Our AGM and Conference was well attended at St Martin in the Fields, and we all left with food for thought about the role of conservation in the future, the shifts in focus of conservation education, and the dangers of retro-fitting.

We offer many thanks to our chairs and speakers who made it such a success:  Sherry Bates, Ian Bristow, John Fidler, Paul Drury, Dave Chetwyn, Frances Cambrook and Heather Newton, Matthew Slocombe and Maggie Goodall, Adam Menuge, Robyn Pender, Richard Woolf, Chris Wood, Ingvall Maxwell, Dean Sully, Chris Twinn, Jacqui Goddard and Charles Wagner.

We hope to publish the proceedings of our 50th anniversary conference, in addition to our normal annual Transactions, later on this year.

Tonight’s talk is on the work that Peregrine Bryant Architecture and Building Conservation have been carrying out to improve the quality and care of In-Pensioners’ accommodation.

The Practice is currently working on the conservation and adaptation of Sir John Soane’s Stables at the Royal Hospital. A talented young graduate, Gloria Trevisan, from Italy had started working with us on this project last year when she and her fiancé Marco tragically lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire. The Practice have established a fund, the Gloria e Marco Award, in their memory to provide an annual scholarship to bring a graduate from their university in Venice to the UK in the autumn each year.

Details of the Gloria e Marco Award are here 

Our programme for 2018 got off to a flying start with Clive England’s talk on the works at Brooklands Museum.

Brooklands was the birthplace of British Motorsport and Aviation, with the construction of the circuit and its huge banked sections in 1907.  The Brooklands Flying Village followed shortly afterwards, and the site was handed over to the Royal Flying Corps in 1914. After the war, the site became the centre for road and flying races, until 1939. Aircraft factories spread over the site, until the 1980s when the museum was founded. A successful Heritage Lottery Fund application led to the Brooklands Aircraft Factory and Race Track Revival Project, relocating the historic Bellman hanger to clear the the original Finishing Straight (a Scheduled Ancient Monument). Now the museum can display aircraft from the Sopwith Camel to Concorde, and historic racing cars such as the Napier-Railton in which John Cobb set the circuit lap record of 143.44mph in 1935, which was never beaten.

Clive took us through the myriad problems of collapsing embankments, contaminated spoil heaps, asbestos washers in the transportable Bellman hanger, and meticulous review of the racetrack to determine how much concrete could be saved; all unusual aspects of the conservation of industrial sites.

Brooklands Museum Website 

Our next meeting will be on 9th January 2018 when Clive England will talk on Brooklands Birthplace of British Motorsport & Aviation

Don’t forget to vote today for your ten most influential conservation books over the last 50 years. If you have had difficulty voting on line,  further instructions and voting form can be found here:

Voting Instructions and Voting Form

We look forward to seeing you all at the meeting next Tuesday 21st November!