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This paper explores how the transition to parenthood reshapes foodwork in families by drawing on ethnographic, longitudinal research conducted with parents of young children in the south-east of England. It utilizes the conceptual framework offered by practice theory and unpacks how parents' interpretations, techniques, and emotions surrounding eating transform as feeding and eating become routinized. The findings demonstrate the profound influence of feeding young children on the perception and practice of commensality at home. Mealtimes are increasingly recognized as crucial moments for transmitting manners and tastes across generations. Moreover, the analysis reveals that caregiving and other practices have a ripple effect on adults' eating practices, leading to changes in their food priorities, meal schedules, practical arrangements, and even the division of labor along gender lines. The findings underline the complexity of implementing institutional advice, for instance on "good" child feeding, as it requires changes in parents' own food practices and emotional relationships with food. By emphasizing the lived experiences of practitioners, this paper supports the growing call to incorporate identities, such as gender, into practice theoretical analysis, ultimately enhancing our understanding of how practices evolve and endure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the University of Birmingham, UK, hosted a weekend of events for the Association for Environmental Archaeology (AEA)'s spring conference 'Pests of Society'. The event was organised in collaboration with Historic England – the publicly-funded 'Arms-Length Body' with statutory responsibility for the historic environment in England. During the course of the one day conference and workshop the following day, multiple aspects were covered of how pests have interacted, and continue to interact, with humans and their day-to-day activities, as well as their presence in the wider landscape. This paper outlines and describes the meeting, introducing the range of topics covered, and summarises the papers that have been published in the resulting special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through analysis of written sources, architectural evidence, excavation reports and antiquarian records this paper argues that charnelling of human skeletal remains was more common in medieval England than has hitherto been fully recognized. It became increasingly widespread following formalization of belief in Purgatory in the late 13th century, and charnel houses can be found both at the better-documented greater churches and at parish churches, for which churchwardens' accounts are important sources. Charnel houses are mainly freestanding buildings in churchyards, or crypts within the body of the church, and both forms are often semi-subterranean, with the carefully maintained charnel visible through windows high in the charnel house walls. There was typically a chapel located above the charnel room, in which prayers for the dead were offered, similar to chantries. The paper presents the first detailed exploration of the potential liturgical contexts for charnelling. It is argued that the most likely form of rite to accompany the translation and deposition of charnel would have comprised a re-enactment of the Office of the Dead followed by an adapted version of the burial service, with possible secondary uses of the charnel house in the days leading up to Easter, the most solemn part of the Christian year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a longue durée account of the discursive emergence of 'the market'. It seeks to develop understanding of the 'crisis system' by showing that the crises of the present have their origins earlier than some critical realist scholars have suggested and can be better understood by the theorization of the generative mechanisms that emerged from the economic and political chaos of the early 1600s. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is employed to show that in the context of the emergence of capitalism in England, these generative mechanisms resulted in the meaning of the word 'market' slipping loose of the geo-spatial semiotic bounds by which it had commonly been delineated – i.e. as a physical space in a town or city where goods were bartered or sold – and being re-semioticised to refer to abstract space where all acts of capitalist economic exchange, including those impacting upon the natural world, take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the genetically-modified bacteria BacillaFilla developed by students at Newcastle University in England to join together concrete cracks in structures.

This paper argues that early agrarian capitalism in England was followed not by an individualist culture of monetary gain, but rather by a complex mixture of cultural norms stressing profit as well as different forms of community. It examines a popular agricultural manual written by the author Thomas Tusser (1524–1580). The paper shows that through his household management and farming advice, Tusser responded to the challenges resulting from agrarian capitalism not by discarding cultural norms of mutuality and cooperation, but by subtly reinventing them in ways that clashed with the language mobilised by the contemporary agrarian complaint movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the response of the English heritage sector, in particular Historic England, to the impact caused by the initial lockdown and restrictions introduced to protect lives during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. This response, headed by the Heritage Sector Response Group, relied on effective cross-sector working in order to both make the case for targeted support for the heritage sector to the UK Government and to provide advice and support for organisations during the lockdown and the limited reopening of the economy which followed. This included gathering intelligence in order to understand the impact of restrictions on the sector, which was used to swiftly develop emergency grant schemes funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England. The paper also considers the Historic England Heritage Online Debate around the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the sector, which gathered case studies from across the sector to capture and share qualitative information. The paper then looks at other long term challenges facing the sector, such as climate change, and considers how a collaborative approach and lessons learned from the sector's response to the COVID-19 restrictions may provide models for building resilience for the future and developing solutions to other issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The great chantry chapels of Cardinal Beaufort (d. 1447) and Bishop Waynflete (d. 1486) dominate the 13th-century retrochoir of Winchester Cathedral, and once flanked the shrine of St Swithun. This paper considers the chapels' patrons, formal vocabulary and relationship to other major tomb projects in 15th-century England. In particular, it focuses on the formal and conceptual relationships between the two chantries and their roles in liturgical and devotional practice and commemoration in Winchester Cathedral in the 15th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photovoltaic (PV) systems have been promoted in the UK housing sector as a key strategy for meeting carbon reduction commitments by offsetting the use of the non-renewable grid energy with renewable energy. However, inhabitants are not changing their routine energy consumption practices to take advantage of off-grid day time solar energy and, in some cases, even shifting practices away from the initial intentions underlying the technology. This means that the necessary energy savings from new housing are not being achieved. In this paper, this is attributed to the variation in the provisioning of PV technology in new homes, as well as inhabitants' engagement with and know-how of PV technologies, subject to explicit rules and policies. The key contribution of this paper is to reveal how PV technologies and inhabitants interact within different socio-technological home contexts drawing on Practice theory and ethnographic methods applied to four housing developments in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crown-post roof appeared in England in the second half of the thirteenth century and persisted until the early sixteenth century in the south-east of England. Rafter holes are found in these roofs near to the feet of the rafters on their lower faces. They are blind holes typically 75 mm to 100 mm deep by about 25 mm in diameter. Various theories have been put forward over the years to explain their function. This paper reviews the evidence found on the rafters and integrates it into a revision of one of the earlier theories which suggested that rafter holes formed part of a jig or templet. This jig was used to ensure that the collars were at the correct height relative to the crown plate (or collar purlin). These ideas have been applied in the prefabrication of a new crown-post roof. Evidence is also presented showing how the practice of using jigs to help prefabricate rafter cross-frames may also have been applied to some other roof types such as scissor-braced and side-purlin roofs, in south-east England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Reform Movement has often been framed as a "[...] remarkable display of international and interdisciplinary co-operation [...]" (Howatt 1984: 169), yet adoption of the Movement's core principle that "[...] the spoken language should be emphasized [...]" (Howatt and Smith 2002: ix) met with considerable opposition in the teaching of modern languages in English schools and universities. In this paper I consider how the aims of the Reform were circulated and debated in England through the newly established professional fora of conferences and journals and I examine these aims against the discursive and structural formations that inhibited the adoption of Reform methods. In particular, I focus on the cultural belief that 'speaking' foreign languages was "[...] unmanly, even unpatriotic" (Bayley 1998: 56; Cohen 2003) and on the concomitant institutional bias against native-speakers (McLelland 2018) as the teaching profession anglicized at the end of the 19th century (Radford 1985), consciously seeking to match the prestige of the classics through emphasizing modern languages as a liberal rather than a utilitarian discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artefacts deriving from mortuary contexts form a unique group among the vast numbers of unstratified portable antiquities found every year in England and Wales. Such finds, usually discovered by hobbyist metal detectorists, have great potential to tell us about the character, state, and preservation of the mortuary environments from which they derive. Yet, unlike the situation regarding the discovery of human remains, the reporting of unstratified grave goods is not compulsory. This presents a strange paradox in view of contemporary theory in mortuary archaeology and practice in indigenous heritage overseas, where funerary objects are usually regarded as a fundamental aspect of the archaeological deceased, if not an inalienable part of it. At present, grave goods — whether found on the body or dislodged from it — are normally the property of the landowner and as such can be lawfully privately owned or traded on the antiquities market. This paper outlines the current ethical and legal status of unstratified grave goods sourced from England and Wales, and explores current trends in their discovery and subsequent sale on the antiquities market. Throughout the paper, consideration is given to the question as to whether mortuary-derived antiquities should be given some form of enhanced legal or ethical status; however, the discussion reveals a range of complexities that present significant challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1939 airport terminal at Birmingham was one of the final acts of interwar aviation architecture and one of the most distinctive. To allow passengers to board or disembark from aircraft, a pair of wings was attached to the side of the building to facilitate so-called 'dry boarding'. This paper will describe the international context for this interesting feature, one which would not be repeated after the Second World War. Interestingly, such obvious referencing to flight in the architecture of airports during the interwar years proves to be surprisingly rare, though examples in other types of building will be discussed. The Birmingham terminal comes at the end of the development of a network of British airports in the 1920s and 1930s, and this programme will also be examined to explain this interesting building's place in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a personal view of the problems that archaeologists will face as a result of the UK leaving the EU (Brexit). These problems will affect all levels of our discipline, including students, researchers and academics, as well as field archaeologists, and impact equally on both non-domiciled archaeologists working in the UK and UK archaeologists working in other EU countries. The paper suggests that there are opportunities for archaeologists from many different sectors to unite in tackling the difficulties that may arise through the Brexit process, and such opportunities should also embrace tackling other problems affecting our discipline, particularly with regard to issues of diversity and equality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As an example of the effect of climate and environmental and, therefore, landscape change on archaeological sites this paper sets out the positions of known prehistoric and Roman salterns in Lincolnshire (Eastern England) and the present condition and archaeological potential of such sites. Their current position – some recorded as surface finds and some sealed by later sedimentation – demonstrates the dynamic nature of wetland landscapes in various parts of Lincolnshire. Both freshwater and marine deposits have at times affected the salterns, sometimes in restricted zones and sometimes over extensive areas. Also considered are methodologies for discovering such sites. The paper is a case study of one type of coastal site in Lincolnshire and serves as an example of the localised and complex chronology of sedimentation and/or erosion episodes in just one area. It may reflect wider changes around the North Sea coast and raises issues of generic importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the contrasts between the pastoral and arable areas within the county of Wiltshire. Starting from consideration of the geology and historical expressions of these contrasts, the implications for the related agricultural practices and the associated buildings are considered. The results from a project to map the county’s farmsteads provide an analysis of the dating, survival and arrangement of farm buildings in Wiltshire. Two case studies are then described, one from the pastoral area and the other from the arable area. The paper provides evidence suggesting that the distinction between the two areas is not as clear-cut as previously indicated and the need for further research is identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies linking indoor environments and productivity have been conducted in controlled, static conditions often unrepresentative of the real world. This paper uses a case-study-based, real-world approach to empirically investigate the link between indoor environment and workplace productivity in a mechanically-ventilated office environment in southern England. Environmental parameters were monitored continuously. Transverse and longitudinal surveys recorded perceptions of the working environment and self-reported productivity. Performance tasks provided proxy measures of performance. Productivity was perceived to decrease when occupants perceived thermal discomfort and stuffy air. Correlations with perceived changes in productivity were stronger for perceived rather than measured environmental conditions, implying occupants' subjective feelings impacted perceived productivity more than objective environmental conditions. Task scores were 15% lower when conducted at CO2 levels above 800 ppm compared to below 800 ppm. Insights from the study can help to optimize indoor office environments and improve workplace productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research frameworks for archaeology in the UK have a long history. Since the 1990s research frameworks have been developed in formal programmes initially driven by state heritage bodies. These were intended to facilitate better decision-making in development-driven archaeological projects, and to provide an interface between archaeologists. However the effectiveness of such frameworks is limited by a number of constraints. These include 'internal' boundaries created by historic environment professionals: chronological borders; professional borders; disciplinary borders; and borders limiting access and regulating control. There are also boundaries created by others, which include institutional and resourcing constraints as well as the geographical limits of modern administrative boundaries. This paper discusses these issues through the prism of the border region between England and Wales, a borderland zone with long histories of conflict and co-operation. Some suggestions are offered for future changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the tourism industry has faced criticism by turning its attention to the development of more responsible tourism. This is a form of tourism that is mindful of the diverse needs of host communities, local business and the visitor. This paper investigates the development of more responsible tourism from the perspective of a popular tourist product - the self-guided trail or route. The trail or route provides a themed and interpreted journey through the urban or rural landscape, creating links between sites, attractions and other tourism businesses by providing information and storytelling along the way. These products have a global appeal and are becoming more prolific. Through a literature review on trails, the paper analyses their key characteristics and the rationales of developers and concludes that trails have the potential to contribute to more responsible tourism development. The paper proposes a series of planning principles which are derived from the literature and examples of good practice therein which may assist trail developers in creating more responsible tourism routes and trails. The discussion concludes with a case study of a project in Cornwall in the south-west of the UK, where responsible planning has underpinned recent trail development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologists in the UK work in a variety of structures, but all archaeology is for the benefit of the public. Since 1990 the majority of archaeological work has been undertaken as part of the planning process. A complex system has evolved which attempts to deliver wider public benefit. There are differences between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the underlying principles are broadly the same across the UK. In 2020 radical changes were proposed to the planning system in England which could potentially impact on both the archaeological profession and the public benefits it generates. This paper outlines the evolution and operation of the current UK system with particular reference to England, and highlights some changes that the new proposals could make to the status quo. Some structural issues are highlighted which will need to be overcome for archaeologists to improve things for themselves and for the society they serve in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, a significant change was made to the policy for development-led archaeology in England. This paper considers how far the revised policy wording has been reflected in changes in archaeological practice. It concludes that, to a considerable degree, practice remains rooted in the terminology and concepts of the previous policy regime, which saw development-led work as 'mitigation' (or 'preservation by record') rather than as a form of offsetting, in which advances in understanding offset the loss of physical remains. Some suggestions for future improvements are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arc of policy change in heritage conservation in England – from the 1967 Civic Amenities Act to the National Planning Policy Framework 2018 – spans significant shifts in the underpinning principles supporting conservation policies. While national policies can be interpreted as inflections of changing policy frameworks enacted in international and European arenas, the interplay is complex and causal relationships may be impossible to demonstrate conclusively. This paper takes the instance of English Heritage (now Historic England)'s Conservation Principles, Policies and Guidance for the sustainable management of the historic environment (2008) and considers its international hinterland and legacy. While it has no formal status in the heritage protection or planning system in England, this research examines its sustained presence in local heritage planning policy. An examination of local heritage strategy documents shows that Conservation Principles, and the body of early 21st-century European and international thought that it reflects, are embedded in current practice in local authority policy-making. This impact is notable in the context of an English statutory planning and heritage protection system largely unchanged for 30 years, and attests to the agency of innovative international conservation principles despite the inertia of national heritage reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the driving forces acting upon the Warwickshire land market between 1284 and 1345, utilizing the feet of fines of this period as its key source. Previous historiographical inquiry has either focused primarily on external factors or else the 'family-land bond', neglecting the concept of individualized property management as an explanation, something this paper seeks to rectify. Firstly the article examines exogenous forces in the form of grain prices to test the popular hypothesis as to whether the land market was 'harvest-sensitive'. Comparative analysis of these prices with land transfers recorded in the fines determines that outside forces played a key role, although this was primarily during periods of economic crisis. The paper then explores the role of the period's most prolifically active individuals, reconstructing their lives through cross-referencing of the feet of fine evidence with other relevant sources. This clearly reveals the powerful influence these property magnates exerted on the land market, often fluctuating according to their personal needs and desires. The result is to build a clear picture of land market dynamics, which draws on both external and internal forces, defining their roles in relation to periods of stability and crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often hindered by their carer status as they seek to obtain and maintain employment opportunities. These parents can incur financial, social, and psychological distress related to their inabilities to commit to the demands of a typical work environment. This paper seeks to identify the course of employment for parents following a child's diagnosis. This paper also seeks to delineate factors that influence continued employment despite carer status, as well as the factors that prevent continued employment. A sample of 10 parents of children with a primary diagnosis of ASD and a sample of 10 parents of children with a primary diagnosis of ADHD were interviewed concerning their employment experiences before and after the diagnoses of their children. The interviews were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis and produced several discrete themes. Participants identified a desire for normality, as well as financial motivation, as the primary factors determining continued employment. These parents also reported various barriers to employment such as lack of availability of adequate childcare, colleague and manager misunderstanding, inflexible organizational policies, and inaccessibility of opportunity. These findings offer a qualitative overview of the vocational struggles of parents of children with ADHD and ASD while implying the necessity of support and education for this often-overlooked group of carers, as well as those who employ them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the unusual opportunities for motoring leisure provided by the modernistic landscape of the Great West Road in the inter-war period. This suburban arterial road had become ribboned by new Americanized factories, which featured 'Californian' white elevations, floodlit at night. This modern roadscape, likened to the 'great white way of an exhibition' by John Betjeman, attracted leisure drivers who would cruise the new road, experiencing a sensation of displaced Americanization and modernity. Using David Nye's work on technological sublimity, this paper positions the Great West Road as a special space for driving as a new leisure experience, distancing this period from the exploration of the countryside that typified motoring in the previous decades. The paper uses material from motoring magazines, architectural sources and poetry to explain the nature of this sublimity through leisure driving. Not being California, the juxtaposition of wet British weather and this road could also provide a misty and mysterious driving experience. As the inter-war period drew to a close, some commentators saw this road as tawdry and vulgar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Minstrels' Gallery of Exeter cathedral has received attention in almost every major account of the church's fabric, but has never been taken as a subject in its own right. This paper seeks to review and assess existing interpretations of the gallery's construction and purpose, along with those of the nave's north entrance with which the gallery's history is inextricably linked. In addition to evaluating existing scholarship, this paper will also propose three further theses: first, that the gallery was inserted into a finished nave bay, probably in the 1350s or 1360s, which already contained a north porch built entirely by the mason Thomas of Witney on the foundations of its Romanesque predecessor; secondly, that its function was to offer an inexpensive alternative to the singing-gallery which was planned but not built in the image-screen on the cathedral's west front; and, thirdly, that the role of the gallery and the north entrance to the nave in the Palm Sunday liturgy has influenced the iconography of the nave and gallery. This paper seeks to gather together the wealth of interest which the gallery has attracted over the last two centuries and to contribute to this exceptional history of scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The medieval peasant house has always featured strongly in vernacular architecture studies. This paper focuses on the buildings of those of lower social status, and their survival opens a window on a world of lifestyles that was at one time thought to be completely lost. A great deal of work has been done - on documentary sources, archaeological sites and standing buildings - which has shown that the life of the medieval peasant was lived in a degree of comfort and elegance, although many of its details still elude us. The VAG Winter Conference held in Leicester in January 2013 brought together scholars in cognate disciplines as well as a range of regional experts to focus on the current state of knowledge and to suggest whether the time had come to reconsider the standard model of the medieval house, its use and meaning. The purpose of this paper is to summarise our current understanding and to suggest future directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public participation in archaeological research is interpreted in various ways in different European states. Even though public participation is promoted by international organizations (e.g. UNESCO and Council of Europe) and the academic community, the extent to which the practitioners can implement these ideas is a matter of what is allowed (or encouraged) by cultural heritage legislation in every country, and of archaeologists' attitudes towards public engagement. This paper considers the English and Italian systems, and in particular the consequences that legislation has on fostering or forbidding public participation, especially in relation to archaeological field research. It will start with a brief comparison of the relationship between the state, archaeological management, and public participation in both countries, then it will examine the legislation regulating archaeological research in England and Italy, to compare the strengths and weaknesses of both systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the surrender of the king in May 1646 the country looked forward to the ending of the civil war and the social disruption it caused. It was hoped that commerce and trade would improve and travel restrictions be ended. Unfortunately, from 1645 onwards virulent pestilence and infection inflicted many of the formerly besieged towns and garrisons. The ending of the war allowed both discharged soldiers and civilians to wander across the country carrying the infections with them. Building upon previous published research, this paper explores the impact of pestilence upon commerce, trade and reconstruction across the county with special reference to the shire’s famous Goose Fair. In many ways, Nottinghamshire's, failed attempt to halt the spread of infection was a microcosm of a wider national phenomenon. As this article will demonstrate for many communities 1646 proved to be one of the most difficult years of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hampton Court Palace’s Great Hall located in Surrey, UK, is a magnificent late medieval hall. Its large hammer-beam roof is sumptuously decorated while its walls for the past century have been rehung with Henry VIII’s five-hundred-year-old tapestries illustrating The Story of Abraham, and one of the most internationally significant sets of sixteenth-century tapestries, commissioned for the same hall. This paper presents research which began in 2007, exploring conservation solutions based on evidence-based decision-making, through to successful implementation of measures that conserve these invaluable tapestries without damaging the aesthetic or physical integrity of the Great Hall. The impacts of environmental exposure conditions mapped in detail were assessed to evaluate risk for each tapestry. Next, feasibility studies identified the effectiveness of a range of potential mitigating options to address each local risk, now being incrementally implemented over many years. The research has enabled us to develop, test and deliver permanent interventions that have - when considered together as a holistic management regime - allowed the tapestries to remain in situ. These interventions will continue to be monitored and evaluated for at least a further year to confirm their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'heritage crime' has been recently brought into the spotlight by English Heritage - the organization tasked with protecting England's heritage assets - and is attracting an increasing amount of attention from individuals and organizations from a range of disciplines. Heritage crime includes recognized crime types (such as arson, criminal damage, theft, and graffiti) but arguably has a greater impact on the country's legacy for future generations because of the types of sites affected. This paper presents an initial examination of our understanding of heritage crime, and limitations to that knowledge. The paper contributes an initial typology to facilitate future interdisciplinary discussions of the problems facing heritage assets, and presents a possible route for expanding our ability to tackle this problem. Whilst this is an initial foray into the world of heritage crime, it is hoped that this paper will act as a stimulus for further discussion and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the Waller tomb monument that has an inscription which ostensibly dates it to 1525. The exceptional quality of the work, and its architectural sophistication, suggests close connections to work created in Winchester cathedral, through the patronage of bishop Richard Fox. Through comparative work, this paper proposes the attribution of the Waller monument to Thomas Bertie, the bishop of Winchester's master mason from c. 1515, and makes a case for a revision of the dating of this tomb and the tomb's place in the development of decorative architectural styles in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, the Galleries of Modern London opened at the Museum of London, and included a re-making of London's Pleasure Gardens. Using an embedded ethnographic perspective at the museum, this paper explores the re-making of the gardens, and looks in detail at how and why the museum chose the gardens to explore London's history as a changing city. The gardens display required an ambitious combination of objects and display technologies, such as historic costume, film projections, Philip Treacy hats, object reproductions, specially made mannequins, and a soundscape, and this paper discusses the production and composition of these components. Reflecting on the gardens' place in London's history, the paper identifies what the gardens offer contemporary understandings of the city's past and the role of pleasure in public history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Government announced large-scale reforms of England's planning policy in May 2010. The resultant National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was released in March 2012. Despite assurances from the Government that the principles governing the management of the historic environment through the planning system would remain largely intact, the policy reform process caused considerable concern and upheaval for historic environment interest groups, and prompted a great deal of activity to assure its interest. This paper sets the context for the historic environment sector's political engagement in England, with insights applicable to the place of heritage advocacy within the power webs of wider agencies of government. The paper examines the campaign led by the heritage charity, the National Trust, and contrasts its strategy with that practised by other bodies in the sector to evaluate the (in)effectiveness of advocacy strategies in the current political climate. The power dynamics and the intricacies of policy processes, as well as the strategies of historic environment agencies engaging with them, are considered. The study concludes that, although the NPPF release was eventually received as a reasonably positive outcome for the interests of the sector, it illustrates the lengths to which political advocates must now go in order to effect change and, conversely, shows how vulnerable we may be if we are not alert to the changing public policy environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1745 and his death in 1772, Samuel Scott (1710-1772) completed a series of at least sixty-two paintings in oil that depict scenes of the Thames and its environs within London. This paper examines a group of these paintings depicting views of the Pool of London, of the quay, and of bridges and bridge-building, placing them in the context of discourse on the river and the Thames in the mid-eighteenth century. Scott's works adapt the conventions of topographical painting through their distinctive concentration on the ordinary world of the river labourers, especially boatmen, sailors, porters, and customs agents, as well as their passengers and customers. The paper examines how eighteenth-century poetry, especially georgic and descriptive verse, elaborates a discourse on the virtue of labour and commerce. These poetic tropes help identify within Scott's paintings a celebration of trade and the prosperity that it brings London, but also his recognition that the river was a mixed social space, in which the grandeur and wealth of the city was contrasted with the everyday commerce and labour of ordinary river people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a close examination of John Tallis's London Street Views, a series of eighty-eight street directories featuring maps and engraved topographical views of major London thoroughfares published between 1838 and 1840. One in a popular genre of London guidebooks and street directories published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, London Street Views depicts a growing and industrializing city and reflects a desire among Tallis and his contemporaries to capture London and make it somehow comprehensible. In understanding London Street Views within the cultural production of urban spaces, this paper explores the significance of urban streetscapes as highly contested sites of identity formation in early Victorian London, investigates the role that Tallis - bookseller, publisher, and Londoner - played in imagining and representing the city, and positions London Street Views within a particular urban space defined by advertising and other printed media in the early Victorian period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 1645, Parliament coordinated the arrival of two armies before the Nottinghamshire town of Newark on Trent to besiege this major royalist garrison. To the north of the town was the Scottish army under the Earl of Leven and to the south English forces under the command of Colonel-General Poyntz of the Northern Association. Situated at the meeting of two great highways, and commanding the crossing nearest to the Humber on the river Trent, Newark had provided a major link between the king's headquarters at Oxford and the northern towns of Newcastle and York. Although the besieging armies were of comparable strength, the Scottish army alone was to generate extensive discontent and numerous petitions from parishes in the immediate vicinity of the town about the behaviour of its troops. Using both state papers and surviving local records, this paper seeks to explore the impact and logistics of both armies and examine whether the complaints against the Scots reflected major differences in their circumstances or was simply a coordination of local xenophobia by the parliamentarian gentry of the region seeking to influence wider political struggles at Westminster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Tierney Clark was one of the outstandingly able and determined civil engineers who drove the Industrial Revolution forward in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century. He demonstrated great versatility in tackling a canal, building a pier and being the engineer of waterworks in Hammersmith providing a vital need for London's expanding population. He is best known however for his four chain suspension bridges at Hammersmith, Marlow and Shoreham culminating in his greatest work the building over the ice-bound Danube at Buda-Pesth. What distinguished Clark over other practitioners was the excellence of his architectural design allied to robust engineering. Unfortunately Clark's own archival material disappeared after his death and the aim of this paper is to form a picture of the man through those he associated with and from nine letters he wrote on his journeys whilst travelling to Pesth. The Appendix examines the beneficiaries of his will. The paper is based on archival material in London and Budapest and concludes with an appreciation of the man and his works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers London, an imperial capital, in an era of decolonization. Through a focus on the Commonwealth Institute, opened in 1962, and the Commonwealth Arts Festival, held in 1965, it discusses the place of narratives of the 'modern' Commonwealth in the city. Architecture, display and performance come together to highlight the ways in which postwar narratives of the Commonwealth were produced, experienced and received in London. The paper underlines the optimistic discourses of multiracial cultural community articulated at the institute and festival, and the ways in which these emerged alongside, and in relation to, other more exclusionary stories of immigration and miscegenation in the capital. It concludes by noting the sidelining of these Commonwealth spaces and discourses in the city today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is ventilation in traditional dwellings, specifically with reference to English Heritage's 'rule of thumb' for historic buildings, which is that it should be 'twice the normal level of ventilation'. Examination of the subject has taken place through a literature review and the empirical case studies of two groups of unimproved dwellings.' The paper considers the ventilation of traditional buildings using the breakdown on the subject offered by the Building Regulations document for new build dwellings in England and Wales - Approved Document F. Where occupancy patterns are available, as with the case study on Fitz Steps, Cumbria, the validity of the rule of thumb is questioned. The paper will also show that, for the dwellings studied as a whole, lower air permeability results than orthodoxy would suggest were recorded, with common infiltration points between properties. There was also some evidence of modern extensions being less airtight than the original dwelling. A wide variation in measured air flow relating to chimneys was noted, raising questions over the air flow figures for this type of dwelling used in SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) for the energy assessment of buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, the Hadrian's Wall National Trail was opened, providing a 135 km (84 mile) public footpath along the length of the Roman frontier from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway. Each year, thousands of visitors walk the Trail from end-to-end and many more make day trips to visit specific locations within the wider World Heritage Site. In the second of two related papers (see Witcher, 2010), consideration turns from professional and popular visual representations of Hadrian's Wall to the ways in which visitors physically experience the monument and its landscape. The paper explores how embodied and sensory encounters produce and reproduce understandings which are charged with cultural and political meaning. Specifically, the elision of visitors and Roman soldiers through a process of embodied empathy/sympathy is outlined. It is argued that the way in which Western society assumes familiarity with an ancestral Roman Empire actively reduces the interrogative potential of encounters with the monument and limits visitors' ability to reflect on the significance of the Wall. The paper goes on to consider alternative modes of visual and physical engagement, drawing inspiration from virtual communities including geocachers who have used Information Technology such as Global Positioning Systems and Web 2.0 functionality to develop innovative modes of representation and encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on evidence collected by surveying a sample of Norfolk churches, this paper presents a reappraisal of the presumed ubiquity of chancel screens in late medieval parish churches. Building on this foundation, evidence is presented and discussed regarding the supposed homogenous form of chancel screens, and the relationship of these screens to other elements such as lofts and beams. By considering the broad period of c. 1330-1537, during which chancel screens were being constructed or renewed, this paper sets out the major changes in their structure, decoration and patronage. Whilst perhaps not ubiquitous, chancel screens did achieve and retain a widespread popularity during a protracted period. The paper offers explanations for their prevalence and argues that, in being representative of the gates of heaven, chancel screens were an important element in the setting of the medieval liturgy at parish level. It concludes with a discussion of patronage which is intended to reinforce the points made about the symbolic and physical centrality of these furnishings in Norfolk parish churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the construction of, and the maintenance work to, the principal façades of Selfridges department store in Oxford Street, London W1. Although these façades present a visually uniform, classical, Beaux Arts appearance, the phased nature of the original development resulted in significantly different constructional forms being adopted, which in turn posed different challenges for maintaining the fabric. Irrespective of the particular construction forms used for the façades, the overriding goals for the maintenance project were to ensure the safety of the public and to conserve the historic fabric in a sensitive way, thus safeguarding it for now and for the future. The paper discusses the use of cathodic protection systems on the steel framework of the Selfridges building and demonstrates the potential for the principles adopted in this project to be applied to other steel frames located behind masonry constructions elsewhere in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the consumption of food and drink in the context of the workplace. It examines a variety of ways in which work culture and identity are constructed and reproduced across time and space. The paper is based on the author's research into the former Guinness brewery at Park Royal, London, which closed in the summer of 2005 after nearly seventy years of production. The paper reflects on industrial culture, memory, loss and nostalgia for a workplace in transition and in particular the role played by food and drink in this process. The paper draws on material generated by a mixture of methods and approaches including semi-structured interviews, archival research as well as visual methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The survival of the mausoleum at Castle Howard was threatened by the potential collapse of the supporting columns. Almost 30 years after the repairs were completed this paper reflects on the engineering problems faced and the work undertaken to reconstruct the columns. The paper asks if a different approach would have been taken if the work were done today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a project carried out within the University of Sunderland's Department of Computing, Engineering and Technology during the 2008/9 academic year to investigate the potential for the use of LEGO Mindstorms NXT robots in the teaching of basic programming skills to undergraduate students. The project's initial proposal and context is discussed, with potential benefits identified and feedback methods outlined. The paper then describes of students and evaluates the student feedback and results obtained. In addition, a number of spin-off projects are the operational issues encountered when the project was implemented for two separate cohorts described which have provided additional benefits to students, the department and local schoolchildren. The paper concludes by outlining future work which is being carried out at the University of Sunderland as a result of this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1908, London hosted the fourth Olympic Games. A centrepiece of the Olympics, still in a nascent form after their creation in 1896, was the marathon, a foot-race of approximately 40 km. The race was run from Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium at Shepherd's Bush in July 1908, and quickly became famous for its controversies, such as the judges' assistance that helped Dorando Pietri over the line, and the questionable amateur status of Canadian runner Tom Longboat. This paper will concentrate on the route of the race: on how it was planned by the Polytechnic Harriers, how it was managed on the day, how it contributed to the development of 'marathon fever' after the Olympics, and what it tells us about the growing suburban landscape of Edwardian London and its hinterlands. The paper will end with a survey of the route today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the events between 1919 and 1924 that culminated in the regulation of London's bus services under the London Traffic Act, 1924. Prior to this, bus services in London were not subject to any form of regulatory control. The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police licensed vehicles under the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act, 1869, and once a licence was granted, the holder had complete freedom of operation. The 1924 act was introduced by Ramsay MacDonald's first Labour government as part of a deal to settle a strike by London's tramway and bus men, and is commonly portrayed as a measure that was enacted in haste to solve this crisis. The evidence presented in this paper demonstrates that plans to regulate London's bus services were longer in the making than is generally supposed, and that the form of control was shaped by influences other than transport and industrial relations. The other factors that form part of this re-examination are the national economic crisis, debate about the structure of London government, and a fresh assessment of the interplay between the transport employers and employees in making common cause for protection from competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the recent re-emergence of a gay scene in Shoreditch and argues that its reappraisal of British pub culture and appropriated versions of East End localism can be considered as a countercultural response to the marketed cosmopolitanism of Soho's gay village in the early 1990s. The original marketing of Soho as cosmopolitan was built around the rejection of the public house in favour of more 'continental' bars, signalling a move towards Europeanised consumption habits. In contrast, Shoreditch's gay scene evokes local working-class themes and the area's decaying urban aesthetics in attempts to market itself as an 'authentic' alternative to the 'artificial' West End. This paper begins by discussing a number of reoccurring themes in literary and media representations of East London before analysing specifically how some of these themes have been appropriated on Shoreditch's gay scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-rise housing, long seen as a postwar disaster, has an interwar prehistory characterised by debate between the advocates and critics of multistorey flats for social housing. In London, the controversy divided the political Left (initially firmly opposed to 'barracks for the working classes') and Right (willing to contemplate multistorey solutions), while others argued from a stated position of political neutrality for advanced modern solutions to urban living. This debate forms the background to a paper that examines a number of experimental slum clearance and redevelopment schemes, all featuring high-rise blocks served by lifts. All were promoted by the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney. John Scurr House (built 1936–1937), Riverside Mansions (1925–1928) and the Limehouse Fields project (1925 but never built) are examined in this paper, together with the local politics that shaped events in one East End borough, and the evolution of architectural and planning ideas that, after World War II, were to shape so much of London's housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]