Evolving heritage values

Historic England recently published a consultation draft of their revised conservation principles. The impetus behind this revision was the desire to realign the heritage ‘values’ in their 2008 policy more closely with heritage ‘interest’ as laid out in governmental legislation and listing criteria. This has resulted in the redefinition of Historic England’s heritage significance to encompass ‘historic’, ‘archaeological’, artistic’ and ‘architectural’ interest.

Whilst it is a welcome step to rationalise divergent stands of heritage in the UK, I would contest that rather than Historic England looking to more closely align with the definitions set by DCMS; that the government should instead look to meet the definitions set by Historic England as the public body that looks after England’s historic environment.

Although recently policy documents including the NPPF have begun to broaden our definition of heritage, the listing criteria as laid out by DCMS is now over five decades old. They lag significantly behind the focuses of conservation on the international stage that have, since the mid twentieth century, continued to expand ethics and approaches to protecting places based on both their inherent artistic and architectural importance and their social relevance.

Formed during post-war reconstruction, the government’s listing criteria was written in the context of the reactive mitigation of loss following bombing raids and so is inherently focused on physical buildings in isolation as historic and architectural fabric. However, whilst this is still undoubtedly important, heritage management now operates in the context of proactive people-based sustainable development. This needs to be reflected both in heritage management principles, as laid out by Historic England, and backed up by government legislation as this, in essence, provides the official legal definition of heritage in this country.

For my historic buildings conservation MA dissertation, I wrote a statement of significance for Lincoln Cathedral Works Yard: a site where the craftspeople engaged with the Cathedral’s conservation are based. The site had an incredibly diverse and complicated layering of significance that went beyond the definitions of heritage available in governmental legislation. The site was simultaneously symbolic/historic – both the buildings and people represented something from the past – and modern/active – the yard was a constantly evolving site of historically rooted human creativity. These two factors, rather than being viewed in isolation, should be viewed as complementary, enabling the site to be more significant as a result of that distinct interplay. This significance incorporated a range of factors including the physical buildings, buried archaeology, historic machinery, the people, and working practices all of which were important in both a historic and modern context.

Therefore, whilst Historic England’s new principles are to be commended for seeking to rationalise and bring a sense of order to the discrepancy in heritage definitions, there is still something lacking at a much broader sector level. What is missing is an effective legal backing to the developing duality in heritage that seeks to manage assets as both physical symbols of architecture or history and understands their reception in a modern social context.

This will come through development and updating of the legislation and listing criteria, working to solidify Historic England’s definitions of heritage in law and governmental policy rather than the other way around. This might take many forms: it could go the whole hog and provide legal backing to both tangible and intangible heritage (heritage as culture as opposed to solely architectural form), or it could focus more on broadening the listing criteria to consider the social meaning behind a physical place.

Images: Lincoln Cathedral Works Yard, and recent sculptures by the team.