Our Programmes and Priorities

English Heritage is undertaking a series of programmes and projects to achieve the aims set out in its Strategy. The following are some of the most important of these:

Properties Development Programme
This is a five-year investment programme for English Heritage’s properties. Based on an audit of all our properties, £30 million is being targeted at those sites with the most commercial potential in order to make as many sites as possible self-financing. Projects range from major refurbishment and restoration works at Kenilworth Castle to relatively small but significant improvements to exhibitions and interpretation and catering and retail facilities.

Places of Worship
In May 2006 we launched our Inspired! campaign to raise awareness of the challenges facing historic places of worship and to call for more support for the congregations that care for them. We have developed a five point plan to meet those challenges:

• Re-write out-dated list descriptions so that congregations can better understand the heritage value of their buildings and plan acceptable changes to meet the needs of their communities in the 21st century 
• Help congregations to help themselves by appointing Historic Places of Worship Support Officers who can offer practical help and advice 
• Create a Maintenance Grants scheme to enable congregations to maintain their buildings efficiently and economically 
• Continue the English Heritage/Heritage Lottery Fund Repair Grants Scheme for Places of Worship and augment it with a new Small Grants scheme 
• Safeguard the Churches Conservation Trust and other trusts that look after redundant places of worship, by increasing the funding available to them.

We are seeking support from government to implement this plan as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007.

Rural Historic Environment
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs runs the Environmental Stewardship Scheme which rewards farmers for good stewardship of built heritage as well as natural assets on their land. To help them understand what is important and how best to protect features such as prehistoric and medieval settlements, prehistoric burial mounds, and battlefields, English Heritage has produced a series of guidance leaflets for farmers and land managers. In November 2005 we highlighted the challenges facing the rural historic environment in Heritage Counts. In response to some of the issues identified, we are working jointly with the Countryside Agency/ Natural England to produce a series of regional documents on the conservation and adaptive re-use of traditional farm buildings.

Apethorpe Hall
Apethorpe Hall, the former seat of the Earls of Westmorland, is an important Grade I listed country house with a long, distinguished history and strong royal associations. It suffered two decades of neglect after the last occupants – a school – moved out in 1982. It has been a Category A building on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register since its first edition in 1998. By 2004, when English Heritage took on responsibility for the house, it was on the brink of dereliction.

In Spring 2006, however, work began on the repair and restoration of the highly significant south and east ranges. The Jacobean interiors of the state rooms and the Long Gallery – rare survivals by any standard – can now be properly appreciated for the first time since the 1940's.

Promoting Heritage Conservation Skills
English Heritage and ConstructionSkills have joined forces to call for concerted action across the construction industry, the built heritage sector, educational establishments, careers organisations, funding bodies and government departments to tackle the continued shortage of heritage building skills. Last year we published research demonstrating the shortage of craft skills across the country and a Skills Action Plan which we are now implementing. This includes:

• Raising the profile of vocational training and the built heritage construction sector and attracting more young people to pursue careers within it.
• Encouraging the use of suitably skilled and qualified people.
• Developing qualifications to ensure traditional building knowledge and skills can be attained from GCSE to Master Craft level.

Streets for All
In 2004 we launched our Save Our Streets public awareness campaign, followed in 2005 with the publication of regional Streets for All manuals providing guidance for Local Authority highways engineers on appropriate street design for each region of the country and a Save Our Streets schools leaflet which shows teachers how they can use the campaign as a basis for citizenship projects. We also run occasional workshops for highways engineers to reinforce the messages in the regional manuals – for details of upcoming events please see the training pages at www.helm.org.uk.

Ditherington Flax Mill
Ditherington Flax Mill in Shrewsbury, the world’s first iron framed building and ancestor of the modern skyscraper, has been bought by English Heritage with the aid of a grant from Advantage West Midlands. Despite its global importance, the mill had been lying empty since 1987 and had fallen into a state of dangerous neglect and decay. English Heritage, Advantage West Midlands and Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council are working together to establish what conservation work is needed and the most pressing repairs and security works will be carried out as a priority. A developer will be sought to take forward the regeneration of the site which is likely to include a mix of residential, business, community and heritage uses.

Buildings at Risk
The annual English Heritage Register of Buildings at Risk was created to define the scale of the national problem of Grade I and II* heritage assets at risk from decay and neglect and to prioritise the action needed to secure their future. It receives widespread publicity and highlights the condition of the neglected historic buildings around the country. It is also used to help prioritise our grants to third parties.

Chiswick House
A project has begun to restore Chiswick House and Gardens and a new charitable trust established to oversee the restoration, management and protection of this English Heritage property. The aim of the first phase of the project is to restore the gardens (a Heritage Lottery Fund grant has been successfully applied for).The second phase will focus on the House. The project also seeks to get local community groups and children actively involved in the site. We hosted a very successful festival last year which attracted over 10,000 local people.

Festival of History
This is Europe’s largest annual historical event and includes historic performers from Roman to WWII enactors. It includes historic markets, battles, lectures and demonstrations, music and dance, crafts and pastimes.

Heritage Open Days
Co-ordinated by the Civic Trust, in partnership with English Heritage, Heritage Open Days celebrate England’s architecture and culture and offer free access to properties that are usually closed to the public. It is a chance to discover hidden architectural treasures and enjoy a wide range of tours, events and activities.

New Learning Strategy
We launched a new integrated learning strategy in 2005 which includes all our educational work, from our projects with schools, to our extensive events programme and our work to support the government’s Learning Outside the Classroom manifesto. The strategy also addresses adult and lifelong learning and includes English Heritage’s outreach programme which each year engages people from hard-to-reach groups with the historic environment. A key strand of the strategy is the new initiative to recruit a number of education volunteers throughout the country to help us implement our education projects.

New Guidebook Series
A new series of guidebooks to English Heritage properties has been launched. Written by experts and illustrated throughout, each guide contains a site tour and a section tracing the history of the property and the people who lived and worked there. Personal accounts also provide visitors with a flavour of what life was like at these properties over the last 70 years or so, giving the guides a more contemporary feel.

Stonehenge
The objective of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site Management Plan is to reunite Stonehenge with the landscape and monuments around it and allow it to stand once more in open grassland, free from all the clutter which currently scars the surrounding area.

The Secretary of State granted EH planning permission for a new visitor centre at the end of March 2007. This followed a public inquiry, into a new road scheme supported the English Heritage preferred option to remove traffic from the Stonehenge landscape through a 2.1km tunnel. It was on the condition that the published A303 road scheme got the go ahead.