ANNUAL REVIEW 2006-07 CONTENTS 1 Chairman’s foreword 3 Chief Executive’s review 6 Completed projects 30 Projects under development 52 Register of Building Preservation Trusts 55 AHF financial information 60 About the AHF 62 About the UK Association of Preservation Trusts FRONT COVER: The Dome Cinema, Worthing, West Sussex (see p.22) INSIDE FRONT COVER: Whittington Castle, Nr Oswestry, Shropshire (see p.21) CHAIRMAN’S FOREWORD This will be my last foreword as Chairman of The Architectural Heritage Fund, as I retire this Autumn after 10 years as a Trustee and seven as Chairman. It has been an honour and a privilege to serve the AHF in this way, and I have enjoyed my time enormously, in particular working with my colleagues on the Council of Management and with the AHF’s loyal and dedicated staff. The last 10 years have seen many challenges Our task at The Architectural Heritage Fund TOP: Sun Insurance Plaque, Curson Lodge, Ipswich for the heritage sector, the latest of which is about both saving buildings, but also, and (see p.14) is the reduction in funding available from crucially, helping to find viable new uses for BELOW: the Heritage Lottery Fund as some of its them. Inevitably this means that economic The Church and Monastery of St Francis, Gorton, Manchester (see p.16) resources are diverted to support the considerations take precedence, but we BOTTOM LEFT: Olympics. Elsewhere our Chief Executive should never forget the importance of the 2 Victoria Street, Nelson, Lancashire (see p.17) writes about the opportunities the Olympics intrinsic value of a building to its local presents for our sector, but the pressure community. Research by organisations such on Lottery funds will undoubtedly mean that as Common Ground has shown time and our clients – building preservation trusts and again how much a single historic building, or other community-based charities – have to a streetscape, means to people, even if their be even more imaginative and resourceful only connection with it is to walk past on the in their bids for support. This Annual Review way to work or the local shops. We ignore shows the fruits of their labours, in particular this at our peril, for no economic analysis in the ‘Completed Projects’ section, where we can express this hidden value, but it is what can see buildings which have been saved for a distinguishes one place from another, and wide range of uses and with an extraordinary avoids the blight of ‘clone town Britain’ level of financial and other support. spreading even further than it has already. The AHF has been working with some of the As well as my own departure, this Autumn Trusts featured in this review throughout sees my fellow Trustee Bill Cadell retire after virtually the whole of its 30 years; I do not 10 years of commitment to the AHF, and our want to single any out but we are very pleased popular and tremendously effective Projects to have supported them through their and Development Manager, Maria Perks, working lives. leave after nearly 18 years. We will miss them both very much; I am pleased to welcome Liz Davidson to succeed Bill for Scotland, and especially John Townsend as my successor, and I wish them both a long and happy time as members of the Council of Management. Finally I would like to thank my fellow Trustees for all of their support and advice over the last 10 years, and our Chief Executive and his team for their commitment to the AHF and for making my Chairmanship a smooth and enjoyable one. Jane Sharman CBE Chairman October 2007 1 2 Castlemilk Stables Block, Glasgow (see p.25) CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REVIEW This year has been A similar event was held for over 100 people one of significant at the Senedd, the magnificent new Welsh Assembly Government building in Cardiff, milestones for hosted by Alun Pugh AM, at the time Minister The Architectural for Culture, Welsh Language and Sport, with Heritage Fund, the support of Cadw. Like David Lammy, Alun Pugh was warm in his praise for the and it has seen the departure of AHF and its work in Wales. He was joined some key people. by other Assembly Members, local authority representatives, funders and an impressive We marked the AHF’s 30th anniversary with number of Welsh building preservation a number of events and the publication of trusts and other charities. We are planning Sites Insight, our well received celebratory a similar event at the Scottish Parliament book for which 12 diverse public figures this Autumn, in conjunction with wrote essays about their love of the UK’s Historic Scotland. heritage*. The anniversary events included a reception at St John’s, Smith Square, The AHF was also pleased to sponsor in Westminster – itself a fine example of the opening reception of the Association the reuse of a historic building – at which of Preservation Trust’s (APT) National the main speaker was the then Minister Conference in Derbyshire and to support of Culture, David Lammy MP. He spoke the Civic Trust’s Heritage Open Days for eloquently about the work of the AHF and its 2006 as part of our anniversary celebrations. achievements over 30 years, saying that he prophesied that the next 30 years would be With the support and encouragement even more important. The event was attended of English Heritage, the AHF continued by more than 150 people, including a number to work closely with the Civic Trust, the of other MPs and members of the House of Prince’s Regeneration Trust, APT and, Lords, representatives of our main funders, since March, the Institute of Historic Building clients and past and present members of Conservation (IHBC). The group, which is staff and Trustees. now known as the ‘Agencies Co-ordinating TOP: Interior of the Group’ has achieved a number of valuable Senedd Building, Cardiff ABOVE: Alun Pugh AM initiatives in sharing data and good practice (left) with Ian Lush, during the year, and is planning a joint AHF Chief Executive conference for Autumn 2008. BOTTOM: David Lammy MP 3 We continue to support Heritage Link in its work to unify and promote the heritage sector in England, and during the year I was honoured to become its Deputy Chair. Part of my role includes working with the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) to develop plans for a full heritage involvement in the Cultural Olympiad, which runs from the end of the Beijing games in August 2008 through to September 2012. Considerable progress has now been made and we anticipate that heritage will take its place alongside all the other parts of the cultural sector in the Olympiad. Looking at our own work, a year-long review of grant programmes concluded that there were stages in the development of BPT projects that could benefit from further In Northern Ireland the work of the Built and more flexible AHF financial assistance, Heritage Forum, which I chair, continues to for items that were ineligible for support be significant, particularly in the context of from other sources. We therefore decided responding to the (somewhat disappointing) to expand greatly the scope of our Mentoring final report of the Review of Environmental Grant, which was renamed the Capacity Governance, and the change in the overall Building Grant (CBG) and launched on 1 April political landscape in the Province. 2007. To a considerable extent, this reflects suggestions and proposals received from We have been working closely with the DOE: BPTs that responded to the AHF’s invitation Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) to participate in the review of grants. in Northern Ireland on the development of a large new funding stream for historic The implementation of Capacity Building buildings regeneration, and hope that it will Grants is allowing the AHF to be far more be available for its first applications, to be proactive in assisting BPTs by bringing in handled by the AHF, later this year. We were expert assistance to advise on the often also pleased to receive a further increase daunting next steps in the development in our own funding from EHS for the 2007-08 of projects following the completion of an financial year. options appraisal. TOP: The Archimedes Screw Turbine makes An encouraging potential development its way to Howsham Mill, Nr. York (see p.39) for the reuse of historic buildings came ABOVE: The Church and Monastery of St Francis, Gorton (see p.16) with the publication of the Government’s BOTTOM RIGHT: Restored Fireplace, ‘Quirk Review’ into community ownership Castlemilk Stables Block, Glasgow (see p. 25) and management of civic assets, which strongly recommended that local authorities and other public bodies should be encouraged to transfer assets to appropriate community groups. This could well include a large number of heritage buildings, particularly with local government reorganisation and school building programmes causing the redundancy of serviceable town halls and schools; the AHF will be continuing to work with national and local government on the development of this policy, and to encourage building preservation trusts to work with other types of community charities such as development trusts in order to make the most of the opportunities it presents. 4 As we have already seen in her own article, LEFT: The restored seats at The Dome Cinema, our Chairman, Jane Sharman, retires this Worthing (see p.22) year, having been a Trustee for 10 years BELOW: and Chairman for seven. Jane has been Restoration of the Willis organ – Barker Lever a source of great knowledge and wise Action, Cottier Theatre, Glasgow (see p.48) counsel for us all, and for me personally I know that my transition from a different sector into heritage would have been far more difficult without her guidance and support.