News

Writer Gillian Darley visits our archive to explore the history of this coastal Saxon church

We are delighted to announce our new SPAB Chair, Nichola Tasker. Nichola brings a wealth of organisational knowledge to the role with her experience as a Trustee and Guardian. Nichola is a conservation architect and SPAB Scholar (1998).

Our founder William Morris’ designs arguably helped to shape our enduring taste for wallpapers. But how did British wallpaper develop, and how was it made?

In anticipation of a talk in March on their collaboration, we looked to our archives to explore John Piper’s involvement in the establishment of our Betjeman Award over 30 years ago, to honour his friend’s love of ancient churches.

The first John Betjeman Award in Ireland recognises sensitive external stonework conservation.

If you take a country walk along the public footpath south-west of the historic town of Coggeshall in Essex, you’ll find an elegant iron footbridge

Stonemason Tom Flemons received the award for his outstanding personal contribution both to traditional building skills and support of the SPAB Fellowship.

Our Norfolk regional group volunteers report on a successful working party to carry out soft capping trials at a ruin

A huge thank you to our members, donors, grant givers and followers who have not wavered in their support of the SPAB through the lockdown months. We would also like to offer our heartfelt thanks to the National Lottery players who made the National Lottery heritage Fund Emergency Grants possible.

Don’t forget that we will be closing the office on 23^rd December for the Christmas break, re-opening 4^th January. From everyone at the SPAB we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

In October we received our first application relating to a listed building to be demolished for HS2. This was a Grade II listed farm near Banbury. Unfortunately, under the High Speed Rail Act 2017, which modified the controls related to listed buildings, we have little or no scope for objection. We deeply regret the demolitions necessitated by the construction of HS2.