Inspectors, ancient monuments and heritage guidebooks

The UCS Heritage seminars resume on Wednesday 7 October. The first will be given by Professor David Gill on ‘Inspectors, ancient monuments and heritage guidebooks’. This will look at the evolution of guidebooks for ancient monuments and historic buildings placed in state guardianship. These guides emerged in 1917 (see St Botolph’s Priory) and evolved into the familiar ‘blue’ guides of the Ministry of Works and Department of the Environment. The formation of Cadw, English Heritage, and Historic Scotland produced a new set of distinctive guidebooks although the texts of some can be traced back to the 1950s. The seminar will explore some of the personalities behind the creation of the guides, notably Sir Charles Peers, C.A. Ralegh Radford, and Arnold J. Taylor.

Abstract can be found here.