Table of Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Context 185

Roofing Reslating an ancient water mill A carbon case for indigenous slate Hampstead Garden Suburb’s roofscape Understanding pitched roofs Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 185 September 2025

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CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 1 www.ihbc.org.uk @IHBCtweet Registered as a charity in England and Wales number 1061593, in Scotland number SC041945, and listed in Northern Ireland Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England number 3333780 Registered Office: Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA Officers President Rebecca Thompson, president@ihbc.org.uk Vice President Torsten Haak, vpresidentth@ihbc.org.uk Chair David McDonald, chair@ihbc.org.uk Vice Chair Lone Le Vay, vchair@ihbc.org.uk Secretary Dave Chetwyn, ihbcsecretary@ihbc.org.uk Treasurer Jill Kerry, treasurer@ihbc.org.uk National Office Director Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk Operations Director Fiona Newton, operations@ihbc.org.uk, consultations@ihbc.org.uk Administration Officer Lydia Porter, admin@ihbc.org.uk Education,Training & Application Support Officer Angharad Hart, training@ihbc.org.uk Membership Services Officer Carmen Moran, membershipservices@ihbc.org.uk Professional Services Officer Michael Netter, services@ihbc.org.uk Committee Chairs Policy Roy Lewis, policy@ihbc.org.uk Membership & Ethics Andrew Shepherd, membership@ihbc.org.uk Education Chris Wood, education@ihbc.org.uk Communications & Outreach Dave Chetwyn, communications@ihbc.org.uk Branch Contacts North north@ihbc.org.uk North West northwest@ihbc.org.uk Yorkshire yorkshire@ihbc.org.uk West Midlands westmids@ihbc.org.uk East Midlands eastmids@ihbc.org.uk South south@ihbc.org.uk South West southwest@ihbc.org.uk East Anglia eastanglia@ihbc.org.uk South East southeast@ihbc.org.uk London london@ihbc.org.uk Scotland scotland@ihbc.org.uk Wales wales@ihbc.org.uk Northern Ireland northernireland@ihbc.org.uk Republic of Ireland republicofireland@ihbc.org.uk Rest of the World overseas@ihbc.org.uk 2 Briefing 4 Out of Context 5 Periodically 9 The writer’s voice 9 Letter 10 Law and policy 13 Editorial 14 Understanding pitched roofs Madeleine Clark 17 A code of practice for slate and stone roofing Chris Wood 21 Reslating an ancient water mill Terry Hughes 26 A carbon case for indigenous slate Soki Rhee-Duverne and Jim Hart 30 Successful solar generation in the historic environment Morwenna Slade 34 Sourcing Scottish slate in the 21st century Imogen Shaw and Graham Briggs 38 The roofscape of Hampstead Garden Suburb Joe Mathieson 42 Conserving the postmodern legacy of the Sainsbury Wing Alasdair Travers and JonWright 45 The sad story of Derby Hippodrome Derek Latham, Peter Steer and Ashley Waterhouse 49 IHBC celebrates World Heritage UK’s anniversary Rebecca Thompson 50 Notes from the chair 51 Director’s cut 53 Inter alia 54 New member profile 55 New members 56 Vox pop 58 Reviews 61 Products and services 64 Specialist suppliers index

Editor Rob Cowan Editorial Coordinator Michael Taylor, ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com Editorial Board Nigel Crowe Aimée Felton Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Rebecca Madgin Duncan McCallum Fiona Newton Jonathan Taylor Michael Taylor (chair) Cartoons and illustrations by Rob Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2025 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA 01747 871717 context@cathcomm.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to corporate bodies at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £65.00 Elsewhere £100.00 Context on-line archive Past issues of Context can be viewed on the IHBC website. The archive provides a searchable database and reference for key articles. See www.ihbc.org.uk/page55/context_archive. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily held by the IHBC or the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication. While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Context themes and copy deadlines Context is published four times a year in March, June, September and December. The next three themes and copy deadlines are: Infrastructure, December, issue 186 (10 October) Regional: Wessex, March, issue 187 (9 January) The Listing Process, June, issue 188 (10 April) Please contact Michael Taylor at ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com to discuss any editorial submissions or for information about the Context editorial board. 2 CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 Briefing Roofing Reslating an ancient water mill A carbon case for indigenous slate Hampstead Garden Suburb’s roofscape Understanding pitched roofs Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 185 September 2025 Cover: Highland Border Slate from Aberfoyle, termed ‘tartan variety’ for its distinctive banding with alternating purple and greenish grey colours, against a background of a traditional Scottish slate roof. (Photo: British Geological Survey, UKRI) See page 34. Ten years of Planning Club Duncan Marks ofYork Civic Trust writes:York Civic Trust (YCT) and the University of York recently celebrated 10 years of its innovative initiative for heritageplanning professional development. Planning Club – more formally known as the Heritage Planning Studio – is a unique, awardwinning collaboration between the two organisations. Since 2015 it has provided more than 350 postgraduates with reallife experience of the planning process. The students join from a range of the university’s Department of Archaeology’s heritage-related MAs, especially Building Conservation and Cultural Heritage Management. Working with professional mentors, the Clubbers, as the postgraduates are known, critically appraise live, York-based planning applications. With the training provided, they submit detailed planning recommendations to the City of York Council through YCT in its role as a local planning consultee. This gives the students first-hand experience of planning casework, in critically appraising applications, analysing them in line with national and local planning policy, drawing on professional guidance from the likes of Historic England and the IHBC and drafting and submitting substantive professional comments. The students also benefit from being able to test and apply conservation theories of the classroom through the dynamics of live planning casework. The mentors provide an added layer of reality in challenging the Clubbers to be objective and to acknowledge that conservation in an English planning context is about managing appropriate change, not preventing it. York has a wealth of heritage and a corresponding range of designations. It has one of the most complex and varied conservation areas in the UK; it is one of the UK’s five areas of archaeological importance and it has over 1,300 registered buildings and sites, including 71 that are Grade I-listed. The ‘Planning Club@10’ anniversary event in June helped raise the profile of the initiative, which through its founder, Jane Greville, received the Marsh IHBC Award for Community Contribution in 2018, and an award from the University of York earlier this year. The event was one part CPD, one part reunion; more than 60 Clubbers returned to York, some even from overseas, bolstering an attendance that was more than 100. Each year Planning Club participants review in detail over 100 applications. In its first 10 years, it has produced over 1,000 written comments. Collectively volunteering up to 10,000 hours each year, the postgraduates provide YCT with an equivalent capacity of five full-time members of conservation-focused staff – the envy of many a local planning authority. The quality and value of the postgraduates’ work quickly convinced YCT to annually employ one of the graduating students as its caseworker. All of the first six YCT caseworkers have moved into fulltime heritage positions across the UK and overseas. Planning Club graduates can be found across the world – from Harrogate to Hawaii, Scunthorpe Jane Greville (left) with current Clubbers

CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 3 to Seoul, Belfast to Bangalore. Eighty-two per cent remain in the heritage or planning industries. They most commonly go on to become conservation officers for local planning authorities or as heritage professionals for private firms. Between 50-100 of those operating in the UK are members of the IHBC. Originally established to bridge a gap in professional training, Planning Club continues to demonstrate the value of informed, well-supported planning in historic cities. As a model, it can contribute to the longstanding nationwide need for planning expertise, serving the needs of economic regeneration and the national housing shortage. While still unique to York, the success of Planning Club indicates that similar initiatives might benefit other historic cities in the UK. New life for Smithsons’ school A comprehensive refurbishment of the Grade II*-listed Smithdon High School on the Norfolk coast has been submitted for planning and listed building consent to continue in use as a school. Formerly known as Hunstanton School, it was designed by Alison and Peter Smithson. A Department for Education funded scheme aims to conserve and repair the original buildings to improve usability and accessibility, reduce energy use and running costs and resolve a series of functional challenges that have beset them during more than 70 years of school use. A team led by main contractor, Bowmer + Kirkland – including architects Jestico + Whiles and conservation architects Purcell – has submitted applications to enable the major fabric improvement. As the Smithsons’ first completed project, it is regarded as one of the country’s most important post-war school buildings. Nevertheless, serious problems emerged as soon as it was completed in 1954. Its extensive glazing caused significant overheating in summer and heat loss in winter, and thermal movement within the steel frame caused many of the fixed glass panes to break. Architecture critic, Martin Pawley, wrote in 1984 that the school had ‘led a kind of Dorian Gray existence: eternally youthful in the pages of architectural literature but ageing horribly in its strange isolation on the windswept Norfolk coast.’ The work will include replacing the glazed facades with new high-performance windows. The existing structure will be retained, and new window frames and glass will be as close as possible in appearance to the original design. Unsympathetic additions and extensions will be removed, restoring the original layout with improved accessibility. Building Stones Glossary Historic England has published a Building Stones of England Glossary to explain geological terms used in the Building Stones Database for England – from ‘acicular’ and ‘actinolite’ to ‘zeolite’ and ‘zircon’. Historic England and the British Geological Survey (BGS), working with local geologists and historic buildings experts, have compiled the Building Stones Database for England to identify important building stones, where they came from, and potential alternative sources for repairs and new construction. Drawing on this research, BGS publications and fieldwork, guides have been produced for each English county. The guides are aimed at mineral planners, Smithdon High School on the Norfolk coast, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson Baryte occurs as veins or stringers in sedimentary rocks and occasionally as small blebs or cement in sandstones.

4 CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 ‘THE SCALE of the repair and restoration required at Peter Womersley’s Bernat Klein Studio is extensive and will take many months, the skills of specialists and the support of the many people who have an interest in both Peter Womersley and Bernat Klein’s work.’ Samuel Gallacher, director of the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust quoted in the Guardian after a coalition of design and conservation charities won an auction to buy the threatened 1972 modernist building in the Scottish Borders. ‘[THE HERITAGE campaigners] really need to take a good look at themselves, because they are the ones who caused this. It’s so tragic, it really is; the heritage lobby have got a lot to answer for.’ Architect Stephen Hodder of Hodder + Partners, designer of a proposed high-rise student accommodation redevelopment scheme for the site, telling local newspaper The Manchester Mill that delay was responsible for the fate of Manchester’s 225-yearold Medlock Mill (also known as the Hotspur Press), gutted by fire. Historic England had recommended that the building be listed but culture secretary Lisa Nandy refused listing in January. ‘THOSE who owned the [Medlock Mill] site should be the ones under scrutiny. If we think of a house or a shopping centre, the responsibility for fire prevention and mitigating risk lies with the owners. ‘The same rule applies to heritage buildings; the owners are responsible for ensuring events like those that happened at the Hotspur Press are avoided at all costs. While accidents happen, mitigation and preparedness lie at the heart of fire prevention.’ Thomas Ollivier of the Victorian Society quoted in the Architects’ Journal. ‘EVEN IF only partial restoration [of the Mac] were found to be possible in the medium term, the potential impacts [of the student housing] we have identified would affect parts of the [Mac] building that are likely to be treated as a priority for restoration. ‘Given the international significance of the building and the exceptional quality of its internal spaces, we consider it important that proposed development on the application site should not diminish its setting, or adversely impact the functionality and architectural character of its interior.’ Historic Environment Scotland commenting on the decision by the Scottish Government to call in a plan for student housing in Glasgow due to concerns over its impact on the ruined, neighbouring listed Mackintosh Building. ‘IT’S AN amazing urban loftstyle living with exposed surfaces. That’s the ambition we’d like to achieve with this building. There are amazing views out over the city and we want to capitalise on all of that 1960s vibe this building has. We just need to bring it back out.’ Architect Mark Braund of BDP on his practice’s scheme to convert Plymouth’s derelict, listed, 14-storey Civic Centre, built in 1962, to accommodation for Plymouth City College, after the scheme received funding from Homes England. building conservation advisers, architects and surveyors, and those assessing townscapes and countryside character. The guides will also be of interest to anyone wanting to find out more about local buildings, natural history and landscapes. VANBRUGH300 Sir John Vanbrugh’s life and achievements will be celebrated across the UK in 2026, the tercentenary of his death, following a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to the Georgian Group and support from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. VANBRUGH300 will include events, exhibitions and activities at six of the architect’s most significant creations: Castle Howard, Blenheim Palace, Seaton Delaval Hall, Grimsthorpe Castle, Kimbolton Castle and Stowe House. Vanbrugh (1664–1726) found fame as a playwright before turning to architecture. Aided by Nicholas Hawksmoor, he secured a series of commissions for country houses. The Georgian Group is also coordinating a complementary series of educational projects in which Vanbrugh’s story will provide material to support learning in schools and initiate exploration with local communities. Seaton Delavel, Northumberland, was the last country house Vanbrugh designed. (Photo: John Hammond, National Trust Images)

CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 5 Periodically SPAB Magazine The Summer 2025 edition of the SPAB Magazine celebrates imaginative and respectful contemporary approaches to new designs for old buildings with three well-illustrated examples: additions to Darwin College and St John’s College, Cambridge, and the integration of new design with a ruinous single-storey stone agricultural building in North Ayrshire, with the design approach behind each case explained. It should hardly need stating that the encouragement of good contemporary contextual architecture is an important argument against easy reversion to pastiche. It is also a timely reminder that the advice in the first version of the National Planning Policy Framework (very regrettably not replicated in subsequent iterations) was that ‘planning policies and decisions should not attempt to impose architectural styles or particular tastes and they should not stifle innovation, originality or initiative through unsubstantiated requirements to conform to certain development forms or styles’. Periodic exhortations to create excellence in architecture in historic settings seem to be cyclical without necessarily much evidence of a general improvement. Some readers can trace these pleas in the modern era at least to the ill-fated Building in Context publication in 2001 (jointly by English Heritage and CABE). Excellence is seemingly always reliant on enlightened, well-funded clients and an absence of value-engineering. Mills News SPAB’s Mills Section produces its own twice-yearly publication Mills News, the latest issue of which is April 2025 (No 182). This substantial, very well produced and illustrated 42-page contribution to the specialist professional literature should stimulate interest beyond molinologists. Irrespective of whether readers engage with surviving wind or water mills of heritage value, this publication is informative for articulating both a philosophy of approach to repair and the embodiment of appropriate practical repair techniques. This is reflected in the current issue by Andy Beardsley in Part One of a report on the recording of milling sites (particularly but not exclusively ruins) by the geospatial surveys and detailed digital recording, using terrestrial laser scanning, 360-degree imagery and drone photography. A second instalment will look at three uniquely documented mills. Beardsley makes the point that the surveys are intended to go beyond documentation: to actively shape conservation decisions for structures that are more than mere picturesque landmarks. In a similar vein, the April 2025 issue has a helpful explanation of the content and coverage of the SPAB’s Mills Archive Trust. It draws attention to a specialist library of over 5,000 books and journals and an archive of 3,000,000 records of architectural plans, photographs and reports. It is an invaluable resource to bear in mind when considering future mill projects. While the issue discusses a number of mill-specific repair projects, there is also a useful explanation of RENEWAT, which aims collaboratively to revitalise Europe’s watermills for the generation of sustainable energy. It has project partners from France, Italy, Albania, Croatia, Slovenia,

6 CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 Poland, Ukraine and Romania, but not yet the UK. It is noted that in Slovenia, for example, nearly 5,000 mills existed historically, but their potential remains largely untapped due to administrative and ecological challenges. The partnership is demonstrating that watermills are not merely heritage assets but modern, sustainable energy solutions capable of delivering local renewable power as part of a balanced and equitable management within river basins. C20 We can thank the Scottish Heritage protection system for the 30-year rule regarding eligibility of modern buildings for listing, eventually adopted in England. The latest issue of C20, the magazine of the Twentieth Century Society (No 1, 2025) notes that while we are yet to see any 21st century buildings listed anywhere in the UK, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has added an extraordinary site significantly over that threshold to its inventory of gardens and designed landscapes. This is Crawick Multiverse in Dumfries and Galloway, designated in April 2024, just seven years after its completion. Designed by Charles Jencks, it was constructed between 2011 and 2017 across 22.5 hectares. Protection, enthusiastically supported by the society, has arisen out of a pioneering and continuing project examining designed landscapes of the recent past. This initiative intends to identify, recognise and celebrate Scotland’s modern gardens and designed landscape heritage from 1945 to the early 2000s. The society notes that the examples identified so far are all cherished by their owners, well looked after and unlikely to be threatened by either neglect or major plans for change any time soon, so designation has been broadly welcomed. There are, nevertheless, a number of other key landscapes, notably in Scotland’s new towns, where HES says it currently has no designation assessment worked planned. Repurposing modern historic commercial buildings can often be problematic, but a major mid20th-century building in central London by Richard Seifert, Space House (the former headquarters of the Civil Aviation Authority and once occupied by CABE), has recently successfully been rehabilitated. The beautifully and thoroughly illustrated article by Catherine Slessor notes that alongside Space House only two other buildings by Seifert and Partners are listed: London’s Centre Point (1961–66) since 1995, and Birmingham‘s Alpha Tower (1970–72) since 2014. They and Space House are all listed Grade II. The spring issue of C20 also has articles by authors of new books on architecture of the period. Kathryn Ferry discusses coverage of her book based on vintage British seaside postcards, observing that a little rose-tinted nostalgia is not necessarily a bad thing. John Barr explains the coverage of his new book on the optimistic 1960s, which marked a heady period of opportunity for British universities, and explores how a radical wave of architecture reflected that vision. The Georgian The Georgian, the magazine of the Georgian Group (Issue 1, 2025), continues to highlight the important issue of what should constitute an appropriate approach to the repairs following the disastrous fire that swept through the National Trust’s country house Clandon Park in 2015, and whether (at the time of writing) the secretary of state will call in the controversial scheme for a public inquiry. The Georgians considered the initial approach to reinstatement and repair to be flawed, and they continue to maintain that the scheme is both harmful and intrusive. They illustrate the coverage of the issue in national media. An inquiry would be invaluable, not least in exploring the wider issues of the underpinning philosophy of repair. Each issue devotes an impressive amount of space to statutory casework (19 pages in this issue) demonstrating the importance of authoritative expert advice to local planning authorities set out in paragraphs 207 and 208 of the NPPF, and the importance of the statutory casework grant in the light of the government’s review of the statutory consultee system. Also of interest is an article by Nigel Hankin on ‘Turban Domes and Lofty Pinnacles’. Hankin addresses the Indian influences on late-Georgian buildings beyond the most obvious example of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Such influences were driven by Thomas Daniell (1749–1840) and his

CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 7 nephew William (1769–1837), who both travelled extensively in India between 1786 and 1793. The Daniells’ influence can be seen particularly at Sezincote, Gloucestershire, designed by Samuel Cockerill for his brother Charles in 1798. Simon Bradley flags up the significance of Georgian buildings at the start of the Rail200 bi-centenary celebration of the railway age, noting that these should not be overlooked in what is seen as a quintessentially Victorian innovation. This issue continues the longrunning series of articles by Charles Brookings on the design and development of Georgian and Regency architectural details, currently door hinges. Twenty-two examples are clearly illustrated and described for their value as dating evidence. The author notes that, when undertaking refurbishment, it is worth taking advice on the date and condition of any surviving hinges, and the possibility of their repair and reuse rather than wholesale replacement. Georgian Group Journal Membership of the Georgian Group brings with it the excellent annual Georgian Group Journal (Vol XXXIII, 2025), devoted in its entirety to Sir Christopher Wren. The nine papers over 130 pages are by authors with a particular specialism or interest in late-17th- and 18th-century architecture and culture. The most recent developments in Wren’s scholarship are examined, enhancing our understanding of the shared design process that united the work of the building trades, and what this represents in terms of the integral roles in completing Wren’s buildings. Martin Kemp examines the representation of mathematics in the ceiling at the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace. Charlotte Davies connects the careers of Wren and Edward Pearce in the former’s early career, encouraging a fresh look at their working relationship. Luka Pajovic draws our attention to the City churches immediately after the Great Fire, when the ‘patchedup shells’ of four churches were taken on by the city’s pre-eminent masons and surveyors. Martin Kirkby sheds light on Wren’s decorative schemes for City churches in the 1670s and 1680s. Gordon Higgott focuses attention on Westminster and the 1690s, when Wren’s career changed direction. William Aslet considers Wren’s connection with James Gibbs, following the younger man’s return from Italy. Charles Hyde reveals much about Wren in the final years of his life, based on a newly acquired sales catalogue of Wren and his son from their house in Hampton Court. The current journal has much to tell us about late-17th- and early18th-century life and construction in the context of Wren’s prodigious architectural output. Historic Environment Policy and Practice The latest 190-page bumper edition of the Historic Environment Policy and Practice (Vol 16, No 1, 2025) concentrates particularly on the relationship between heritage, ecology and the natural environment. It explores, for example, management of archaeology in woodland and forestry. The paper likely to be of most interest to Context readers is the one by IHBC member Kate Clark (formerly with English Heritage), providing an overview of the integration of heritage with quality-of-life capital in the 1990s. This had aimed to create integrated placemaking based on an understanding of what people valued. Its origins could be traced to a sequence of early policies with common themes in that era: embedding heritage and sustainability; integrating nature and heritage; looking beyond protected sites at wider concepts of character; scenario planning; and community approaches. At the time this was a new approach to environmental capital and a precursor to today’s natural capital/ ecosystems services model, capturing the value that flows from the services provided by stocks of environmental assets. Clark points out that the DCMS and the Arts and Humanities Research Council are currently supporting a new Culture and Heritage Capital initiative, looking at how the natural capital approach can be applied to culture and heritage. The intention of Clark’s paper is to draw attention to the earlier work in the hope that it might be of interest to those involved in the cultural landscape, everyday heritage, scenario planning and community engagement. Volume 16 Number 1 2025 The Historic Environment POLICY & PRACTICE POLICY & PRACTICE The Historic Environment ISSN 1756-7505 Volume 16 Number 1 2025 ISSN 1756-7505 www.tandfonline.com/yhen The Historic Environment POLICY & PRACTICE Volume 16 Number 1 2025 CONTENTS Editorial Editorial 16.1 ‘All Natural Things’: Environment and Heritage Gill Chitty 1 Value and Connectedness Quality of Life Capital – Integrating Heritage and the Environment in the 1990s Kate Clark 8 Introducing Heritage Connectedness: Connections to People, Nature and Place Across Time are Associated with Wellbeing and Environmentalism Miles Richardson, Carly W. Butler, Ian Alcock, Annie Tindley, David Shef eld and Piran C. L. White 38 Good Natured Progress Are We Making Progress? The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists 2024 Conference Sessions on Environment and Heritage Catherine Barnett and Krysia Truscoe 59 Leading the Way: Working Towards Heritage-Led Nature Recovery in Natural England Elaine Willett 63 The Future of the Historic Environment in Forestry in the UK: Maximising Opportunities or Focusing on Impacts? David Robertson, Lawrence Shaw, Edward Peveler and Matt Ritchie 80 Open Habitats, Heritage Opportunities: How the Thetford Forest Open Habitat Plan Can Aid the Management of Archaeology in Woodland Krystyna Truscoe, Naomi Smith and David Robertson 96 Born to Re-Wild: Archaeology and the Water Network in England Thomas Dew and Matthew Town 108 Fields, foreshore and forest – international case studies Unveiling Agricultural Heritage: Mapping Historical Features in Farming Landscapes Marina López Sánchez 122 From Firestick to Satellites: Technological Advancement and Indigenous Cultural Practice in Managing Forest Fires in Australia Harikesh Singh and Sanjeev Kumar Srivastava 143 Establishing Historical Shoreline Trends for Adaption of Maritime Built Heritage to Climate Change Part 2: The Northern Kenya Coast Wallace Njiiri, Mugwima Njuguna and Ephraim Wahome 167 Book Review Second-Order Preservation: Social Justice and Climate Action through Heritage Policy Gill Chitty 187 Taylor & Francis takes seriously its commitment to sustainability. In addition to all paper used in our journals being from certi ed responsible sources, we invest in initiatives that reduce plastic usage, waste, and carbon emissions. To  nd out more about our progress, visit www.taylorandfrancis.com/about/corporate-responsibility/ YHEN_COVER_16_1.indd 1 10-05-2025 16:07:51

8 CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 Heritage Now As a statutory amenity society, Historic Buildings and Places campaigns on behalf of historic buildings of all ages. The latest issue of Heritage Now (No 12, Summer 2025) has a feature on gasholders in celebration of largely unsung landmarks. Gasholders date back as far as the second decade of the 19th century, when gas was manufacturing from coal at local works and stored in tanks before being distributed. Gasholders in cities, towns and rural villages became a common sight. Paul Holden looks at a new book by Russell Thomas and Timur Tatlioglu, published by Liverpool University Press, that celebrates these much-overlooked and rapidly disappearing structures. We have good records of their existence as many of them they were photographed before they disappeared. In a further article, Martine Hamilton Knight, a professional architectural photographer and a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, explains some of the principles behind architectural photography. She offers advice on how to take spectacular images, some of which are beautifully illustrated in the magazine. There is a valuable article by Martin Cherry about the final volume of a 10-part series that examines places of worship in Britain and Ireland from 300 CE to 2021. The final volume covers the period after 1989. The books, published by Shaun Tyas between 2015 and 2024, are all still in print. The series set out to understand how the use of places of worship changed over time in such a way as to better serve human aspirations and spiritual need, and to capture the numinous or the vitality of the living church community. This is particularly important at a time when many of those churches are under threat of closure, or worse. The holistic, organic approach taken by the books will surely help inform the debate about the future of these places of worship and hopefully engage a wider public. War Memorials Trust Bulletin In my March 2025 (Context 183) column, I referred to the excellent work of the War Memorials Trust in attempting to identify photos of such memorials in unknown locations as part of its publicengagement programme. The latest issue of the War Memorials Trust Bulletin (No 105, July 2025) continues to illustrate obscure examples posted on the website War Memorials Online. Appeals for information continue to meet with success and it would be invaluable to the trust if readers could add more local knowledge. Bob Kindred MBE Gasholders in Kensal Green, London, in 2016, illustrated in Heritage Now (Photo: Historic England Archive DP183491)

CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 9 Undeclared issues From John Winstone, retired conservation architect Your contributors to the ‘Leaders of conservation thought’ issue of Context (June 2025, 184) raise more questions than they answer. The novel approach of presenting history post-Ruskin backwards in time from the IHBC’s contribution detracts rather than aids understanding. The final article, titled ‘Nineteenth century conservation thinking from Ruskin onwards’ then reverses the sequence to the traditional, logical one. Was that contributor fully briefed to where the issue was heading? IHBC members are not presented with the enormous achievements of the amenity societies/statutory consultees through the course of the 20th century and into the next 25 years. In toto, the issue complicates history leaving many issues undeclared. Where, for instance, is the criticism of misdirected or damaging conservation? The issue fails to even-handedly separate the execution of conservation from powerful voices orchestrating their own take on conservation through policy initiatives against waves of governmental indifference and shortcomings. John Winstone Letter The writer’s voice From ‘Beyond the cult of the monument’ by Miles Glendinning, Context 70, June 2001 During the first quarter century after 1945, despite the effective exclusion of war from the equation in western Europe, the cooperative, or complementary, relationship of new and old buildings under a strong nation-state control seemed to have been further strengthened. But from around 1968, events took a decisive turn to sever that relationship, a development which has led to our present situation today. The fundamental forces at work were a relaxation of the intense discipline and state authority of the postwar years, and, more generally, a collapse in the credibility of the post-Enlightenment doctrine of controlled historical progress. In architecture, the immediate effect of these was to discredit completely the modern movement’s campaign for radical rebuilding, and instead elevate conservation to a sudden status of dominance, as the only major combatant still left on the field. The latter’s victory was directly bound up with the defeat of planned social building; for the first time ever, monuments and new buildings were plunged into an open confrontation. Yet paradoxically the effect on the conservation movement, after an initial phase of anti-establishment activism, was to increase even further the interventive and controlling activity of the state. In Scotland, government conservation activity was treated during the 1960s and 1970s as an integrated part of the Scottish Development Department, a ministry created in 1962 specifically to promote state-led modernisation. And then, in a second stage of evolution, that machinery became static and ossified. Conservation became a sheep in wolf’s clothing: as with the language of revolution in the Soviet Union under Stalin and his successors, a permanent, institutionalised status was given to the highly politicised ‘shock’ language inherited from Ruskin and Morris, and also from the 20th century total war epoch – loss, threat, destruction, vandalism, rape, protect, save, tragic, scandalous, and so forth. This new orthodoxy extended the scope of modern controllability far further than even the modern movement, by claiming it could inventorise and ‘protect’ the entire built environment – including, ultimately, the environments of the modern movement themselves – for ever. The social structure of this new establishment was just as elitist and dominated by experts as the modernist technocratic planning it replaced. Everywhere across western Europe there was a move away from the old creative traditionalism to a new fundamentalism, which claimed it could fix and ‘stop’ dynamic human cultures through preserved material culture objects. Leaders of conservation thought The influence of Ruskin and Morris Lord Kennet’s achievement Inspired by John Ashurst Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 184 June 2025 Stalin: politicised shock language

10 CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 Law and policy Alexandra Fairclough writes: There have been changes at England’s Department of Media Culture and Sport, with Baroness Fiona Twycross taking over as heritage minister from Sir Chris Bryant MP, who retains the culture role. The draft Planning (Wales) Bill, published on 18 June, was due to be formally introduced into the Senedd in September with the aim of replacing all primary planning legislation for Wales. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which passed through the House of Commons (third reading) on 10 June and had its second reading in the House of Lords on 25 June, seeks to speed up and streamline England’s planning process. On 26 July the Department for Business and Trade announced proposed reforms to assist in the revitalisation of town centres by simplifying some rules around planning and licencing, making it easier for vacant retail premises to be adapted and reused as cafes, bars and music venues. A new National Licencing Policy Framework is proposed. Policy updates include new guidance on upcoming changes to written representation appeals by the Planning Inspectorate, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The most pertinent change is that the ‘expedited’ Part 1 written representations process will be amended so that the planning inspector will decide the appeal on the same basis and information as the planning application, without the main parties needing to submit new evidence, or being able to submit further information, such as appeal statements. The Planning Inspectorate will roll out an online appeals service to streamline the submission and management of appeals. The Culture Media and Sport Committee has been hearing evidence in relation to the Protecting Built Heritage Inquiry, which opened in December 2024. This inquiry is examining issues relating to the management of practical and regulatory challenges, and funding models for heritage. Historic England and the IHBC have submitted written evidence, which is available through the UK Parliament Committees website. On 17 June Historic England published a revised document Listed Buildings and Curtilage (Historic England Advice Note 10). Case law Anesco Ltd v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Anor (re Application for Planning Statutory Review) [2025] EWHC 1177 (Admin) Permission was refused for a solar farm on agricultural land in Norfolk, located adjacent to a conservation area and close to a listed bridge. The inspector recommended approval, but the secretary of state decided otherwise. The application was then refused. An application for statutory review followed on the basis that the secretary of state had failed to take national policy and guidance into consideration. The judge dismissed the statutory review challenge on the basis that the secretary of state’s reasoning as a whole considered national policy and guidance. Appeals Ref: 3353206 The Old Southern Railway Stables in the London Borough of Southwark is a locally listed building and a nondesignated heritage asset. The applicant wishes to renovate and extend the existing building for residential and commercial use. The inspector concluded that the design of the extension would have an unsympathetic form, scale and bulk, making it intrusive and overbearing on the host building and street scene. Dismissed. Refs: 3355509 and 3355508 These appeals relate to a refusal of listed building consent and advertisement consent for the installation of logo signs on a listed Regency jewellers shop in Cheltenham. The signs proposed would be externally illuminated through halo lighting and constructed of red plexiglass Perspex, with an internally illuminated clock face. The inspector concluded that the halo-lit logo signs would create a bright brash appearance when lit, which would appear incongruous against the traditional materials of the listed building, and that the steel clock with white clockface and gold numbering, projecting some 0.9 metres from the building, would appear bulky. This would appear out of place with the refined features and subdued colours of the listed building and other buildings in the conservation area. Both appeals dismissed. Ref: 3358638 An inspector allowed an appeal for the installation of ensuite bathrooms to guest bedrooms on the fourth floor of a listed building designed by Ernest George and Harold Peto, and built for the dramatist

CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 11 WS Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan. The fourth floor was a narrow area under the apex of the roof between the front and rear gables, accessed by a tight staircase. The inspector concluded that the insertion of ensuites would not harm the simple cellular layout nor affect its social hierarchy. Allowed. Ref: LBA-1702021 The removal of bells from a redundant church in Holywood, Galloway, Scotland, was refused by a reporter on the basis that the bells were an intrinsic part of the Category B listed building, and their removal would harm its significance. Dismissed. Ref: 3319608 This appeal related to a 74-page listed building enforcement notice for the excavation of basement floors to a listed building in Westminster, London. The Grade II-listed host dwelling, dating to 1729, comprises three floors with a basement. The appellant inserted a further basement to accommodate a gymnasium, sauna, bathroom, cinema and storage, and changed the levels of the existing basement. The inspector concluded that the unauthorised alterations to the listed building resulted in harm to the special interest (significance), with very limited public benefits. Dismissed. Ref: 3351431 This appeal relates to an application for 177 apartments for multi-generation living, including open-market, affordable and retirement housing. The application was refused on heritage and flooding grounds. The appeal site was adjacent to a conservation area, and within the setting of many listed buildings and non-designated heritage assets. Historic England objected to the scheme on the basis the design was unsympathetic. It preferred a development that would follow the scale, finer grain and form of the development exhibited by the buildings adjacent to it within the conservation area. The inspector disagreed and stated that it would revitalise a derelict piece of unattractive industrial land. The previous development on the site, the inspector said, was not part of a historic development pattern, and a contrasting form and scale would not necessarily be significantly out of scale, incongruous or unattractive. Allowed. Ref: LBA-140-2017 This appeal related to the unauthorised installation of replacement windows in a Grade A-listed building in Walkerburn, Scottish Borders. The reporter described the scheme as having stick-on astragals, heavy frames and trickle vents, and concluded that they would not preserve the listed building or its features of architectural or historic interest. Dismissed. Ref: CAS-03710-X8S2k6 and CAS-03714-C8B6W6 This appeal relates to a proposal for three new terraced dwellings, and the rebuilding of a barn and its conversion to a dwelling, in Powys, Wales. The main issue was the impact on the setting of an adjacent listed building, Ivy House, a late Georgian house with cobbled courtyard and outbuildings, which is enclosed by a stone wall extending along the access driveway. Although the inspector stated that the proposed design of the new buildings would be in keeping with the listed building, the widening of the access road and demolition of part of the wall, which is attached to the listed building, would harm the significance of the listed building. Dismissed Called-in decision Ref 23/00612/FUL (NOD-390-001) This proposal, relating to the formation of a trotting track on land adjacent to Bannockburn Battlefield site, was considered acceptable by Stirling Council. However, the Scottish ministers called in the application, in view of the potential impact on the historic battlefield and listed building of national significance. The reporter considered that planning permission should be granted. The Scottish ministers disagreed with the reporter’s conclusion. They considered that the development would detract from the prominence of the listed building, from views of the topography of the battlefield, and from the ability to appreciate and understand this ‘and how it affected the battle, for example Bruce’s choice of ground for his camp’). Dismissed Alexandra Fairclough is a member of the IHBC law panel and a barrister (non-practising). She teaches heritage law at Manchester School of Architecture, and is principal built heritage and design officer at Bolton Council. Robert the Bruce leading his soldiers in a discussion of the merits of creating a trotting track next to the site of the Battle of Bannockburn

CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 13 ROOF ING Editorial Top priority Tiled barn roof, Great Dixter, East Sussex (Photo: Rob Cowan) It is a paradox that historic roofs are often neglected because they cannot be seen or accessed easily, and yet for the same reason they tend to survive. A roof that is hidden from view is less likely to be subjected to inappropriate alterations. It may simply be left alone, aging and surviving better than more visible parts of the building. Paradoxes highlight how we think about tricky subjects. Like the definition of authenticity that allows for certain Japanese timber shrines to be totally reconstructed every 20 years – to the same design, and with the same materials and craft skills – and still be considered authentically the same building. That reminds us of the paradox of the Ship of Theseus, whose timbers were supposedly replaced continually over many years until none of the original ship was left. It was still making its annual on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo, so was it the same ship or not? If not, exactly when did it cease to exist? In the case of ruined buildings, the paradox is that some of the very things that make people value them – their decay and evidence of the passing of time – are generally arrested by conservation. Our challenge is to manage the process of any change in a way that protects the ruin’s authenticity without allowing it to disappear entirely. With historic roofs we need to balance authenticity and function. No element of a building is more exposed to wind and rain than a roof, which is why trial and error has developed the crafting of roofs over the centuries to such great heights of ingenuity, using the available materials in ways that will keep the weather out in the severest conditions. We no longer have that sort of time to develop building and repair practices. Today we have to adapt quickly to new circumstances: new materials; more severe weather; and the challenge of using less energy and creating less carbon.

14 CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 MADELEINE CLARK Understanding pitched roofs Retaining our beautiful and distinctive roofscapes depends on understanding the function and design of pitched roof coverings, and the management of rainwater and vapour. At the most basic level, the purpose of a roof is to keep a building and its occupants safe and protected from the weather elements, acting as the hat that keeps a property dry. Roof coverings, alongside rainwater disposal goods and weather detailing, have a key role to play as the first line of defence. Different roofing materials are shaped, applied and utilised in different ways to better manage rainwater and snow, and withstand wind. As moisture ingress is the primary cause of decay in any traditional property, this functionality has always been a priority. Craftspeople have therefore focused their skills and adapted components accordingly, from stone gargoyles spouting water away from churches and towers, to lead flashings and drip detailing. The form and function of roof coverings originally developed according to the materials that were available locally – stone slabs, slates, clay tiles and various types of gathered or grown thatching material. All roof coverings of interlocking units like these, act in unison to create a barrier to the wind and buffer moisture, but each with its own nuances when it comes to application. Regional variations developed according to what resources were available, the inherent material properties and the prevailing weather conditions of the locality. The development of rail and canal infrastructure allowed for easier movement of slates and pantiles. This gradually brought more homogeneity to roofs throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but the general principles around detailing for the shedding of water remain the same. Common pitched roof coverings in Scotland Slate roofing Slating styles vary widely due to different properties of the locally quarried materials and the slating traditions in each area. Typically, slated roofs in Scotland tend to have a steep pitch, around 40 degrees, which can accommodate relatively small, thicker slates and can also better handle wind-driven rain and snow. Slaters made the most of this, and maximised the volume of usable slate quarried, through the distinctive A gargoyle on Melrose Abbey (Photo: Crown Copyright, HES) Slate repairs (Photo: Historic Environment Scotland) Stirling skyline (Photo: Madeleine Clark)

CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 15 ROOFING Scottish tradition of slating in diminishing courses. Larger slates were used at the bottom as they were better able to handle large volumes of rainwater that shed down off the roof. The smallest slates were the most robust against strong winds, so it was sensible to fix these closer to the ridge. Smaller slates also allowed for single centrefixings, which made ongoing maintenance and repair easier, as slates could be simply swung to the side to replace any damage underneath. Slates are usually laid in a double lap in Scotland. This is best able to cope with the Scottish weather, but the ratios of side lap to head lap will vary depending on the size of the slates used. Experienced slaters will calculate these proportions at every new course as the size of slates changes. Traditionally, the slates would be laid on sarking boards (rather than batons) to allow for slates of random sizes to be laid and provide more robustness against wind lift. A ‘penny gap’ was left between boards to allow for free moisture and vapour movement. When underlays were introduced, this was to reduce any draughts coming through, rather than replacing a well-calculated side lap to make the roof watertight. Pantiles Clay pantiles have been used in Scotland since at least the 17th century, originally due to Scottish trading ties with the Low Countries, until pantiles started to be made locally in the 18th century. The range of colours from local clay variations and distinctive undulation add their own specific character to the roofscape. The properties of clay change depending on the type of deposit they are formed from, which varies both the colour and durability. Unlike slates, pantiles are typically laid in a fixed-gauge single lap, where the s-shaped tiles have notches or mitres that fit closely. This distinctive shape means that, when laid correctly, rainwater is directed right down the centre of the tiles and off the roof. Replacing damaged tiles with ones which do not match closely can throw off this line and cause issues with water shedding. Clay ridge tiles would typically be laid in a lime mortar and there would be a lime-mortar skew fillet to ensure that the roof was kept weathertight, but still breathable and compatible with the vapour-permeable clay tiles. In some areas, the bottom courses of a pantile roof are finished in slate. This allows for a gentle easing to slightly flatten out the roof into a bellcast profile. This detailing is useful in more exposed and windy areas as it gives greater protection from the rain at the wall head and helps to prevent damage caused by uplift from the wind. Thatch While the number of thatched roofs has declined dramatically since their heyday, those that remain are an important reminder of their former ubiquity and the aesthetic of Scotland’s community-led vernacular building tradition. Materials varied greatly and changed depending on what was available locally at the time, with a mix of crops such as rye, barley, black oat, and gathered materials like heather, broom, rush, marram grass and bracken. When thatching a roof, a base layer of, for example, a woven web of ropes or timber poles would first be needed to support the thatch. A layer of turf on top was also sometimes added, which could help with the weatherproofing of the roof structure as a whole. The thatching material above would shed water through a combination of surface tension and gravity, directing water over and off the roof edge. It was important that the thatch was applied thickly enough to prevent any rainwater penetrating the roof. Available materials and the type of thatch also led to the development of different finishing details such as those on the ridge and verges, and different methods of fixing, such as using hazel spars or rods, as well as netting (and later chicken-wire). Additional weights such as logs, bricks and stones were also sometimes added, Sarking boards, showing the distribution of nails (Photo: Madeleine Clark) Pantiles at Culross Palace (Photo: Historic Environment Scotland)

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