CONTEXT 188 : JUNE 2026 17 INFRASTRUCTURE Masonic Hall, Old Elvet, Durham. Every other historic building in the street is listed except this intense gothic essay of 1868. Surely an indefensible omission? building types now in use has not been applied retrospectively, and ‘barn’ and ‘mill’ disguise and misdescribe many diverse functions. Bad history can make for less-than-informed conservation. Victorian, Edwardian and interwar examples on the lists are legion, but too many are still unprotected. Major blocs remain understudied; my list of candidates was longer, but it would be so good to see thematic overviews of assembly rooms, dovecotes, masonic halls, public schools, windmills and almshouses (the latter something which I am trying to address in a private capacity).These would fertilise extended protection, and far better and more comprehensive descriptions. And pure research needs to crossfertilise the applied; Stell’s four great volumes on the nonconformist chapel still have not been systematically fed back into the relevant listing. Now that research and listing teams are both in Historic England, the excuses for such lack of interplay are diminishing. Many of the other recommendations have been pursued. In that overview, let me begin by taking the easy wins. I recommended no change in certain respects: keeping the three listing grades and the 30-year rule, and continuing the policy of descheduling where listing is the better tool. Can I claim credit for the resultant ‘yes, carry on’? It feels a bit like cheating, so I do so diffidently. And I endorsed change where there was a pre-existing momentum, as in the abolition of the threat of compensation where a building preservation notice is not upheld – now under death knell thanks to government legislation. In other areas the change I advocated is being implemented, albeit with modification. The mastheads that now sit beside each unrevised listing, with health warnings about coverage and limitations, are a very useful generic innovation, but there is still no bespoke explanation of significance in the given case: why listing is being imposed and at the grade chosen. This has applied to listings of the last 20 years but is not being revisited on their predecessors, even though they are the vast majority and the first listings covered what would now be regarded as the most incontestably listable. The last synoptic overviews for cities as important as Cambridge, Colchester, Exeter, Whitby and Winchester all date from the 1970s, the latter so inadequate in its 1974 ‘greenback’ that the report cited 1,653 additions and amendments since. The ad hoc can only go so far. I supported with caveats the very occasional (non-systematic) revisiting of the principle of listing – in cases where interest was recognised as external only and yet where inclusion in a conservation area protects that self-same exterior. Such buildings form a perceptible subset among current candidates for delisting. THE LISTING PROCESS IN ENGLAND
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