osbert Lancaster (1908-1986), who shared Betjeman's taste for Victoriana, (Sir) Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), and John Piper (1903-1992). In 1961 Richards joined the campaign that sought to prevent the demolition of the Euston Arch. By the 1970s Richards was questioning the policy of comprehensive redevelopment that had come to be associated with Modernism.

Location: 9-13 Queen Anne's Gate, SW1H 9DP (red, turquoise)

Kenneth Browne

At the Architectural Review Hastings, Kenneth Browne (1917-2009), Gordon Cullen, and Ian Nairn developed the idea of townscape.

Browne assiduously campaigned in the A.R. against the wholesale redevelopment of Covent Garden. In 1973 the government listed the Central Market Building and dozens of buildings around the Piazza. He also advocated the development of pedestrianised zones along the South and around Trafalgar Square as well as for a pedestrian bridge to join them. The Golden Jubilee Bridge was opened in 2003.

The Art Workers' Guild

For William Lethaby (1857-1931), the experience of building All Saints Church Brockhampton in Herefordshire turned him away from being an architect and led to him becoming an educator. He was involved in both the establishment of the Art Workers' Guild and The Central School of Arts & Crafts. He respected the Society for The Protection of Ancient Buildings but was appreciative of the potential of developments in building technology. He was involved in a restoration of Westminster Abbey.

Location: 6 Queen Square, WC1N 3AT (orange, blue)

Website: www.artworkersguild.org

John Betjeman

John Betjeman was a prominent figure in the heritage preservation movement. He failed with the Coal Exchange and the Euston Arch but he succeeded with Bedford Park and Wing in the Vale of Aylesbury (which was an alternative to Stansted).

Betjeman helped the architect Tom Greeves to persuade the government to list 356 houses in Bedford Park. It was the largest single listing that had occurred.

Location: 43 Cloth Court, EC1A 7LS. The poet's London home. (purple, pink)

Website: www.betjemansociety.com

St Pancras Railway Station

The St Pancras shed has a span of 240 ft. and it 100 ft.-tall at its apex.

In 1966 British Rail indicated that it was giving serious consideration to demolishing St Pancras. John Betjeman led a campaign that resulted in the station and hotel receiving Grade 1 listed status. He was good at publicity. The actual administrative work was largely executed by Jane Fawcett and Nikolaus Pevsner. They were aided by the fact that Bernard Kaukas (1922-2014), the senior planner with the British Transport Commission, was also of the view that the station should survive.

In 1967 the government listed both the station and the hotel. The following year Kaukas was appointed to be the chief architect to the British Rail Board. As such, he was saddled with the problem of sourcing funds to prevent the further deterioration of the structures. He managed to persuade the Board of British Rail to furnish the necessary money.

As a junior Labour minister, Wayland Young 2^nd Baron Kennet (1923-2009) helped to save St Pancras Railway from being destroyed and oversaw legislation that helped preserve a number of old buildings. He and his wife Elizabeth Kennet (n e Adams) (1923-2014) were interested in building preservation. They had written Old London Churches (1956) together.

In 2007 a statue of John Betjeman was unveiled in St Pancras Station.

Location: Euston Road, N1C 4QP (blue, turquoise)

Blue Plaques

A blue plaque is placed on a building to commemorate someone of note who has lived there. The person who is being so honoured needs to have been dead for at least a couple decades. London's principal streets contrast with those of most other major European cities in that very few of them are named after individuals. This is paralleled by the way in which none of the city's bridges over the Thames are named after a monarch or a prime minister.

The scheme to affix communicative plaques was set up by the Royal Society of Arts. The first one was put up on No. 24 Holles Street to commemorate the birthplace of the poet Lord Byron (d.1824) in 1788; the house had been demolished in 1889. Technical difficulties led to its being brown in colour, subsequently blue was used. The building that this plaque was mounted upon was subsequently pulled down as part of the street s redevelopment.

In 1901 the London County Council assumed responsibility for the scheme. It was inherited by the Greater London Council upon the authority's creation in 1965. With the G.L.C.'s abolition in 1986, administration of the programme passed to English Heritage. Subsequently, it was expanded to operate nationally.

Location: 24 Holles Street, W1G 0DB (orange, turquoise)

Website: www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques

Dylan Thomas

The Camden Town Dylan Thomas blue plaque is on the house. In fact, he lived in the garden.

Location: 54 Delancey Street, NW1 7RY (purple, blue)

Website: www.english-heritage.org.uk/blue-plaques/dylan-thomas

Bomb Damage

The logging of bomb damage during and after the Second World War was one of the first major official effort to assess Britain's built. Even so, in the years that followed much of its demolished in the name of modernisation.

Civic Voice

Website: www.civicvoice.org.uk

The Civic Trust

The Civic Trust keeps lists of local built heritage organisations. It was founded in 1957 by the Conservative M.P. Duncan Sandys (1908-1987). A financial shortfall caused it to go into administration in 2009.

Website: www.civictrust.org.uk

The Design Council

The Commission for Architecture and The Built Environment was absorbed into the Design Council in 2011.

Website: www.designcouncil.org.uk

The Fine Art Commission

The architectural heritage agency the Fine Art Commission was set up in 1922. It opposed a succession of proposed high-rise developments in London. However, it gave its support to Rogers's Lloyd's Building (1986). In 1999 it was succeeded by C.A.B.E..

English Heritage

the Director & Provost of the Royal College of Art, Jocelyn Stevens (1932-2014) acquired a notoriety for his willingness to down-size department or close them. In 1992 Michael Heseltine, the Secretary of State for the Environment, asked him to be the Chairman of English Heritage. He replied that he did not much think about body other than that he hated it. The minister replied Got it! Stevens was warned that the archaeologists would bury him. News of his appointment generated the response Like putting King Herod in charge of child care. He cut several hundred jobs. However, as matters turned out, ultimately he proved to be sensitive towards the organisation and its duties. He also championed modern architecture.

Website: www.english-heritage.org.uk

Geographically-Specific Societies

The Bedford Park Society

John Betjeman helped the architect Tom Greeves to persuade the government to list 356 houses in Bedford Park. It was the largest single listing that had occurred up until then.

The Bedford Park Society was set up in the 1960s to protect the architecture of Bedford Park.

Website: www.bedfordpark.org.uk

The East End Preservation Society

Harmondsworth Great Barn

Harmondsworth Great Barn was constructed for Winchester College in the early 15^thC. The building is the largest timber-framed structure in England. It is 192ft.-long (58.2m.), 38ft.-wide (11.6m.), and 37ft.-tall (11.3m.). John Betjeman described it as being the Cathedral of Middlesex .

Location: The Great Barn, Manor Court, High Street, Harmondsworth, UB7 0AQ

Website: www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/harmondsworth-barn

The Heritage of London Trust

The Heritage of London Trust (Holt) seeks to rescue endangered rescue endangered buildings and monuments. It is an independent charity that was set up by the Greater London Council in 1980.

Location: 34 Grosvenor Gardens, SW1W 0DH (blue, turquoise)

Website: www.heritageoflondon.org

Lost London

See Also: COAL The Coal Exchange

The Euston Arch

The Euston Arch (1837) was built at Euston Railway Station, the London terminus of the London & Birmingham Railway's London to Birmingham railway. The Doric-style structure was the grand entrance to the first purpose-built station in a capital city. The portal became known as The Gateway to the North . The 70ft. (18.5m.) tall, 44ft. (10.9m.) deep structure was designed by Philip Hardwicke. Its fluted arches were eight and a half feet in diameter.

In the late 1950s British Rail made a decision to rebuild the station. The Arch could have been moved to a nearby site. However, the rail authority stated that it regarded the cost of such an operation as being too high for it to be able to justify it. The issue of whether or not the Arch should be pulled down went before Cabinet. The body ruled that the structure should come down. In 1962 it was dismantled.

The fight to try to preserve the structure inspired the birth of the modern conservation movement in Britain. After the rebuilding of Euston, St Pancras Railway Station was next on British Rail s list for redevelopment. It was planned that the terminus and the neighbouring King's Cross one would be merged into a single facility. However, the poet and architectural writer Sir John Betjeman led a successful defence of the station and its hotel.

Dan Cruickshanks, an architectural writer of a subsequent generation, engaged in a prolonged quest to unearth the physical remains of the Arch. During the course of 1993 and 1994 he made a number of finds. Some of the structure s Doric detailing was unearthed in the stonework of a terrace that a Mr Frank Valori had built for himself at his house in Kent. He had been the contractor who had demolished the structure. Subsequently, Mr Cruickshanks discovered that many of the Arch's stones had been used to fill a chasm in the bed of the River Lea's Prescott Channel in east London.

The two gatehouses that were built to accompany the Euston Arch survived. At the end of the 20^thC one provided office space for an architectural practice, while the other was used as a lesbian nightclub.

Location: Euston Railway Station, Euston Road, NW1 2RT. The Arch was sited further north on the site than is often assumed. The structure stood by where the station s indicator board now is. (red, brown)

43 Cloth Court, EC1A 7LS (purple, pink)

Website: http://eustonarch.blogspot.com (The blogspot of The Euston Arch Trust, the members if which are seeking to rebuild the arch.)

The Mislaid London

The National Trust

In the 1870s Sir Robert Hunter, the Solicitor to the Post Office, had been an active litigant to defend the commons of Surrey. The ideas of John Ruskin had helped to inspire the social reformer Octavia Hill to create decent housing for the poor. The Rev Hardwicke Rawnsley was a Lakeland cleric. He was something of a visionary. The Trust was to acquire much of the region's upland.

In 1880s there was a campaign to try to save Sayes Court, the Deptford home of the writer John Evelyn. Hill and Hunter were active in this. As a result, they came to appreciate that there was then no legal vehicle for holding the property. This led to the creation of The National Trust for Places of Historic or Natural Beauty in 1895. It was able own property. The government had indicated that it would not involve itself in the preservation of beauty spots and ancient monuments, therefore, initially, it tried to protect open spaces from urban and industrial engulfment. The writers Beatrix Potter¹ and G.M. Trevelyan were active supporters.

The National Trust's first acquisition was made in 1895 - Dinas Oleu, a cliff-top above Barmouth in West Wales. Following the Second World War the National Trust had hoped that the philanthropist Ernest Cook of the travel company family would buy Cotehele House in Cornwall for it from the Edgcumbe family. The Treasury was persuaded to accept the property in lieu of death duties. In 1947 it gave the property to the Trust. This set a precedent. In the 1920s the growth of interest in architecture, particularly in Georgian buildings, gave the Trust a new range of ambitions.

The prolonged agricultural depression between the two World Wars, as well as the economic crash and death duties, helped part much of the aristocracy from the outright ownership of their ancestral seats. In 1931 it was given Montacute, a grand country house in Somerset. Looking after such a stately home whetted the Trust's institutional palate. However, the organisation's senior management appreciated that it would be administrative suicide to accept such buildings without having the financial means to underwrite the support of their fabric. Lord Lothian, the owner Blickling Hall in Norfolk. He proposed to the Treasury a scheme that would enable country houses could be transferred to the Trust with an endowment and receive tax relief in return. The Country House Scheme was put in place in 1937. The Trust then started to receive a succession of great country houses. A family might give their house to the Trust, and retain for themselves and their heirs the right to live in it, so long as they hand it over with an endowment of investments or property that provides for its structural upkeep and maintenance. The National Trust has become one of the largest property owners in the United Kingdom. It owns more than 500,000 acres of land.

Ferguson s Gang was a pro-heritage group that active during the 1930s. In public, its members wore masks and used aliases such as Red Biddy, Granny the Throttler, and Bill Stickers. It raised money that it would present it to the National Trust in publicity-generating stunts.

James Lees-Milne was a lover of Harold Nicholson. Through Nicholson's efforts Lees-Milne was offered the position as the National Trust's country houses secretary. The Second World War left many country house owners viewing their properties as liabilities that were falling apart. Through his charm and persistence Lees-Milne persuaded many of them to make over the properties to the Trust.

In the 1950s and 1960s the growing leisure use of cars meant that a growing number of people were able to visit a greater number of sites. This led to the Trust to become a mass membership. The organisation has been referred to as the paramilitary wing of the middle class .

By 1965 considerable concern had developed about the state of Britain's coastline succumbing to development and destruction. Overseas package holidays had not developed; oil refineries and nuclear power stations were being built. The Trust reverted to seeking to be involved with the coast and set up Enterprise Neptune.

In 1995 No. 2 Willow Road was the first 20^thC property that the National Trust acquired.

The number of visits to countryside that is owned by the National Trust vastly exceed those made to its built properties. However, this does not match the public perception of the organisation

Location: 8 Fitzroy Street, W1T 4BJ. Hill's home. (orange, yellow)

2 Willow Road, Hampstead, NW3 1^th

Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk www.jamesleesmilne.com

¹. Rawnsley was a friend of the children's author Beatrix Potter.

Open House Festival

London Open House raises awareness of architecture and the built environment through a series of activities. The highest profile of these is co-ordinating a day each September when members of the public are given access to notable and interesting buildings that they would not normally be able to see the insides of. The initial one was held in 1992.

See Also: ARCHITECTURE

Website: www.open-city.org.uk

Richmond Hill

The view south-westwards from the brink of Richmond Hill features the Thames in the foreground and its flood plain beyond. The artists who have painted it have included Joshua Reynolds and J.M.W. Turner.

In 1898 the Cunard family bought the Marble Hill estate on the Thames's northern bank with the intention of developing its land for housing. One of the attractions for the purchasers would have been the fine eastward view of Richmond Hill. A local movement that opposed this proposed development mushroomed into being.

The activists succeeded in securing the passage through Parliament of the Richmond, Ham & Petersham Open Spaces Act of 1902. This measure made it illegal for there to be any developments that might impair the view. The arrangement was facilitated by the 9^th Earl of Dysart, the owner of Ham House, who transferred a swathe of meadows to Richmond Council. A Board of Conservators was established. In return, the Scottish peer secured a number of economic rights over some other properties that he retained.

In 1903 the Marble Hill estate was acquired by London County Council.

See Also: COUNTRYSIDE Views; THE THAMES

Website: http://thames-landscape-strategy.org.uk

Ruins

In 1830, after completing the Bank of England, Sir Soane commissioned Joseph Gandy to paint an aerial, cross-sectional view of the building as a ruin that was being encroached upon by the destructive power of nature. A futuristic, dystopic vision.

Location: 58 Grove Park Terrace, W4 3QE

The Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, EC2R 8AR (orange, turquoise)

The Society for The Protection of Ancient Buildings

Location: 37 Spital Square, E1 6DY (blue, brown)

Website: www.spab.org.uk

Voluntary Amenity Societies

The Georgian Society

Location: 6 Fitzroy Square, W1T 5DX (orange, brown)

Website: https://georgiangroup.org.uk

The Twentieth Century Society

Location: 70 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EJ (blue, red)

Website: https://c20society.org.uk

The Victorian Society

The Victorian Society was founded in 1958. Within the Society tensions began to build between the original members and a group Young Turks, who had joined subsequently. In 1976 Sir Nikolaus Pevsner stepped down as its chairman. It then succumbed to a bout of internal warfare.

Location: 1 Priory Gardens, W4 1TT

Website: www.victoriansociety.org.uk

David Backhouse 2024