Blog

Communications officer Felicity enjoys the illusions of a historically-informed 21st century theatre.

Mary, Ethel and Violet Pinwill were three extraordinary women who worked as professional woodcarvers in Ermington and then Plymouth, Devon, from about 1889. Author Helen Wilson introduces the work of this family of craft pioneers.

Just outside Halesworth in Suffolk, stands what could be mistaken for a farmhouse but which became a secret meeting house for ‘independents'. Walpole Old Chapel is a Grade II* listed building and is reputedly one of the oldest surviving nonconformist meeting houses in England.

SPAB member Patrick Stow introduces his new series of books drawing from his careeer as a conservation engineer. Here he explains why he became fascinated by this work and what has prompted him to write.

Recently, the 12th-century alabaster arch to St Mary’s, Tutbury, Staffordshire was cleaned. This church has a monumental west doorway, built in the mid-12th century and richly carved with Romanesque ornament. The doorway comprises six orders or receding arches. The innermost order is formed of thirty blocks of locally-mined alabaster. Each carved with three beak-heads and a human or animal figure. Interestingly, it is the only instance of alabaster used in an exterior arch in the country.

In anticipation of what would have been our founder William Morris' 187th birthday, Helen Elletson, curator at the William Morris Society, writes of the life at his home in Hammersmith, London.

SPAB member Chris Wood remembers well-known mason Colin Burns.

SPAB archive volunteer, Gillian Goodridge remembers a summertime visit to St Enodoc’s Church in Cornwall, beloved of poet and campaigner John Betjeman.

The Naval Dockyards Society is campaigning to save listed industrial heritage at Pembroke Dockyard in south-west Wales.

It’s not Sutton Hoo, but archaeology trials uncovered artefacts which add to the developing story of our medieval building.