Turning Unloved into Best Loved
Conway Hall, London, venue for the SPAB Heritage Awards 2022. Photo: Mary Kerrigan
The winners of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Building’s first ever Best Loved Award 2022 were announced on 3rd November at a gala SPAB Heritage Awards ceremony in a packed Conway Hall, former home of the Ethical Society, London.
One of five judges honoured to help assess 23 submissions from across these islands – from the north of Scotland to the Isle of Wight, and from Dublin to Cork - we were delighted to see entries ranging from 16th century farm barns, nuclear bunkers, to stately homes on a grand scale, and everything in between.
Our shortlisting task was no mean feat.
So, what were we looking for?
Lovingly maintained buildings, well repaired using appropriate materials
Care of key elements like roofs, gutters, windows, doors - even drains!
Improvement from a previous derelict or semi-derelict state
The extent of involvement of the wider community
All in all, we were looking for evidence that owners, their craftspeople and, especially, their wider communities loved the bones of the building - completely understanding the challenge pandemic lockdowns presented.
‘Best Loved’ is no bed of roses!
It’s like when the early ‘in-love’ stage shatters as you discover that, actually, you’ve bought a death trap.
Know the feeling?
The SPAB's Best Loved Award shortlist is all the more significant because many of our old buildings aren’t loved at all.
Let’s face it:
We have a tsunami of heritage dereliction in Ireland
Children aren’t learning to work with their hands anymore, and don’t discover they have intelligent hands - an aptitude for craft skills.
Stone masonry training courses close for lack of uptake.
Some of our traditional heritage crafts skills are in danger of extinction, in some places.
At the last count as many as 700 buildings within a 2km radius of Cork’s city centre were empty and/or dilapidated.1
At the 2022 London Careers Festival, 70+% of kids surveyed said they wanted to go into 'comms' and 'digital' careers. For architecture &/or construction it was a meagre 2%.
Despite stalwart and magnificent inspirational work by the SPAB through 145 years of its existence, not least its SPAB Scholarship and William Morris Crafts Fellowship programmes running for nigh on a century - and numerous wonderful projects celebrated and amazing people honoured at the SPAB Heritage Awards 2022 - already we live with the reality that many of our most experienced traditional building craftsmen and women are ageing out of their careers.
The implications are stark.
It all seems pretty impossible…
The SPAB’s Best Loved Award shortlist shows it IS possible to care for what we’ve already got - beautifully.
All of us at the SPAB Heritage Awards 2022 belong to a passionate community protecting our ancient buildings, lovingly.
What we focus on grows…
... and, so, now is the time for us to focus on our love...
...love of old buildings, the craftsmanship, the architecture.
Feel the love
Share it
Spread it all around
So that the ripples go out and merge into a tsunami of Best Loved buildings across these islands.
Over 5,500 people took the time and trouble to cast their vote in this the SPAB’s very first public vote award.
On the edge of our seats with excitement, we were bursting to know from a shortlist of 8 buildings – 4 in the Private, 4 in the Public category - which the public had chosen as the two winners in the first ever SPAB Best Loved Award 2022.
Ta Da!!!!
Private: 16th century farm barn at Nunwick, Ripon in Yorkshire
Public: Wentworth Woodhouse, South Yorkshire.
Both richly deserving winners, each amply demonstrated breath-taking repair work and deep commitment by their owners and/or the community involved, as well as the conservation professionals and contractors commissioned to create their repair and maintenance solutions.
1 Ref: Dr Frank O’Connor and Jude Sherry