Dear all,
I am posting information on the First World War Memorials Programme run by Historic England on behalf of my colleague Katy Whitaker. If you have any queries about the project please contact Katy directly on [log in to unmask] .
Many thanks
Sarah
First World War Memorials Programme
In 2014, to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, Historic England embarked upon a five-year project to add 2,500 war memorials to the National Heritage List for England. The Government is funding this project through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
War memorials provide us with an enduring link to those hundreds of thousands who gave their lives in the First World War. This project will commemorate the role of communities across the country in the conflict. Working with volunteers, notably from War Memorials Trust and Civic Voice, it will make sure that the memorials are properly looked after.
By April 2015, a further 219 war memorials had been added to the List or re-listed at a higher grade. There are now more than 1,700 listed war memorials in England. We anticipate adding 300 more by April 2016.
This project forms one strand of a wider First World War Memorials Programme which includes:
- Training volunteers to carry out condition surveys of war memorials, recording the information on War Memorials Trust’s website War Memorials Online;
- Delivering extra funding for cleaning, maintenance, conservation and repair work on war memorials, through War Memorials Trust’s grants schemes;
- Engaging school pupils in war memorial recording and listing, through Historic England’s Heritage Schools project;
- Providing information and skills training for the owners/custodians of war memorials, and local craftspeople engaged in looking after war memorials;
- Improving the national archive and dataset of war memorials, curated by the Imperial War Museum.
The Programme is funded through DCMS, using LIBOR fines money awarded by Treasury, to be spent during the First World War centenary period.
During the listing process, HERs are consulted about the factual content of the Consultation Report on which Historic England’s recommendation for designation to DCMS is based. HERs are also informed of the designation decision, as are the relevant local planning authority. I am finding that often, war memorials are not recorded in the HER and they are commonly not included in local lists of buildings of local significance. The fact that, at the time of writing, nearly twice as many telephone boxes are listed than war memorials underlines the fact that, whilst cherished and cared for locally, they have to some extent been taken for granted in terms of heritage protection.
Historic England will be recommending that its volunteers make use of local information and archive sources to research war memorials; and we will continue to provide our designation reports as part of the listing process. I would be very pleased to talk to any HER officers who know of a war memorial project active in their area, who would like to be involved with training volunteers to engage in heritage protection (for example, by collaborating with our partner Civic Voice to provide a listing workshop venue), or who would like to discuss the data involved in the process and in the designation outputs. Please do drop me a line if you have any questions.
Katy Whitaker
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