The Historic Religious Buildings Alliance Annual Open Day
Wednesday 3rd December 2014
The Big Update
St Albans Conference Centre, Leigh Place, Baldwins Gardens, Holborn
EC1N 7AB ( www.stalbanscentre.org/ )
See final page for directions
Programme
9.45 Arrival and tea and coffee
10.15 Welcome and brief review of HRBA and its activities
Trevor Cooper, Chair of the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance
10.25 The UK’s Best Modern Churches: the architecture competition organised by the
National Churches Trust in association with EASA and C20th Society - Sherry Bates
10.55 ‘I'm looking for God' - The Church Tourism Study Revd Nigel Lacey
11.25 Tea and Coffee
11.45 Half a million pictures: photographing all of England's ten thousand rural parish
churches and their contents Cameron Newham
12.15 ‘I Wouldn’t Start From Here’ - The West Midlands Place of Worship Support
Officers Group Discussion Paper on Heritage and Places of Worship - Co-author,
Andrew Mottram, Heritage Buildings & Community Development Officer, Diocese of
Worcester
12.45 Five minute popups:
a) Exploring Scotland’s churches - Stuart Beattie, Director, Scotland’s Churches Trust
b) Keyholder – an app for those visiting churches in England Trevor Cooper
c) Spare slot
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Election of HRBA Steering Group
14:10 Building Buddhism in England Dr Emma Tomalin and Caroline Starkey
14.40 Aerial surveying of fragile or difficult to reach ecclesiastical structures Alan Perrin
15.10 Key note presentation: Loyd Grossman on the development of the heritage
movement and government's role in heritage
15.40 Stretch legs
15.50 What do we know about Trusts looking after churches? Trevor Cooper
16.20 Discussion and concluding remarks followed by tea at 16.30
Trevor Cooper has had a long-standing interest in church buildings and their future. In 2004 he published How do we
keep our parish churches? He jointly edited Pews, benches and chairs, looking at the history of church seating, and
discussing its future development, published in 2011. He recently edited For public benefit: churches cared for by Trusts,
an Ecclesiological Society publication (2014). He has been an external member since 2002 of the EH Places of Worship
Forum and its predecessor, and he sat on Southwark DAC between 2003 and 2013. He is Chairman of Council of the
Ecclesiological Society (www.ecclsoc.org/), and Chair of the HRBA.
Sherry Bates is past president of the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association and is an architect member
of Southwark Diocesan Advisory Committee. He studied architecture in London after graduating in Physics from
Oxford and while working as a European tour guide. Subsequently he has taught architecture in most of the London
architecture schools and also in the USA, Canada and Mexico. He has been a visiting professor at the School of the
Institute of Art of Chicago and is currently chair of the Association for Studies in Historic Buildings. Sherry practices in
London.
After 21 years working in Government, Stuart Beattie, was asked by Lord Rosslyn, in 1995, to establish the Rosslyn
Chapel Trust, and was Rosslyn’s first Director until 2008. In 2008, he became Joint Managing Director at the Scottish
Lime Centre and concurrently Client Project Manager for the Penicuik House Preservation Trust, with their 8 year
project to stabilize the ruin of Penicuik House. Stuart continues in this latter role as PHPT moves into a second phase
of conservation work. In 2010 he was invited to become Director of the Scottish Churches Architectural Heritage
Trust, and following the merger with Scotland’s Churches Scheme became Director of Scotland’s Churches Trust.
Dr Loyd Grossman is an entrepreneur, writer and broadcaster who has had a long involvement with UK museums
and heritage. A former Commissioner of English Heritage and of the Museums and Galleries Commission, he is
Chairman of the Churches Conservation Trust and Chairman of the Heritage Alliance. He is also President of
NADFAS, Deputy Chair of The Prince's Drawing School, a member of the board of the Association of Leading Visitor
Attractions and a Governor of the Building Crafts College. Loyd was born in Boston, and educated at Boston
University (BA), the London School of Economics (MSc Econ) and Magdalene College Cambridge (MPhil, PhD). He
is an Emeritus Governor of the LSE and a member of the Council of the British School at Rome.
Revd Nigel Lacey has been Rector of West Wycombe since 2001. He became interested in looking at how churches
welcome visitors as a result of the many who visit the spectacular church of St. Lawrence. How can we tell the story
of a holy place, and communicate the story of faith that lies behind a parish church? He has currently visited over 500
parish churches as well as sending questionnaires to several hundred more. The information is being used to write a
book on the importance of visitors to the life of the Church and how we might improve our welcome. He has
previously worked as a civil servant and been a hospice chaplain and parish priest in Birmingham before moving to
Buckinghamshire. http://churchtourismstudy.com/
Andrew Mottram, Heritage Buildings & Community Development Officer, the Diocese of Worcester. Ordained in 1978,
Andrew was Priest in Charge of Hereford, All Saints from 1991 to 2006 during its radical re-ordering, subsequently
described by English Heritage in 1999 as “the iconic example of church redevelopment”. Overwhelmed by enquiries and
requests for help, Andrew co-founded Ecclesiastical Property Solutions Ltd, a church property consultancy, which worked
with over 500 churches and national bodies from 2004 until 2010. When the Place of Worship Support Officers role was
eventually funded, Andrew was appointed as the PoWSO in the Diocese of Worcester in 2009. http://bit.ly/1tZgw4G
Cameron Newham is an Australian who has been living and working in the UK since 1996. While his main line of work
(the one that pays the bills) is in the Information Technology industry developing smartphone apps, he moonlights as a
professional church visitor. Not long after arriving on these shores he began visiting and photographing parish churches.
He has since gone on to visit over 8000 of them, recording the churches and their contents to effectively form the
"national photographic archive of churches". He aims to complete this massive project by 2020. http://www.digiatlas.org/
Cambridge Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is a division of Cambridge (Maintenance Services) Ltd. Cambridge have
been operating various aerial platforms for many years and with the advent of reliable multi-rotor flight control
systems and high capacity power sources it was decided to investigate the possibility of using unmanned aerial
vehicles to fulfil some of the requirements of its survey and inspection work. Cambridge UAV has now designed and
produced a range of aircraft that span the requirements for Aerial Photography, Video and Surveillance and produce
exemplary quality images. Alan Perrin, head of the UAV division has a 30+ year experience with Remotely Piloted
Aerial Systems.
Dr Emma Tomalin is the Director of the Centre for Religion and Public Life and a Senior Lecturer in Religious
Studies at the University of Leeds. Caroline Starkey is a PhD student in the Centre for Religion and Public Life and
her thesis explores how the context of Buddhism in Britain has shaped the practices and experiences of ordained
women. Since 2013 both Emma and Caroline have been working on a project with English Heritage entitled a
'Scoping survey of Buddhist faith buildings’ and will be extending this work to also include HIndu, Jain and Zoroastrian
buildings. Their ‘Building Buddhism’ blog can be accessed here http://buildingbuddhism.wordpress.com .
How to find the venue:
The St Albans Conference Centre is at Leigh Place, Baldwins Gardens, Holborn, London
EC1N 7AB. The main entrance is roughly opposite a sort of sunken garden at the east
end of Baldwins Gardens. Do not try to go into the church.
Underground: it is a very short walk from Chancery Lane tube station and can be reached on
foot from Holborn, Farringdon and Kings Cross stations.
Buses: The following buses all pass within a short distance 8, 22B, 25, 45, 46, 17, 171A and
243. For more information call 020 72221234
By Car: There is no car parking available at the venue (except for those requiring disabled by
access, by prior arrangement). NCP sites are at Shoe Lane, Saffron Hill and Snow Hill
More information about the venue at www.stalbanscentre.org
Any queries please email Becky on hrb@theheritagealliance.org.uk
or ring her on 0207 2330 900; or on the day 07903 135 893.