Rogers first tried the inside-out, Meccano look in 1971 at Paris’s Pompidou
Centre, built with Renzo Piano. At Lloyd’s, he zoomed even further into a
space-age future. Austere concrete columns happily clash with bright blue
window-cleaning cranes and gleaming, stainless steel external staircases. It
should have been an unholy mess – built on a higgledy-piggledy medieval
footprint, forced by planners to incorporate the classical stone entrance
arch from its 1928 predecessor.
In fact, the weird combination of old and new – Blade Runner meets the
National Trust – works a treat. It deserves its starring role this month,
when it hosts English Heritage’s celebrations of the centenary of the 1913
Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act.
This particular piece of legislation might sound dull, but it was a milestone
in heritage history. It marked the moment when the government could, for the
first time, stop someone knocking down their elegant Jacobean pile or
selling an Adam fireplace.
We take it for granted, but the British have an exceptional love of great
buildings, from Stonehenge to Lloyd’s. The 1913 Act was a crucial element in
the accumulated network of defences guarding those buildings against
bulldozers and developers. A total of 880 historic sites in the country have
now been preserved thanks to its powers.
Lloyd’s is an odd, if worthy, addition to the list. Because what we British
really like is old buildings. We’ve liked them for a long time. In 1832,
Goethe, in his play Faust, had his devilish character, Mephistopheles, say:
“Are Britons here? They go abroad, feel calls; To trace old battlefields and
crumbling walls.”
This pride endures. Even when we showed our modern face to the world at the
Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, it was to a backdrop of peerless
historic architecture. Beach volleyball at the 18th-century Palladian
setting of Horse Guards; the Jubilee concert on stage at Buckingham Palace.
Where did our taste for old buildings come from? Partly it’s because we’re a
long-occupied island, one that’s easily accessible but hasn’t been
successfully invaded for nearly a millennium. We can look back down a
relatively uninterrupted national timeline. Wartime bombing and modern town
planning apart, there are still many fine buildings to look after, untouched
by the enemy without or within.
Because this island is rich in mineral resources, we developed artistic and
engineering skills that led to exceptional buildings and monuments.
The national desire to preserve great buildings kicked in during the early
18th century. Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle
Howard, was the first Englishman to campaign for the protection of
threatened ruins. These days, the conservation of ancient buildings seems
utterly logical. But Vanbrugh was considered distinctly odd in 1709 when he
tried to save Woodstock Manor, the decaying medieval pile opposite Blenheim.
Old buildings, Vanbrugh said, “move more lively and pleasing reflections than
history without their aid can do”.
Clearly his sentiment reflects something deep in the British psyche: we’ve all
caught the preservation bug. Some 1,800 British country houses may have been
demolished since 1800 but, still, 50 million people visit at least one
stately home every year. In 2011, the National Trust recruited its four
millionth member. There are more members of heritage organisations here than
in any other country on earth. More recently, a taste for architectural
conservatism and revivalism has been entrenched in detailed and strict
planning laws.
The British fascination with history is unusual, even when it comes to the
academic study of the subject. Across the Continent, political science is
more popular in schools and universities.
In Germany, in around 1900, political science was substituted for history, which
was considered an ungainly mixture of anecdotes and pointless articles. In
many other countries, history lessons stop after primary school.
A related desire to preserve the past was behind the 1913 Act. The legislation
was prompted by a threat to medieval Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire,
bought by an American syndicate in 1911. The mantelpieces and fireplaces had
already been removed when Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India, stepped
in. He was able to gazump the Americans, bringing his influence to bear on
Customs and Excise officers who managed to confiscate the fixtures and
fittings just in time.
Two years later, Parliament passed the new Act, leading to the scheduling,
supervision and maintenance of monuments and, later, buildings. A group of
commissioners formed the Ancient Monuments Board, which was alerted to any
imminent damage or destruction of an important site. Crucially, the board
could impose a government preservation order, allowing public officials to
enter private property, and stop any damage for 18 months.
Among the first monuments protected were Lindisfarne Priory, Northumberland,
and Yarmouth Castle in the Isle of Wight. Over the next 18 years – until
1931, when the Act was succeeded by the Ancient Monuments Act – some of the
great jewels of British architecture came under its control. Thisincluded
Eleanor Crossin Geddington, Northants; Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire;
Whitby Abbey; and Wayland’s Smithy in Oxfordshire.
English Heritage was built around the skeleton of these preservation acts.
Founded in 1983, it was the successor to the Ministry of Works, itself
ultimate successor to the Office of Works, set up in 1378 to look after the
monarch’s castles and palaces.
But these admirable bodies could do nothing without legal power. That’s what
the hallowed, undervalued 1913 Act brought with it. At last, our spiritual
love of old buildings was given some real muscle. A century on, the benefits
are there for all to see.
How England Made the English by Harry Mount (Viking, £20) is
available from Telegraph
Books (0844 871 1514) at £18 plus £1.35 pp.
If you want to know more, or are involved in a heritage project, visit telegraph.co.uk/angels