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Clive Aslet: Ecological reasons for saving Britain's architectural heritage

This summer's vogue for holidaying at home means many of us are rediscovering our native land, swapping the baked orange earth of the Mediterranean for green hedgerows.

As we drive around – providing we can afford the fuel – we will be able to enjoy the sheer volume of heritage around us. You don't get it much in the Algarve; and what there might have been in Miami has been obliterated by hotels and apartment buildings.

But you can hardly move an inch in the UK without coming across some ancient structure – a war memorial here, a Georgian bridge there, a Victorian school in the village. We've got history coming out of our ears.

Or falling down around our ears, if you listen to English Heritage. For the last decade, they have been compiling a register of buildings at risk, and each year it seems to get longer.

This week, even poor Jane Clark, gamely keeping up Saltwood Castle in Kent , found her home on it.

Yet friends of Mrs Clark, widow of the roguish MP Alan, say that the castle is possibly in better condition than when her husband was alive; certainly more so than when Bill Deedes grew up there, with, according to his autobiography, green algae on the walls.

Even if that weren't the case, there really could be no serious threat to Saltwood, for a reason that Clark himself, as a dedicated free marketer, would have been quick to acknowledge: if the worst came to the worst, Mrs Clark could sell up and let someone else restore it.

Even in the present straitened state of the property market, Saltwood would find a buyer. According to Simon Backhouse of estate agent Strutt and Parker, it would come into the £5 million-plus bracket that has been "virtually recession-proof".

In the past, many historic dwellings were loved to death by owners who updated them too enthusiastically for the home's good. Nowadays, no one would think of ripping out an original fireplace in a Regency terrace – not, that is, if he or she had any regard to the resale value.

In fact, to many owners nowadays, the greatest danger comes from the poorly trained conservation officers who seem to have carte blanche to impose their stylistic whims....
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)