What Was our Heritage?

 Anniversaries are moments to stop and ponder the significance of events. There has been much talk of late of the exhibition The Destruction of the Country House, which opened at the V&A more than 50 years ago, in October 1974, and which then toured regional museums and galleries in 1975.

 

 The Destruction exhibition undoubtedly had an impact far beyond the show itself, which was, after all, simply an exhibition mainly of black and white photographs of mansion properties that had been lost (to fire or to demolition) in the century from 1875. The fact that it is being talked about at all today, half a century on, is testament to the determination of the V&A’s director, Roy Strong, to make an impact with the show.

 

“I feel so strongly that the V&A represents the quintessence of our aesthetic heritage,” Strong wrote to Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, in October 1973, “and that we should be seen to be deeply involved in what has been lost, and what will be lost, if we do not act immediately.” (V&A Archive MA 28/243/1)

 

The context of Strong’s letter, written before he had officially taken up the post, was the turbulent politics of the day. The Labour opposition to Ted Heath’s Conservative government had developed new ideas of capital taxation, in the form of a Wealth Tax to augment the existing estate duties (which were renamed, after Labour came to power in 1974, as capital transfer taxes).

 

As the V&A’s director, Strong was a civil servant (the V&A at the time was a branch of the education department). It is extraordinary now to think that a civil servant could mount a show, which aimed to be “explosive, controversial, exciting and dramatic” (Strong’s words), with the intention of drawing attention to the fiscal policies of the ruling government.

 

Another facet of the Destruction exhibition was its role as a curtain raiser to the festivities that were planned for 1975. The UK joined the European Communities in January 1973, and 1975 had been earmarked as European Architectural Heritage Year. Destruction was designed with this year in mind.

 

The Countess of Dartmouth had been appointed by Heath’s government in 1972 as the chairman [sic] of the organizing committee for the year. I have a copy of the souvenir publication for the year, a paperback with colour and black and white photography called What is our Heritage? and published by the Stationery Office for the Department of the Environment.

 

The book records that Roy Strong served as a member of the UK Council for European Architectural Heritage Year (afterwards EAHY), along with other bastions of the architectural and heritage establishment: Sir Hugh Casson, Sir John Betjeman, Lord (Kenneth) Clark, Lord Kennet. Sandy Glen of the British Tourism Authority chaired a panel on tourism. Earl Spencer chaired a panel on Youth, bringing together youth organisations. Asa Briggs chaired a panel on education.

 

Besides the countess herself, women barely get a mention in the book, except for the countess’s secretary and typist, and the designer of the volume, Dee Smallridge. The design of the book was as imaginative and impactful as the Destruction exhibition had been. The front cover shows a toddler pedaling a tricycle beneath a 15^th century arch on Priory Lane in King’s Lynn. The property was listed in 1951, but the official entry tells us that this range, which was built as part of the Benedictine Priory of St Margaret, was in 1974/75 now divided into six separate dwellings (presumably the list entry had been updated then). The back cover of the book shows us another of the cottages on Priory Lane, its yellow-frocked proprietor stood on the doorstep, perhaps keeping a watchful eye over the toddler. Both pictures were credited to Earl Spencer (‘Johnnie’).

 

The book itself comprises a photographic essay divided into thematic chapters, separated by multicolour papers. ‘Before and After’ shows heritage success stories, mainly urban, where redundancy and decay had been turned around. ‘Details’ celebrates the work of conservation experts, whether their medium was stone, plaster or wood. ‘New uses’ urges that buildings can and should be adapted to new purposes (‘People often prefer working in the special atmosphere of old buildings, provided they have modern services.’) ‘Beauty Restored’ tells of the intrinsic benefits of preservation.  ‘Streets for People’ focuses on urban planning, and leads with a photograph from (where else) Harlow in Essex.

 

Not all the chapters are fully predictable. For ‘Trees, Flowers and Shrubs’ we are in the comfortable territory of the landscape garden, but the chapter also explores the impact of pylons on the landscape. A special chapter is reserved for examples of outdoors floodlighting of historic buildings, a Europe-wide craze of the time. Colour photography is given over to a chapter called ‘Grandeur’, showing cathedrals and country house interiors. We’re back to black and white for ‘Films, Festivals and Fun’, replete with the obligatory Morris dancers.

 

A penultimate chapter focuses on ‘Youth and the Future’, Earl Spencer’s particular interest, and urges that conservation topics should be taught in schools and colleges. ‘There is no longer any excuse for wanton destruction followed by unacceptable ugliness’, the text asserts. ‘It is the young who will determine the future. I hope that they will learn from our mistakes and make a springboard of our successes.’ An 11^th chapter dwells on the ‘European Connexion’ speaking not of recent political events but of the centuries-long influence that the rest of the continent has had on British architecture.

 

The photographs, assembled by Sue Prideaux, are given detailed credits. Earl Spencer contributed the black and white images on the multicoloured papers separating each of the chapters, as well as some of the images contained within the chapters. Earl Spencer and the Countess of Dartmouth would marry in 1976, following the Countess’s divorce. 

 

How far we have come in fifty years. The book’s absences are glaring. Climate change is not mentioned, this being instead the unbridled ‘nuclear age’ of progress and modernity.  The only non-white face in the book is from the start of the chapter ‘Streets for People’, a blurred image of a shopkeeper in Alexandria, Egypt. Nowhere is Britain’s imperial or colonial legacy mentioned except in the chapter on ‘European Connexion’, where a statue of Queen Victoria (from Windsor) stands as the introductory motif for a celebration of Britain’s contribution to European civilisation.

 

Yet the EAHY in many ways stands as Year Zero for the heritage sector in this country. Many groups emerged at the same time as or just after EAHY – SAVE Britain’s Heritage (1975), the Architectural Heritage Fund (1976), even my own organisation, the HHA (1973 – but not listed in the credits of the book, perhaps because of the listing given to the BTA, our mother organisation). A group of us hope to hold an event in June to mark the half century since the EAHY, and to think about what the sector can learn from the event for the future.