SPAB | Walking Lecture Tour Documentaries

I have a long and continued interest in architecture as well as the highly skilled craftsmanship of the people who care for and repair our historic buildings. Often these are the skills and techniques which are becoming more and more scarce.

I’m grateful to my grandfather who was an architect for more than 35 years and loved nothing better than to pad the streets of major cities looking and admiring the great buildings others had made or indeed cursing the new ones which had too swiftly replaced them. We spent many an afternoon exploring together.

He would have been delighted to know that I have helped The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to produce a four part series of ‘walking lecture tour’ documentaries for their online Repair of Old Buildings Course.

The first two were produced in 2021 during the pandemic and at a time of social distancing. In the past delegates on the course would have been invited on a day trip to visit sites and have the opportunity to discuss the work taking place with the highly skilled craftspeople involved. But because of the pandemic this was not possible.

The key aim of the ‘walking lecture tour’ documentaries was to provide a similar experience for the delegates on the in person visits. This was done through in-depth interviews lead by SPAB experts and creative filmmaking by my team to show the sites in full. We captured in detail the processes used by industry-leading craftspeople working hard under the challenging circumstances of covid to restore these iconic national buildings.

The films are sent to delegates two weeks before the course starts to allow them time to accustom themselves to the projects and think of any questions they might have. This is followed up by a week long course with Q&A sessions with leading figures from the projects.

The success of running the course with films during those difficult times meant that in 2023 I was asked again to produce two more documentaries to refresh the course.

A key benefit of making these films is that they have formed a longterm archive of projects which can be revisited at any time.

While these films are not available online you can apply to be part of the next Repair of Old Buildings Course and enjoy them.

If you don’t know about SPAB, I highly recommend looking them up. And if you’re interested in learning about historic crafts they have a wealth of knowledge going back to 1877 when it was founded by William Morris.

The Course Films

2021
Kensington Palace
The restoration and adaptation of The Orangery

Hampton Court Palace
The restoration of the red rubber brick chimney stacks

2023
Orleton Manor, Ludlow
A seventeenth-century timber framed manor house

Manchester Town Hall
A major restoration of the entire building