30 CONTEXT 184 : JUNE 2025 print the thoughts of popular figures such as Ruskin and Morris. In the Church of England system of managing buildings, the priest in charge is the legal owner. There is evidence in the SPAB archives that many hugely resented being told by people, who they saw with some justification as being self-appointed experts, what they should and should not do. They felt that these outsiders were usually more interested in the history of the building than in its religious purposes. As the Rev Cass memorably replied to Morris’ outrage at what Morris called the ‘sham’ restoration of Burford Church in the 1870s: ‘The church, sir, is mine and, if I choose to, I shall stand on my head in it.’ Morris’ confrontational style did not go down well with many of those who were being challenged. As the organisation expanded and Morris began to spend more time on other passions, more diplomatic voices such as Emery Walker and, later, AR Powys, smoothed the way. However, Morris’ fiery rhetoric certainly got the movement the attention it vitally needed as it slowly won over much of the public. You can lose a battle but win a war. As cases such as the Peterborough Cathedral one played out in the national press, they helped to shift the tide of public opinion towards conservation and away from restoration. Influential SPAB member Octavia Hill, who had very recently founded the National Trust in 1895, wrote to SPAB’s secretary about the ‘doomed’ Peterborough West Front in the following year: ‘It seems so monstrous a thing it hardly feels it possible. It seems like a victory which will be far worse for the victor than any defeat, one of those victories that seals the fate of the winners. But long before “the wise years decide”, the West Front as medieval work will be gone’. Hill felt ‘thankful that, even in so small a way, I have been allowed to share in trying to save the Front, and to enter into something of the pain of the failure of your leaders. I think to have a place in a forlorn hope is a great privilege, and to be among the pioneers. I hope you are feeling this; somehow there is a blessing and an honour in pain, which is a help when one has done one’s best and the defeat with all its bitterness a sort of sureness goes with it that this is not the end, a consciousness that Time and the Angels are with us.’ Today there remains a range of conservation approaches in the UK, with the government and relevant agencies studiously not specifically endorsing a single approach. This helps ensure that the lively debates around the different approaches still continue. We should, perhaps, be grateful that not all ideas about saving old buildings from that earlier era have subsequently gained traction. A letter in the SPAB archive from 1892 about a church in Essex, written by the eccentric architect and author the Rev Edward Lacey Garbett, suggests a novel approach to the management of historic buildings and how that might be linked to professional development. ‘I saw, a few days ago, a ruinous church totally unrestored, namely Chingford... and it struck me that every building about which anyone cares, should have a salaried keeper, subject to some rigorous conditions,’ Garbett wrote. ‘He should undertake to keep the building in perfect repair; that if two people point out to him any defect, he must get it repaired within a month, or else be reckoned dead, and a new keeper be appointed. Their salaries should be paid monthly. The first one would be an architect. Then they would agree never to become partner of any builder nor to receive anything of the nature of [profit]… and that the first farthing any keeper may be caught receiving in that manner he shall be deprived of the office and branded with a letter ‘F’ [a Roman practice for marking criminals] to prevent him ever holding another similar one. No keeper could object to an agreement of this kind. Keepers of buildings could become surveyors and architects and eventually the only ones.’ Duncan McCallum is chair of SPAB. William Morris was outraged at the ‘sham’ restoration of St John the Baptist Church, Burford, Oxfordshire. (Photo: Duncan McCallum)
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