Posts Tagged Rural affairs
Country diary: Portland: Messages in limestone
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on January 26, 2012
Portland: Behind us, in Portland stone, was the great pile of St George's church, looking like a fanciful creation by Hawksmoor intended for London but transported here
We were chilled by gusts blowing off a rough sea across a bleak graveyard close to the windswept edge of Portland – the great limestone promontory, almost an island, only tenuously linked to the mainland below Weymouth by the narrow pebble strand of Chesil Bank. Between us and the shingle beach below was a quarry extracting the famous stone, good for carving yet durable, that Wren used for St Paul's Cathedral and that has adorned fine buildings before and since.
All around us were ranks of seemingly numberless tombs and gravestones leaning at varied angles, made of Portland stone, and most fashioned with elaborate carving, a tribute to the tradition and skill of Portland craftsmen. And behind us, also in Portland stone, was the arresting sight of the great pile of St George's church, in its solitary space outside the town, built by a local man, inspired by Wren, and looking like a fanciful creation by Hawksmoor intended for London but transported here. Pevsner's guide to the buildings of Dorset calls it the finest 18th-century church in the county.
On our last trip to these parts, we had kept to the sheltered mainland coast and the wooded Rodwell trail, but now we had been brought to this exposed place by a chance meeting with the granddaughter of a man who had once been sexton and gravedigger here. She told us of the toil and problems involved in his work digging in the shale, and of his care of the graves for families who had moved away. And this stark place at a southern extremity of the country had an elemental feel, emphasised by inscriptions on tombstones near the church door; there is a memorial to Wm Pearce, killed by lightning while on Her Majesty's service "atop Chesil Beach" in 1858, and to Mary Way and William Lano, shot by the press gang in April 1803 (she died of her wounds in May).
• This article was amended on 26 January 2012. The original referred to William Leno instead of Lano.
Saturday interview: Fiona Reynolds, National Trust director general
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 28, 2011
National Trust chief Fiona Reynolds believes planning law is the biggest test yet of the government's claim to be green, and is leading the backlash against the plans
I sit in the beer garden of a Cotswold pub – long before it opens – on a perfect autumn morning. Strands of spiders' silk, untethered from their webs, float through the air, visible only for a second when they catch a glint of sunlight. The leaves on the trees look golden in this light, and the fields stretch out in front as far as you can see. Could there be anywhere more beautiful than right here, right now? Count yourself lucky, you think, for England's green and pleasant land. And for its planning laws.
"I know we're sitting in a very privileged part of the countryside now, in terms of landscape," says Dame Fiona Reynolds, director general of the National Trust, as she sits down on a picnic bench and tries to get her collie-spaniel cross Lucy to sit too, "but this has all been protected through good planning and the moment you let good planning go, it's lost for ever." Reynolds doesn't have the look of a victorious warrior returning from battle – she is far too measured for that – but she could be allowed a small, self-satisfied smile at the firestorm the National Trust helped inflict on the government's National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) consultation. Reynolds took the step – for the first time in her 11 years at the National Trust – of writing to all four million members and asking them to support its campaign against the consultation that could be the biggest change to planning regulation in several decades. Most potentially devastating, the Trust warned, was prioritising economic growth over longterm protection of the countryside when it came to planning decisions. Their petition was signed by more than 200,000 people and David Cameron stepped in and wrote to the National Trust, pledging to protect the "beautiful British landscape." The consultation closed last week, and the months of waiting have begun. "We've just got to hope the government is really listening. I'm passionate about protecting the countryside, and the need to get it right. If you get it wrong what you lose, you lose for ever."
She says she was "hugely impressed" by the response of the National Trust's members. "I think it's one of those things about our nation – and we're a very urban society now – but we do love the countryside, it's something that seems to be part of our character and our sense of what England is. I think people were shocked, particularly that a Conservative-led government should appear not to be passionate about the countryside. It just felt wrong."
The coalition is "so preoccupied with growth and of course we have every sympathy with that, but it's about what kind of growth, what kind of economy, and in a way the recession has given us a chance to think about the quality of what we do. We have 330,000 houses with planning permission that aren't being built because there is no money for mortgages, so the problems in a way are elsewhere. But given that we have a chance to build really well and intelligently – in a way a recession is a time to think positively about that. That's the disappointing thing: they felt they had to press the old 'growth at any cost' button."
The National Trust isn't a campaigning organisation, she says, and isn't about to become one, despite occasional forays onto the battlefield – it objected to the expansion of Stansted airport, for example, and against the government's proposed forests sell-off.
"[Campaigning] is dependent on the issue," she says. "I would not expect us to be doing it all the time. If we became rentaquote, that wouldn't be right. We reserve our voice for something that is really important, absolutely at the heart of our core purpose and touches what we stand for and where we make a difference. This felt like the single most important issue in the time I have been here. I think we should campaign on issues that are central to what we do and I suspect it would be rare, but when we make a contribution it matters. I think this is what this has shown." It is a "caricature", says Reynolds, that the National Trust is against all development. "We recognise we need housing, schools, the physical buildings where these things happen. Our big question is how we do it."
The National Trust is the biggest private landowner and biggest NGO, with an estimated one in 10 voters a member. Reynolds is head of a huge powerbase. Does this make her the most powerful woman in Britain? She laughs. "I wouldn't say that. I'm the luckiest woman in Britain because I have the best job in the country."
Are politicians frightened of her? "I don't know about frightened. I think they are listening, and that's absolutely right. I think the National Trust stepping up on this issue really made them think, and that's a good thing. They did the wrong thing with it by giving it this economic slant. I hope that our intervention will get us to a proper balance between social, environment and economic objectives. They're listening," she adds, "but we're not there yet. We don't know the outcome."
David Cameron's promise that his would be the greenest government ever is met by a small laugh. "I've yet to see it, put it that way. You can only judge a government by what it does. This is a big test and they haven't failed it yet because it was only a draft consultation, but it has to change significantly to deliver what the country needs."
When Reynolds was a child, growing up in Alston in Cumbria, her parents would take her to National Trust properties. She became a member of the organisation while she was still at Cambridge, where she did an MPhil in land economy. "I never thought I would end up running it, but I've always been intrigued by the National Trust. I love the sense of purpose. I love an organisation that has a long view back, but also a long view forward. We say to people we are going to look after places for ever for everyone, and I believe we will."
At 53, Reynolds has been in the job since 2001. "Now I'm suddenly feeling quite old," she says. "It's a bit of a shock, really. When I started, my children were small and now they're growing up." Her husband, a teacher, "did the stay at home bit. I couldn't have done this job as somebody who was also trying to be the number one carer, so I was very lucky that he was willing to do that, because it is very, very hard to be a mother and have a big job, to pursue a career. I know lots of people who found that impossible."
It's perhaps the main reason, she says, why there are so few women at her level. Does she think it is getting easier? "I wouldn't say it's getting easier, but it's becoming more acceptable to have unconventional arrangements at home. But I don't think it's that much better for women. It's that age-old tension – even if you're not physically responsible for the children, you're emotionally thinking 'should I be there?' or 'I'm missing that sports day – again.'"
Reynolds worked at the Council for National Parks, then the Council to Protect Rural England, before spending two years as director of the women's unit at the cabinet office under Tony Blair. When she got the job as director general of the National Trust, she was accused of being one of "Tony's cronies", though she insists she was not on social terms with the then-prime minister. But still, her appointment was controversial. "I was the youngest director general and the first woman, and it would have been surprising if people hadn't gone 'hmm'. But I hope my track record spoke for itself, and now my track record from being there for 11 years – we've done some great things."
Membership – and income – has swelled under her directorship, and the organisation is steadily modernising. She acknowledges "nobody will ever agree with everything the Trust does, I learned that early on. It's not an organisation that in the detail of what we do we can please everybody, and it's impossible to try." For instance, the Trust was accused of "dumbing down" (and "Disney-fying") for its recent efforts to, as Reynolds puts it, "bring houses to life" by dressing guides up and recreating scenes in rooms. "I'm completely unrepentant, because I think our job is to make history appealing and accessible to a new generation who haven't all learned history in school. Provided you are telling the truth and there's an integrity, so you're not simplifying or glossing over difficult stories in order to make something sound nice, I don't think it's dumbing down at all."
But isn't "glossing over difficult stories" what the National Trust became expert at doing? It is only in recent years, for instance, that the National Trust has acknowledged how many of its properties were built on fortunes from slavery. "I think we recognise that we didn't always tell all the stories," she says, adding that it is changing. "If you go to properties now you will see much more about where the fortune came from that built the house, some of the slavery issues. We are prepared to tell the more difficult stories as well."
I've always felt too nose-up-against-the-window in most National Trust houses I've been to, and an unease at the worship of its original aristocratic owners a visit seemed to demand.
"I'm not sure it's worshipping," says Reynolds. "I think it's curiosity. People are really intrigued by it. If you go to the back-to-backs [former slum housing in Birmingham acquired by the National Trust], people are just as enthralled by them. There, for a lot of people, you could think, 'that might well have been me', whereas in a great stately home, you think, 'actually I would probably have been the scullery maid'."
The family membership has swelled, Reynolds points out, which makes the demographic younger. There is still much room for improvement, though. I suspect low-income families are still a rarity – quite aside from the entry prices, it can be impossible to get to many properties on public transport – and Reynolds admits there are few ethnic minority members. "I freely recognise that, and we've been working with properties that are either located in urban areas, or close to large areas of different populations. For example, Wightwick Manor in the west Midlands is surrounded by a huge Sikh and Afro-Caribbean community, and they have been working specifically on how to involve their local community."
Providing people with access to nature still underpins the Trust's original purpose. "We're very concerned about [people decreasing contact with nature]," says Reynolds. "One of our founders, Octavia Hill, said something like 'the need of air, the sight of sky and all things growing seem human needs common to all'. She was saying it's as important to have access to beauty, and the ability to get out into the countryside – that's as important as the roof over your head and something to eat. Which comes back to the planning issue. I've got shelves of books at home about the early-20th-century and the conservation movement beginning, and through the 20s and 30s the Trust was very involved in establishing our planning system. It just felt right that we should be there now defending it."
Our time runs out and Reynolds has to go. My last glimpse of her is in silhouette as she strides across open fields, her dog racing off in front towards the sun.
Saving churches for their history – not religion
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on July 5, 2010
These buildings are an important part of our landscape – even if they are not used for worship
If churchgoing is a reliable indicator of Christian belief, then England began losing its religious impulse when Victoria was still on the throne. Attendance at Anglican services began its decline in the 1890s. By 1968, only 3.5% of the English population went regularly on a Sunday. By 1999, that figure had halved to 1.9%. And, as the numbers went down, the age of the congregations went up. The average age of a member of the Church of England is 50. In 2015, it is likely to be 55. If present trends continue – a phrase, admittedly, that always invites suspicion – then in 30 years' time two thirds of observing Anglicans will be more than 65 years old, and almost all of them will be women.
The social, constitutional and moral consequences of the church's shrinking importance are often debated, but perhaps the real threat, which all of us can care about, is aesthetic. More numbers: three quarters of England's 16,000 parish churches are listed as buildings of architectural and historic interest in Grades I, II* and II. Churches listed grade I comprise 45% of all England's buildings – castles, mansions, banks, railway stations, markets – in the same first rank. In the words of an official from English Heritage, this means that less than 2% of England's population is directly responsible for the care of nearly half of England's finest architecture.
Public funds have helped the churchgoers. Since 2002, English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have spent £179m on repairs to listed places of worship of all denominations (but mainly Anglican), and every year another £12m is doled out in grants equivalent to the VAT paid on the work. The fear, for English Heritage and the church, is that a Treasury hungry for cuts won't renew the VAT scheme when it runs out next year. In a report this week, English Heritage reckons that only about one in 10 listed places of worship is in poor condition, but implies that if the cuts come this number will grow. More leaking roofs, more broken stained glass, and then ruin or conversion into flats.
Lincolnshire is a good place to consider these things. "The second largest county in England and the least appreciated," John Betjeman wrote in his Guide to English Parish Churches. The Lincolnshire wool trade, flourishing in the 12th to 15th centuries, left behind a fine stock of medieval naves, chancels, windows and towers; Lincolnshire has 913 buildings listed Grades I and II* and 418 of them were built to be prayed in. Like other rural counties – Herefordshire, Rutland – it has an unusually high number of listed churches per head of population. "A pre-industrial legacy," in the words of this week's report, "means that the cost of maintaining buildings falls to a disproportionately small number of people, mainly in rural areas."
And so it does. Here we are on a lovely morning in Beckingham, near Newark, looking at the Norman architecture of All Saints (Grade I) with the churchwarden, Gill Green, a lively woman who walks with a stick. Some parts of All Saints date from the 12th century and other parts from the 13th to 15th, but all of it was restored in the 19th. The 20th was less kind. Gill Green says that one of its vicars, now dead, took more interest in selling off the glebe land than in the fabric of his church. Feckless vicars often carry the blame for ruination – "There are no problem buildings, just problem owners," says Dale Dishon of English Heritage – but the brutal facts have to be faced. Two hundred people live in Beckingham, a mere nine of whom sit in All Saints at a regular service. The Lincoln diocese tried to make it redundant as a church 10 years ago, but Green and others in the tiny congregation organised a campaign and English Heritage offered a grant for repairs. A rural dean takes services here, a duty he shares with four other churches, all Grade I, but the pipe organ has gone, the tower is unclimbable, the bells untollable, the steam heating broken. Cold keeps the church closed in winter and even in summer damp plaster crumbles at a touch.
A grant has bought a new roof, but other repairs or restorations (of the tower's crocketed pinnacles, say) will need to be funded in other ways. Poverty is forcing churches to open up to the material and secular world, aka "the wider community", partly because state subsidies encourage them in that direction but also because many local people who have never and will never step inside one for religious reasons still see them as important and often beautiful landmarks that give a place a history. These people give just as generously as Anglicans to fundraising projects.
For this reason the phrase "tea point" appears in English Heritage's guidebook for fundseekers. At All Saints they plan to put the tea (and coffee) points, the sink and the toilets at the western end of the nave, just under the tower. Then, in a village without a shop or a school, the church could have all kinds of uses – meetings, talks, and playgroups as well as worship – that would give it a more practical value to the parish. Green's big concern, she says, is "to keep the church going somehow for the glory of God. I'd hate to be the last person who locked the door of a building that has witnessed continuous worship for 900 years".
In Benington, a village of 450 people near Boston, I heard the same: that it was inconceivable to lose a building (another All Saints, Grade I) that for 900 years had provided generation after generation spiritual consolation and pastoral care. In fact, All Saints Benington closed as a church in 2001, but thanks to the work of an enthusiastic local committee it has since been restored as a building for community use where services are permitted six times a year. Many institutions chipped in with money and advice – including English Heritage, the diocese, and the Churches Conservation Trust, a charity funded by the state and the Church Commissioners that looks after churches put to other uses (one has a swimming pool in the nave).
Finally, we drove through the Wolds to Raithby-by-Slingsby, where English Heritage is spending £350,000 on repairs to Holy Trinity: a dark and romantic little church, Grade I, 12th century, extravagantly restored and decorated by a succession of Victorians beginning with George Gilbert Scott in 1873. How many people live in Raithby? About 170. Where is the next nearest Anglican church? About a mile away. Canon Peter Coates, who met us at the lych gate, said this was an area particularly rich in churches – 41 consecrated Anglican buildings and four priests served a population of 10,000. The canon had seven active congregations and one redundant parish under his charge, and it would be fair to assume that some if not all are among the hundreds of Anglican churches that can muster a regular Sunday attendance of no more than 10.
Nothing as handsome as these churches will ever again be built in these villages; their presence there seems almost miraculous, like finding an original Leonardo in a Skegness postcard rack. But how empty they are! Christian worship seems to have melted away almost as completely as the wool trade, and long before Richard Dawkins and the atheist revival came hunting for an argument. We should at least take care to preserve its inspiring remains.
• This article was amended on 5 July 2010. The original referred to medieval knaves, chancels, windows and towers. This has been corrected.
Anglicanism, Architecture, Art and design, Comment, Religion, Rural affairs, The Guardian, UK news
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