{"id":8198,"date":"2014-07-30T16:03:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T15:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=8198"},"modified":"2014-07-30T16:03:52","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T15:03:52","slug":"dame-jenny-abramsky-heritage-isnt-just-about-stately-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=8198","title":{"rendered":"Dame Jenny Abramsky: \u2018Heritage isn\u2019t just about stately homes\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Dame Jenny Abramsky, 67, is stepping down after six years as chair of the Lottery Fund and in an interview with the Telegraph says that\u00a0\u201cheritage is so much more than beautiful buildings<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Telegraph writes<\/span>:<br \/>\nThe headquarters of the Heritage Lottery Fund are based in what may be the unloveliest building in Chelsea. It sticks out like a sore thumb among the elegant squares and Victorian mansion blocks that grace this part of town. But it also fits rather well with Dame Jenny Abramsky\u2019s mission statement. \u201cI feel very strongly,\u201d she says, \u201cthat heritage is so much more than beautiful buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy definition is really anything that people value and that they want to hand on to the future. That can be a memory, a culture, a butterfly in Yorkshire or a fantastic landscape in Scotland, as well as a building that has been derelict in the centre of a small community and which, if they could just turn it into something, would transform that community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you talk to ordinary people, it\u2019s very much about the urban landscape in which they live.\u201d She gives an example of M Shed in Bristol, a dockside museum charting the history of the city. Part of the HLF grant helped save two cranes that stand nearby. \u201cThey were going to get rid of them. Local people said: &#8216;But they represent who we are in Bristol.\u2019 It would have been a tragedy if they\u2019d gone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dame Jenny, 67, is standing down next month. Her one sadness is the number of worthy applications the HLF has to turn down. Eight years ago, it funded 70 per cent of applications. Now the figure is 35 per cent. \u201cSadly we\u2019re having meetings where we have 10 projects that meet all the criteria and we only have the money for four. And we\u2019re probably the only game in town now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In her swansong public speech, she warned this is \u201ca pivotal moment for the heritage sector\u201d, which has seen government and other cuts of \u00a32 billion since 2010.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/art\/architecture\/10992657\/Jenny-Abramsky-Heritage-isnt-just-about-stately-homes.html\" target=\"_blank\">Telegraph interview\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/people\/dame-jenny-abramsky-we-have-to-rethink-if-not-museums-and-parks-will-close-9630858.html\" target=\"_blank\">Independent article<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dame Jenny Abramsky, 67, is stepping down after six years as chair of the Lottery Fund and in an interview with the Telegraph says that\u00a0\u201cheritage is so much more than beautiful buildings.\u201d The Telegraph writes: The headquarters of the Heritage &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=8198\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8199,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198\/revisions\/8199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}