Our Spring issue of IHBC’s members’ journal, Context – No. 183 examines ‘Wellbeing and Heritage’, highlighting how historic buildings and places trigger rich evocations, but that’s only part of a complex story being told here.
The IHBC writes:
Feeling better already
Contributors to the ‘Vox pop’ and ‘New member profile’ columns in Context often explain what it was that set them off on a life of working with historic buildings. Sometimes it was familiarity with a particularly fascinating place; sometimes being dragged round historic buildings by enthusiastic parents; and sometimes an inspiring teacher at school or university. Often a love of historic buildings is difficult to explain. For some people historic buildings and places trigger rich evocations of those who lived there in the past; of those whose visions, dreams, ideas, skills, lives and activities are reflected in the physical fabric that survives.
For those of us who feel this way, there may be no need to understand fully why we respond so viscerally to history. It is just the way we are. But when it comes to communicating the importance of historic conservation (‘the management of continuity’, as Jukka Jokilehto called it), gut feelings are not enough. In recent years we have become aware of new ways in which the historic environment has value, whether evidential, historical, aesthetic, communal, cultural, social or environmental. We have become used to arguing that building conservation is good economics, and so is worth investing in. That is not enough, though. A great many things are worth investing in, and hard-pressed government, central and local, chooses its priorities carefully.
How can anyone compare competing values? A few years ago the Office of National Statistics began measuring national wellbeing. If building conservation has to be justified according to the degree to which it promotes wellbeing, that is fine by us; and Historic England’s first three-year Wellbeing and Heritage Strategy, published in 2022, sets the scene.
All that remains is for us to consider what wellbeing is, and to reflect on how historic building conservation contributes to it in terms of quality of place, sense of belonging, sense of purpose, civic pride, happiness, culture, mental health and resilience, and much more. That is the theme of this issue of Context.’
Context 183’s themed articles include:
- Wellbeing and heritage: making a difference, Linda Monckton and Desi Gradinarova
- The economics of heritage and wellbeing, Thomas Colwill and Adala Leeson
- Workplace wellbeing in the heritage sector, Angharad Hart
- Healing through heritage, Elaine Griffiths
- Broken pots, mending lives, Richard Osgood
- Bricks, mortar and emotions, Alexandra Dziegiel
- Heritage, ageing and wellbeing, Jessica Bowden
Other features and updates in Issue 183 include:
- Legal update: Alexandra Fairclough
- Obituary: Chris Topp
- Nairn’s Liverpool revisited, Ian Wray
- The destruction of the English country house, Graham Tite
Regulars features include:
- Briefing
- Periodically
- The writer’s voice
- Notes from the chair
- Director’s cut
- New member profile
- Inter alia
- Vox pop
- Reviews
- Products and services
- Specialist suppliers index
Access the online archive and see the issue online
Reading Context helps IHBC members develop their skills across all of the IHBC’s Areas of Competence, and so is a critical baseline in addressing priorities in Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
See more IHBC background and guidance on IHBC CPD and on how you might use past, current and future issues of Context
See the formal guidance paper on IHBC CPD (scheduled for update)
See more on the IHBC Competences and Areas of Competence
