At our March Trustee meeting, we were delighted to award 13 grants coming to a total of £260,000 from our Preservation and Conservation programme. Below we share a little about each grant and its purpose.
Established as an adult education college in the 1950’s Braziers Park is a community and residential college occupying a Grade II* listed mansion house in 55 acres of woodland in South Oxfordshire. It facilitates one of the oldest secular communities in the UK. It is open to the public through events (such as forest schools, mindful workshops, retreats, film festivals) and volunteering.
The house dates back to the 17th century and is an example of a Strawberry Hill Gothic style, modelled on the original Horace Walpole design. Our grant of £20,000 is for urgent water ingress repair and maintenance work and to produce a historic significance survey.
The Arkwright Society is dedicated to the preservation and reuse of Cromford Mills, Derbyshire, one of the most significant features of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. The site’s exceptional historical importance lies in its innovation, legacy, and remarkable survival as a cohesive group of early water-powered textile mills. It is a key educational resource on the Industrial Revolution.
The Grade I listed complex consists of a range of buildings, three of which are on the At Risk register. Our grant of £30,000 will support the critical development phase for ‘Building 1’, including structural surveys, monitoring and design work. The deteriorating condition—exacerbated by vacancy, weathering, and inadequate drainage—compromises the site’s structural integrity. Our grant will help set the foundations for the future sustainability of this vibrant heritage destination.
Arnos Vale Cemetery is a 45-acre Grade II* park and garden situated in a Conservation Area in Bristol. It includes four Grade II* listed buildings and 25 listed monuments. Established in 1839 as a private cemetery, it fell into disrepair during the 1970s and 1980s. Managed by Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust, who secured £4.9m for a major restoration programme, the site now offers venue hire, educational activities, and open days as well as providing a green space for the people of Bristol. Award winning, it is often seen as an exemplar of a cemetery restoration.
Our grant of £10,000 is for a new Conservation Management Plan and building inspections of the four Grade II* listed buildings on the site which are open for public access. This will help the Trust make the best use of these venues in the most energy efficient ways, securing the longer-term future of this unique heritage site in the heart of Bristol.
Arnos Vale Cemetery Bristol. Image credit: David Gurney/ Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust
Designed by the renowned architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Nottingham Cathedral is a Grade II* listed building in the heart of the City Centre. It is described as the ‘Mother Church’ of the Catholic community across much of the East Midlands.
Our grant of £20,000 is to support the restoration and recreation of AWN Pugin’s 1844 rich neo-Gothic decorative scheme to the Cathedral’s east end. Although it has been painted over possibly up to seven times, exploration in 2018 revealed areas of this Victorian Gothic decorative masterpiece to be largely intact with an original decorative scheme to walls, arches and ceiling. Restoration will take place where possible, combined with careful recreation based on the revealed patterns and colours of the original decorative scheme.
The Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage increases understanding of the arts and cultural heritage of the African Caribbean diaspora, through dance, history and arts and digital. They have recently moved into a Grade II listed, building dating from 1865. The building was designed by Shenton and Baker in the Victorian Gothic Revival style and was previously the office for Leicester Water Board.
The original carved oak doors are a particular feature according to expert reports, exhibiting ‘a level of subtlety in the carving of the leaf forms and depth of piercing and undercutting rarely found on a commercial building’. Our grant of £15,000 will go towards the intricate refurbishment of the front doors and three internal Victorian doors.
Abingdon Abbey Buildings are the only surviving remains of the medieval Abbey of Abingdon. Grade 1 listed and cared for by The Friends of Abingdon Abbey Buildings Trust the buildings house the town’s only theatre, and the Long Gallery, Lower Gallery and UnderCroft are used for many events including weddings, festivals etc.
The buildings are in poor condition and need urgent repairs to make them watertight and weatherproof. They sit within the curtilage of a Scheduled Ancient Monument and within a Conservation Area and so a sensitive cost-effective scheme has had to be drawn up. Our grant of £30,000 will go towards the repair and conservation element, helping to secure the long-term sustainable future of the historic site.
Bourne Old Town Hall is a Grade II listed Georgian building in the former market place in the centre of Bourne, Lincolnshire. The volunteer-led Bourne Town Hall Trust is aiming to save the Old Town Hall and transform it into a vibrant Arts and Heritage hub.
Built in 1821, the hall has played a functional role for over 150 years but has stood empty for over a decade. Our grant of £20,000 is for specialist conservation work to the Shambles, (the original market area) involving removing previous unsympathetic work to the historic fabric and repairing the stone walls, archways and arched windows.
The longer-term aim is to transform the Shambles into a multi-purpose social space for talks, events and markets for the community to enjoy.
The Tywi Gateway Trust is a community led charity that looks after Parc yr Esgob – the Bishops’ Park – in Abergwili, Carmarthen, Wales. This grade II registered historic park and garden of Special Historic Interest includes formal gardens, walled garden, ancient semi-natural woodland, and a visitor centre.
The half-acre walled garden was first recorded in the 1790s and was one of three gardens producing fruit and vegetables throughout the seasons for the bishops’ households from at least the 18th century right up to the 1970s. The condition of the revealed walls and footings of the glasshouses and the dipping pond is now deteriorating. Serious weed growth is causing impact on and movement of brickwork and masonry as well as weathering including frost damage to floor tiles and stonework.
Our grant of £20,000 will go towards the restoration of the historic walled garden. Once restored the ‘secret garden’ will become accessible to the public and available for horticultural workshops.
Gregynog Hall and Estate is a 750-acre estate in the heart of Wales filled with history, culture, nature and stories. Owned by the The Gregynog Trust the estate is on CADW’s Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales (Grade I), and includes the Grade II* listed Hall, William Emes designed gardens, along with a National Nature Reserve and arboretum.
The main hall roof of this iconic half-timbered Grade II* historic house is in a critical condition. Our grant of £30,000 will go towards surveys and investigative works, enabling a programme of urgent temporary works to prevent water ingress as well as informing a more permanent solution. Repairing the roof will safeguard the future of this historically significant home for nature and art.
Meigle and Ardler Community Development Trust is a charity focused on driving rural regeneration, enriching cultural heritage, environmental stewardship and providing recreational opportunities in the rural villages of eastern Perthshire.
The Trust has ambitions to restore Meigle Old Pavilion, a decorative timber bowling pavilion dating from 1897 which has fallen into disrepair. The building is B listed, on the Heritage at Risk register, and is situated in the centre of the village overlooking the bowling green. It has had very little external or internal alteration (with original internal benches and storage racks). The building has decorative round-arched windows and internally it has a near intact timber lining.
Our grant of £20,000 will help conserve and repair the 19th century bowling pavilion which will become a community gathering and event space and a historical attraction for visitors.
Chiltern Open Air Museum is a charity that protects the built and cultural heritage of the Chilterns by rescuing threatened historic buildings, which would otherwise be demolished, and rebuilding them within a 45-acre traditional landscape. It has 37 reconstructed heritage buildings on site. The buildings range from domestic, agricultural to rural industrial dating from 15th century to post WWII.
The Georgian Toll House was first built in 1826 in a neo-Gothic style, it belonged to Thomas Brickwell, a Toll collector. It was saved from demolition, transferred to the museum in 1991. The Georgian Toll House is popular with visitors and a key feature of the ‘Life in Victorian Times’ school workshops. A lack of maintenance during the covid period and a series of poor weather winters have affected the building making it unusable. Our award of £10,000 will go towards urgent exterior repairs to the roof slates, stone, brickwork, windows frames and sills, enabling visitors to enjoy this historically significant house once more.
The Toll House. Image credit: Chiltern Open Air Museum
The Bowes Museum manages the French inspired, purpose built, Grade 1 listed, Accredited Museum and 22 acres of parkland in Barnard Castle. Founded by Joséphine & John Bowes in 1892, and built for the people, the Museum cares for a Designated collection of European fine and decorative art, including paintings, ceramics, items of woodwork and objets d’art, as a cultural resource for the people of Northern England.
The Museum is working hard to develop its sustainability, tackle its maintenance backlog, and develop its role within the community. Surveys have identified essential safety works including the need for new electrics and internal fire doors. The doors are particularly problematic due to their height and size requiring input from a conservation architect and specialised joiners. Our grant of £25,000 will go towards the essential works to fire doors and electrical systems, helping to safeguard this historic Grade 1 listed building, and important cultural resource for the North East.
The Commonwealth War Graves Foundation aims to engage and educate people – particularly young people – about the inspiring stories of the men and women who sacrificed their lives in the two World Wars. The foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), is aiming to preserve the Commission’s historically and culturally significant visual archive collection of photographic negatives and glass plates.
Consisting of approximately 55,000 negatives, specialist investigations have identified concerning signs of degradation in the form of vinegar syndrome (where plastic negatives degrade in above 0˚ storage conditions, shrinking and off-gassing acetic acid) across the whole collection. The other issue identified was the very tight packing which makes retrieval difficult. The collection provides an important visual record of both major events, such as battlefield cemeteries, royal visits etc. as well as offering insight into the lives and work of the Commission’s gardeners and caretakers.
Our grant of £10,000 will go towards the repackaging and freezing at -20 ˚ of the collection to halt further deterioration. The glass plate negatives will be rehoused, labelled and stored in archival quality boxes. Overseen by accredited conservators, the work will protect the future of this important historical asset with wider heritage and cultural value and lay the foundations for future digitisation of the collection.
