Page 24 - Oundle Life November 2021

the benefit of an internal inspection and the description was used solely to identify and locate the asset. Then in the 1960s, extensive redevelopment of many cities occurred
was still common for listings from this period to be relatively short describing only the building exterior. But this was a national ‘drive-by’ survey on a heroic scale – sometimes referred to as ‘The Modern Domesday’ – so the brevity of
and many historic buildings were lost, so the Minister of Housing and Local Government initiated a resurvey in
1968 to focus on 39 historic cities
and towns whose centres were particularly threatened by post-war re- development. Alas it was not complete enough and very fine buildings continued to be lost.
sometimes referred to as ‘The Modern Domesday’
the entries is not entirely surprising. Today there are more than 400,000
designated heritage assets included on the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) which is searchable online. Each entry includes a map to locate the asset and in many cases crowd-sourced photographs of the asset. Here in East
A new tipping point occurred on the August Bank Holiday weekend in 1980 when the Art Deco Firestone Factory in Brentford, London was swiftly demolished to make way for a new development; prompting Michael Heseltine (then Secretary of State for the Environment) to commission a third great survey of the country which lasted throughout the 1980s.
This third survey extended the range of structures and building types recommended for listing, so even smaller structures like bridges, telephone boxes, and war memorials could be listed if they met the criteria. It also extended the date range to include more modern structures such as lidos, airports and cinemas. It
Northamptonshire (as was), there are more than 1700 listed buildings and structures which are now protected for our enjoyment.
Joe Croser, first studied architecture in Oxford, and later completed postgrad research into historic buildings in Cambridge. Today he leads Oundle Architecture with a particular
focus on residential design and historic building conservation and refurbishment. www.oundlearchitecture.com
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