CONTEXT 188 : JUNE 2026 7 The CMS committee seems powerless to help. Faced with the insuperable VAT issue, and despite Historic England’s emphasis on the importance of funding, skills and climate change, it seems that this must tie in with the government’s growth and housing agenda. Labour MP Rupa Huq stated that ‘in an era of build, build, build… this heritage stuff is seen as a bit of a luxury’. The magazine presents an exposition of most uncommon but significant repairs of a small church in Wreay, Cumbria. Originally designed and funded by local landowner Sarah Losh and consecrated in 1842, the church was based on the basilica churches she had seen in northern Italy on her Grand Tour in 1817. It has a simple rectangular nave with a single central aisle and a semi-circular apse contained windows filled with a mosaic of stained glass, some set on thin sheets of alabaster. Alabaster was a favourite material in English medieval and renaissance periods for tombs and effigies but it fell out of use, only to see a revival in the Victorian era. Sources of alabaster in Britain are limited, with the most active beds being in Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, but quarrying and mining has taken place for 400 years around a village less than four miles from the church. The case study illustrates the technical repair issues involved with the glass, and highlights that to maintain the detailing to the standard that the church deserved cost over £80,000, greatly exceeding the budget of a such a small local church community.The work was completed thanks to contributions from donors including the National Churches Trust; the Wolfson Trust; the Benefact Trust; the Worshipful Company of Glaziers; the Vinehill Trust and the Garfield Weston Foundation. Another matter about which it is useful to be aware but not regularly encountered is the question of the impact on historic buildings of swarming honeybees searching for a permanent home. Damage to buildings is most associated with unmanaged colonies. An article by Abigail Lloyd on ‘Uninvited Guests: honeybees and historic buildings’ explains why such buildings prove so attractive; whether bees should be left undisturbed; the danger of spraying bees; and where specialists can undertake live removal. The ideal is to manage a project holistically: from initial surveys and access design, through to ecological compliance, repair using compatible materials and reinstatement of the appropriate fabric. The cost of intervention can be considerable, ranging from several thousand pounds for simple situations to tens of thousands where access is complex or the building is particularly sensitive. Lloyd makes the point that calm, informed decision-making is crucial and what matters is not price alone, but value – avoiding repeat interventions, fabric damage or irreversible mistakes. Where scaffolding is required, this is often best coordinated with other necessary roof repairs, reducing future disruption. Mills News As noted recently, in addition to SPAB Magazine, the society’s mills section produces its own quarterly Mills News. The latest issue (No 186, April 2026) explains that mills are far more than historic structures, being living systems of knowledge, skills and human effort. One informative article deals with the deceptively simple question: how much power does it take to drive a pair of millstones? This is the sort of question that millers of earlier centuries would have answered instinctively but are rarely examined with modern measurement.The current issue reports that experiments show how careful observation and a little instrumentation can illuminate the working of milling machinery, bridging past and present engineering, and reminding us that historic mills were never static monuments. Mill News also writes that the spirit of practical inquiry continues among today’s enthusiasts, who are constantly learning from the mills themselves. Each repair, survey and experiment adds another piece to the puzzle of how these remarkable structures function and have evolved. This is most vividly illustrated in the account of the waterwheel repair at Cornaig Mill on the island of Tiree. This reminds us that the future of milling heritage depends not only preserving the buildings, but also bringing together a community of people who can continue to learn from, work on and champion them. War Memorials Trust Bulletin Intermittently in several of my columns in 2025 I referred to the excellent work of the War Memorials Trust in attempting to identify photos of such memorials in unknown locations, as part of its public engagement programme. The latest edition of the Bulletin (No 107, March 2026) illustrates another nine memorials (one of which is a modernist memorial hall) posted on the website War Memorials Online, the locations of which surprisingly still have not been identified. Past appeals for locational information continue to meet with success, and the trust would be grateful if readers can identity any of this latest batch of mystery memorials. Bob Kindred MBE
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