60th Jubilee History of Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust and 30th Jubilee History of BEAMS

60th Jubilee History of Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust and 30th Jubilee History of BEAMS. Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust, 2023, 35 pages, black-and-white and colour photos.

Hertford Castle is the home of two related organisations that currently celebrate 60 and 30 years of joint activity in the field of built heritage. There is much to celebrate. Unless you are familiar with Hertfordshire (it is not a county greatly prone to tourism), the achievements of the HBPT and BEAMS (created in 1993 as the trading arm of the HBPT) might be unknown to you, since the voluntary sector does not generally indulge much in publicity or advertising.

Against a background of postwar austerity, with changes in agriculture and society in a county increasingly under the influence of London, Hertfordshire faced a backlog of redundant and often decrepit historic buildings, many constructed in timber. Typical was Cromer Windmill, a 17th-century former working mill. It had ceased trading in 1924 but became the subject of a rescue appeal for funds in 1966, being placed on the statutory list the following year as a safety measure. HBPT adopted the mill as a pilot project, gradually restoring the main body and sails until the site was opened to the public in 1999.

The same cycle of redundancy and decay had affected Place House in Ware, which is Grade I listed, but was in a poor state when it came into trust ownership in 1975. Quickly recognised as its star property, the ancient manor house was reopened in 1978 after historical research, restoration and adaptation. With many royal connections, the reopening ceremony was conducted at Place House by the Queen Mother and a guide by Sallianne Wilcox was published.

Modern architecture has not been excluded. Hertfordshire County Council-built schools, many of which are listed, are subjects of research and advice, as are the Grade II* flight test hangars for the Comet, the pioneer jet liner, as built in 1954 and repurposed in 2005. With its garden cities and postwar new towns included, Herts is a county rich in modernism as well as medieval, Georgian and Victorian heritage.

As the years have passed and as listing and conservation area designation have grown in significance, the county’s 10 local authorities, mostly with small-scale planning departments, often came to rely on BEAMS to provide specialist advice on a consultancy basis. Heritage statements became an activity for the professional staff, who became employed in-house within the Tudor and Strawberry Hill-gothick walls of the castle gatehouse. At times, the work spilled out into Bucks, Slough and other places.

This gratifying story is summarised in the compact publication that should be of much service to other voluntary organisations, researchers and archivists engaged in similar difficult but rewarding tasks. Newcomers who wish to discover would also benefit from studying these jubilee pages.

This article originally appeared as: ‘Proud Herts’ in the Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s (IHBC’s) Context 179, published in March 2024. It was written by Graham Tite, employed as a conservation officer at BEAMS, 2011–17.

--Institute of Historic Building Conservation