1 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:08,160 The Second World War had been a fight for the nation's 2 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:10,400 survival against the Nazi war machine. 3 00:00:12,960 --> 00:00:17,320 Aerial bombardment on a scale never before known, had killed huge 4 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:21,160 numbers of civilians on the Home Front. 5 00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:27,240 It had also destroyed much of Britain's architectural heritage. 6 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:32,520 But out of the ruins was born the modern listing system that signalled 7 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:34,680 a new, hopefully safer, 8 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:39,400 future for the best old buildings of Britain. 9 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:43,440 But as the Victory cheers faded for Winston Churchill 10 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:47,960 and he was booted out in the general election of 1945, 11 00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:54,560 so the war-weary British turned their backs on the past. 12 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:57,560 Surely it was time for a new and brighter future? 13 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:05,080 Before the war, only a few fashionable followers 14 00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:07,480 of "Continental Chic", 15 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:11,360 and, of course, the penguins at London Zoo, had flirted with 16 00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:16,640 modernity and modernism. Now it would become the popular mood 17 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:22,120 of a nation embarking on a 30 year love affair with the future. 18 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:23,880 History was in for a rough time. 19 00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:27,200 It was even called The Rape of Britain. 20 00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:34,560 But heritage laws and organisations had never been stronger. 21 00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:36,920 And the personalities of the movement 22 00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:38,960 would become national figures, 23 00:01:38,960 --> 00:01:43,360 egging the public on to fight back as modernism became discredited. 24 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:48,720 Heritage would make an astonishing come-back, 25 00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:51,360 as it adapted to survive in the modern world. 26 00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:12,360 In 1945, Clement Attlee's Labour Party 27 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:16,400 swept to power in a landslide victory. 28 00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:20,320 Armed with the slogan "Let Us Face The Future", 29 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:23,080 Attlee promised the nation a new start 30 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:27,040 and the people wanted to see it happen, fast. 31 00:02:27,040 --> 00:02:32,160 The Labour Party's great victory shows that the country 32 00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:36,800 is ready for a new policy to face new world conditions. 33 00:02:38,280 --> 00:02:42,680 Welfare reform was top of the Attlee agenda. 34 00:02:42,680 --> 00:02:49,040 The creation of a National Health Service that would work for the health of everybody. 35 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:51,760 But even more pressing after the war, 36 00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:55,720 was the provision of new housing. 37 00:02:55,720 --> 00:03:00,360 A new generation of architects was ready. Architects with 38 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:03,760 a bolder vision than any doctor for how the nation's health 39 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:05,440 and happiness could be achieved. 40 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:11,840 They believed modern architecture would solve all modern ills. 41 00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:18,800 Waiting in the wings was the new man of the moment - the town planner. 42 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:22,360 History was dead, long live the future! 43 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:27,440 In all devastated cities, there are some people who long for the past. 44 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:30,920 They would like to see their town rebuilt exactly as it used to be. 45 00:03:30,920 --> 00:03:33,760 But of course where there has been 46 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:36,680 so much destruction, that's out of the question. 47 00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:39,120 Now would somebody switch off the lights, please, 48 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,480 and we'll have some pictures. 49 00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:45,400 The new visionaries would re-invent our towns and cities. 50 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:51,560 And as post-war Germany and Poland rebuilt 51 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:55,560 lost historic streets, Britain embraced ring roads 52 00:03:55,560 --> 00:04:01,040 and zoning. The car would be king, the city would be a machine. 53 00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:03,600 A new world was rolled out. 54 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:05,760 And nothing must stand in the way. 55 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:11,600 Because post-war construction went hand in hand in England with 56 00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:13,600 the notion of modernisation that 57 00:04:13,600 --> 00:04:16,440 meant clearing out the old world all too often, 58 00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:18,880 so city centres would be rebuilt, we would have 59 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:22,480 inner city ring roads, we would build motorways. Everything that 60 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:26,320 was old and fusty and dirty and war-damaged really ought to go, 61 00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:28,360 to usher in this clean new world, 62 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:31,640 which went alongside national health spectacles, 63 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:35,120 nice filled, clean teeth and clean hair, free of nits, 64 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:37,360 and all good things, But the level of 65 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:40,680 destruction was absolutely extraordinary. 66 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:42,920 So often it's said of course that more damage was 67 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:46,160 done by developers than the Luftwaffe achieved, and there's 68 00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:47,680 a great deal of truth in that. 69 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:50,600 Often you find when you look into the history of places 70 00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:53,760 that a lot of the destruction took place AFTER the bombing. 71 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:57,160 Buildings that could have been restored were then swept away. 72 00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:01,120 There was a huge programme of demolition. A determination 73 00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:06,960 to rebuild town centres along modernist lines of re-planning. 74 00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:11,200 There was a huge plan to re-arrange the whole of Whitehall. 75 00:05:11,200 --> 00:05:13,640 They were just going to leave Westminster Abbey 76 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:17,040 and the Houses of Parliament but the whole of the rest was going to go. 77 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:21,520 And many towns and cities were re-planned in a very aggressive way. 78 00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:30,400 Well that's the plan the architects have drawn up 79 00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:34,320 for the London of the future. What a grand opportunity it is. 80 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:36,800 If we miss this chance to rebuild London, 81 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:40,280 we shall have missed one of the great moments of history. 82 00:05:40,280 --> 00:05:43,760 We shall have shown ourselves unworthy of our victory. 83 00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:47,480 The war, it turned out, 84 00:05:47,480 --> 00:05:51,600 had been a style war as well as a fight against the Nazis. 85 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:56,800 Final victory would only be assured in modernity. 86 00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,960 Old buildings were seen as part of the problem for society, 87 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:04,840 rather than part of the solution to creating a sort of 88 00:06:04,840 --> 00:06:06,720 new identity for a new Britain. 89 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:10,280 And I think that the massive demolition of housing, 90 00:06:10,280 --> 00:06:13,520 of Georgian terraces, of Victorian terraces, 91 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:17,400 the huge destruction of public buildings, of churches, 92 00:06:17,400 --> 00:06:19,920 of country houses, all those things, 93 00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:22,920 were seen as a way of transforming society, 94 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:28,480 getting rid of the sort of detritus, the stuff that was holding us back. 95 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:36,520 And it was into this confusion that the first peacetime army 96 00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:40,000 of government listing inspectors advanced. 97 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:44,640 They set off enthusiastically around the country to mount 98 00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:47,880 a counter-attack on behalf of history. 99 00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:52,840 The new system was impressively well thought-out 100 00:06:52,840 --> 00:06:54,600 with grades one to three 101 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:58,960 categorising the historic built environment of Britain. 102 00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:01,480 But, as ever, it didn't go far enough. 103 00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:05,480 Georgian buildings remained under-rated. 104 00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:09,000 Humble buildings often slipped through the system 105 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:13,760 and Victorian buildings were positively dismissed. 106 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:16,520 It was also the age of the filthy city. 107 00:07:16,520 --> 00:07:21,040 In 1950s Britain, any urban building more than 50 years old 108 00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:24,960 was covered in the soot and grime of industry. 109 00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:30,200 It consigned so much Victorian exuberance to the demolition gang. 110 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:39,760 A great deal of prejudice had to be overcome. It's sad really, 111 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:44,320 it's a fact about human beings, that when buildings are dirty 112 00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:49,720 and decrepit, people cannot see beyond the dirt to what's underneath. 113 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:52,880 People had long regarded Victorian buildings as hideous 114 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:55,520 and worthless, when actually most of them were still standing 115 00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:57,640 because they were so well-built. 116 00:07:57,640 --> 00:08:02,800 By the middle of the 20th century, everything Victorian was just hated, 117 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:06,720 laughed at, despised. 118 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:09,480 The ignorance and the disdain 119 00:08:09,480 --> 00:08:12,240 that the 20th century felt for the Victorians was 120 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:18,200 about like what the 17th century, on the whole, felt for the Middle Ages. 121 00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:22,560 These things were thought to be old, crumbly, embarrassing, overdone. 122 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:26,120 And so everything that the Victorians represented, 123 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:30,840 solidity, permanence, detail, elaboration - were absolutely out. 124 00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:40,440 But in 1958, in the comfortable streets of Kensington in London, 125 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:44,800 at her Victorian townhouse, the Countess of Rosse, 126 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:49,040 former society beauty and future mother-in-law of Princess Margaret, 127 00:08:49,040 --> 00:08:52,840 summoned like-minded friends to her home. 128 00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:56,080 The dirty figure of Victorian architecture 129 00:08:56,080 --> 00:08:58,920 was about to be embraced. 130 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:02,560 There was a lot of gush about her, 131 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:06,880 but behind the gush, she was a very tough, capable lady. 132 00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:12,440 I've just been coming across letters from her to me recently 133 00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:15,920 and they all start, "Very dearest Mark." 134 00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:18,960 But I'm sure all her letters started that way. 135 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:25,480 And she had this lovely house in Stafford Terrace where they used to 136 00:09:25,480 --> 00:09:30,840 give frightfully good parties that were very glamorous and enjoyable. 137 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:39,480 Fuelled by hefty cocktails, mixed by the butler, 138 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:41,880 it was agreed a new society should be formed, 139 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:45,040 with a single mission in mind - 140 00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:49,960 to ensure "the best Victorian buildings and their contents 141 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:55,720 "do not disappear before their merits are more generally appreciated." 142 00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:02,800 It was fun, it was lively, we were pioneers, we were going to 143 00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:08,160 save Victorian architecture. We got drunk in pubs together, 144 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:09,560 we went on outings 145 00:10:09,560 --> 00:10:14,120 and it was all very enjoyable. I know there was someone 146 00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:21,120 called Ivor Idris, who was the first treasurer, who was Idris Soft Drinks. 147 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:22,960 We were very impressed by him 148 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:27,000 because he was a businessman. Nikolaus Pevsner 149 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:31,200 of course a professional art historian, there was 150 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:37,080 Canon Mortlock who was an amusing person. Mrs Christiansen, who had 151 00:10:37,080 --> 00:10:43,200 a lovely sort of tinkly voice like the tinkling of a bell. We were very 152 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:46,560 friendly, we didn't have rows at the committee meetings in those days. 153 00:10:46,560 --> 00:10:49,200 And I never spoke at all, because I hate committees 154 00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:51,760 and am very bad at them. 155 00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:55,880 So John Betjeman said, "Dear little Mark, 156 00:10:55,880 --> 00:10:59,280 "so good and never speaks a word." 157 00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:04,840 But beyond the cocktails and the glossy banter, 158 00:11:04,840 --> 00:11:08,520 the Victorian Society meant business. 159 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:14,160 And two of its members would come to define the post-war heritage world. 160 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:18,400 And, as ever, heritage seemed to attract opposites. 161 00:11:18,400 --> 00:11:21,240 The romantic verses the academic. 162 00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:26,880 Nicholas Pevsner and John Betjeman were colleagues - 163 00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:30,560 and at times friends. They had a very different view of the world. 164 00:11:30,560 --> 00:11:31,880 It was quite inevitable, 165 00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:36,600 they came from such different backgrounds, one from Hampstead in 166 00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:40,200 North London and one from Germany, and they couldn't be more different. 167 00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:41,280 One, a professional art historian, 168 00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:43,080 One, a professional art historian, 169 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:48,200 the other, a wilfully self-conscious amateur and dilettante. 170 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:54,280 Pevsner had studied History of Art at the universities of Leipzig, Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt. 171 00:11:54,280 --> 00:11:59,200 And while he was an ardent admirer of the supremacy of German Modernism, 172 00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:03,520 he devoted his doctoral thesis to the German Baroque. 173 00:12:03,520 --> 00:12:08,480 Stripped of his university lectureship by Nazi anti-Jewish laws, 174 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:12,000 he emigrated to Britain in 1933. 175 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,680 Pevsner was extraordinary, As chairman of the Victorian Society, 176 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:22,760 he gave the society seriousness and clout which he used to great effect. 177 00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:24,920 He sort of transformed the society 178 00:12:24,920 --> 00:12:28,200 from being a rather small, amateurish organisation 179 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:31,960 into something governments listened to and took note of. 180 00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:35,120 And Pevsner's other astonishing achievement, of course, 181 00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:37,760 is The Buildings Of England, which none of us could do without. 182 00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:42,400 I mean, nobody else except I think Pevsner could have started 183 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:45,040 and finished The Buildings Of England. 184 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:48,080 Absolutely essential tool, because knowledge is power. 185 00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:55,760 In his trusty Austen 1100, and taking 23 years to do it, 186 00:12:55,760 --> 00:12:59,840 Pevsner methodically criss-crossed the country, cataloguing 187 00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:02,120 England's most important buildings. 188 00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:05,960 Well, now for Barrow. Mind that dog! Now for Barrow, we go straight... 189 00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:11,960 The result was 46 volumes of The Buildings Of England, 190 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:16,040 followed up by series on Scotland, Wales and Ireland. 191 00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:19,360 And these were not guide books, but each volume 192 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:23,120 an inventory of a county's architectural assets. 193 00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:27,400 Buildings were dated and appraised with academic precision. 194 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:33,400 And up there, a type of capitol which is 195 00:13:33,400 --> 00:13:35,960 unmistakable for the architectural historian 196 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:42,760 and which one can date around 1170, 1180, that sort of thing. 197 00:13:42,760 --> 00:13:46,760 Now there are leaves on these capitols, broad rather fleshy 198 00:13:46,760 --> 00:13:51,760 leaves, and those leaves turn at the tip inwards. They do this 199 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:55,960 sort of thing, the Ionic Greek Order, does that sort of thing. 200 00:13:55,960 --> 00:14:00,320 Now, where you find these capitols, you can be sure you are about 1175 201 00:14:00,320 --> 00:14:04,480 and that must be the time when all this was built, rather quickly. 202 00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:09,960 Every building of importance was to be included, with Pevsner 203 00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:14,840 the nation's self-appointed new arbiter of architectural quality. 204 00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:20,960 And since Pevsner was as much at home with modernist architecture 205 00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:23,800 as medieval, the range of building types was 206 00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:26,280 greater even than for the government listing operation. 207 00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:34,040 The evening before each day, my mother would sit down with 208 00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:35,920 the map and plan the next day, 209 00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:38,160 which places would be ticked off. 210 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:41,600 And they would set out at about nine o'clock in the morning, 211 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:45,600 and they would get to the first village or church 212 00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:51,600 or house, and my father would jump out with a clipboard and paper, 213 00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:56,160 and they would do the outside, then do the inside. 214 00:14:56,160 --> 00:15:01,840 They would stop briefly for a picnic lunch, which my mother had prepared 215 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:05,840 the previous evening. And they would go on till about six o'clock, 216 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:08,520 and at about six o'clock they would reach where they were 217 00:15:08,520 --> 00:15:11,600 going to spend the night, and they would have supper. 218 00:15:11,600 --> 00:15:18,320 And then my father would sit down and he would write, from his notes, 219 00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:22,440 of all the things that had been seen that day, until about midnight. 220 00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:25,280 That was seven days a week for a month. 221 00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:31,880 The programme was to do a county in a month, 222 00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:34,600 each of those journeys was one month. 223 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:42,080 And while Pevsner travelled by car, Betjeman went by train. 224 00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:46,440 At Oxford, his tutor declared Betjeman an "idle prig." 225 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:50,600 And indeed he fell effortlessly into the country house weekend 226 00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:54,360 arty set in pursuit of upper-class girls. 227 00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:58,240 But Betjeman needed to work, describing himself 228 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:00,600 as "a poet and a hack." 229 00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:05,000 The combination would make him a natural on television. 230 00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:13,040 Snow falls in the buffet of Aldersgate station 231 00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:16,880 Soot hangs in the tunnel in clouds of steam 232 00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:21,040 City of London! Before the next desecration 233 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:24,720 Let your steepled forest of churches be my theme 234 00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:30,440 Sunday silence! With every street a dead street 235 00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:32,440 Alley and courtyard empty 236 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:34,400 And cobbled mews 237 00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:38,600 Till tingle tang the bells of St Mildred's Bread Street 238 00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:43,160 Summoned the sermon taster to high box pews 239 00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:47,960 Snow falls in the buffet of Aldersgate station 240 00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:52,640 Toiling and doomed from Moorgate Street puffs the train 241 00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:55,600 For us of the steam and the gaslight 242 00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:57,400 The lost generation 243 00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:01,480 The new white cliffs of the city are built in vain. 244 00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:15,520 What inspired him, what he cared deeply about was the indeterminate 245 00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:16,800 beauty of England, 246 00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:20,720 the beauty that can't be labelled, the ordinary streets, 247 00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:25,240 the brick terraces, places that give character, 248 00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:27,800 that aren't famously beautiful, 249 00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:32,240 but are ordinary and characterful England. 250 00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:37,200 He saw buildings very much belonging in landscapes. 251 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:41,720 They were never divorced objects. That's why telly was so good 252 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:45,800 at showing that, that you could do a pull shot away 253 00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:49,240 and see the surroundings and how important it was. 254 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:54,280 He was a natural show-off. 255 00:17:56,280 --> 00:17:58,880 And he was a real pro, 256 00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:01,000 because a lot of people in those days 257 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:03,840 were quite stiff and embarrassed. 258 00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:07,480 So that was a very good platform for him to campaign on. 259 00:18:09,880 --> 00:18:15,360 I can remember when where we are now was the Manchester Hotel 260 00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:21,360 and where this bracken and rosebay grows, once, down in the passages 261 00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:24,360 which are tiled, you can still see the tiles, 262 00:18:24,360 --> 00:18:28,640 once people hurried along with trays of tea. 263 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:33,640 And now all that remains is this. 264 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:38,840 And the bombed ruins there of Aldersgate Street station. 265 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:43,200 From the earliest days of antiquarianism, 266 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:47,800 and the study of ancient monuments, there had been a tension between 267 00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:53,160 different approaches to history - the romantic versus the academic. 268 00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:57,520 Now the antipathy seemed to surface once again. 269 00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:02,280 This time, in the modern figures of Pevsner and Betjeman. 270 00:19:03,360 --> 00:19:08,800 They were not friends, but I never heard my father say 271 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:12,840 to anybody or in any circumstances 272 00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:19,200 anything other than that he and John Betjeman 273 00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:20,880 did different things. 274 00:19:20,880 --> 00:19:27,720 Pevsner versus my dad war, which was fanned by various academics 275 00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:31,560 into a ridiculous bonfire of trouble, 276 00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:34,920 um... wasn't there at all really. 277 00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:39,240 I mean, they didn't loathe each other, they got on fine. 278 00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:47,000 He was critical of the fact that there was not the rigorous 279 00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:49,160 discipline of history of art 280 00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:54,560 and history of art education in this country that he had grown up with 281 00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:59,640 in Germany, that history of art was a... 282 00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:04,560 ..much more amateur in England. 283 00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:10,480 My father was romantic about buildings, and I think that's 284 00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:16,000 because he had emotional reactions rather than academic reactions. 285 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:19,440 I mean, he never, ever said a date to me 286 00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:23,440 in my whole life, I don't think, it was just, "Isn't this beautiful?" 287 00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:28,120 He thought what John Betjeman did, I suppose, 288 00:20:28,120 --> 00:20:33,000 - not meant derogatorily - but he added cosiness 289 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:35,320 to the idea of conservation, 290 00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:39,000 especially of Victorian conservation. 291 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:43,480 And my father's approach to that was different. 292 00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:51,040 They both, in their own way, brought the value of the fabric 293 00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:55,120 of England to the public, so what does it matter 294 00:20:55,120 --> 00:21:00,280 if they did it in different ways - my dad through his gut 295 00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:05,120 and Pevsner through his knowledge, his academic knowledge? 296 00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:07,320 It doesn't matter. 297 00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:10,320 Because they've both done a bloody good job. 298 00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:18,480 Betjeman and Pevsner - together with the Victorian Society - 299 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:22,600 would lead to the most important heritage campaign of the era. 300 00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:27,520 The fight to save The Euston Arch from demolition. 301 00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:31,960 The biggest Doric arch ever built in Britain, 302 00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:36,640 completed in 1837 in the Greek Revival style as the entrance 303 00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:39,240 to London's first big railway station. 304 00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:44,400 It is more correctly called a "propylaeum" - the classical term 305 00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:48,600 for a free-standing arch leading to somewhere of great importance. 306 00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:53,920 No-one, alas, seemed too sorry to say goodbye to the old station. 307 00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:58,640 But the arch, with its heroic scale and romantic scale, 308 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:00,720 rallied the public to its defence. 309 00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:07,040 It seemed to have qualities lacking in the post-war world. 310 00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:10,760 The Victorians built to last. 311 00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:13,320 They built this gateway to Birmingham in granite, 312 00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:16,120 now, 125 years later, it's to come down. 313 00:22:16,120 --> 00:22:18,840 But who is this pushing his way to the foot of the gallows 314 00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:20,400 with a last message of hope? 315 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:23,560 Who but Mr John Betjeman of the Victorian Society? 316 00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:25,960 Why should we bother with this arch? 317 00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:31,960 It was the first arch, the first bit of railway architecture, 318 00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:34,240 in the world of any size. 319 00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:39,560 It's very grand scale. Fine stone, granite. 320 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:42,240 And if it were moved forward, 321 00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,480 in front of the new Euston Station, 322 00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:49,480 it would be the most magnificent public monument in London. 323 00:22:51,120 --> 00:22:55,240 Moving the arch forward would have been a simple operation. 324 00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,800 But in a Britain craving modernity and functionality, 325 00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:03,840 a symbol to a bygone age had no meaning. 326 00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,000 Even the ageing Prime Minister 327 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,600 seemed to have forgotten his history. 328 00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:12,680 Conservationists like John Betjeman took the issue right up 329 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:15,400 to top levels - the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. 330 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,320 Harold Macmillan, who just dismissed it, 331 00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:20,240 was a classical scholar. 332 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,440 When he had been wounded as a young officer in the First World War, 333 00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:26,040 he lay in a shell hole on the Western Front waiting 334 00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,600 to be rescued by the stretcher bearers and he sat, 335 00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:32,040 you know what he did there? He sat reading Aeschylus in Greek. 336 00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,720 And then he happily dismissed the Euston Arch, 337 00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,040 one of the greatest pieces of Greek Revival architecture in England. 338 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:43,240 The great villain, of course, is Harold Macmillan. 339 00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:47,320 Dreadful man who couldn't care a damn, cynical old Whig that he was. 340 00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:52,160 But the arch could have been dismantled or moved, 341 00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:55,800 as people showed at the time. It wouldn't have cost that much. 342 00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:59,360 One editorial in the Victorian Society annual, 343 00:23:59,360 --> 00:24:04,880 I think, said that the cost of moving the arch was less 344 00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,960 than that of buying two rather indifferent Renoirs, 345 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:13,800 which had just been acquired by the nation, which nobody was threatening to destroy. 346 00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:20,320 Demolition work began in December 1961. 347 00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:24,360 It was brutal, but at least the arch was spared explosives 348 00:24:24,360 --> 00:24:27,320 because of the danger to adjacent buildings. 349 00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,160 The Victorian Society mournfully reported, 350 00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:34,320 "With regret, we must accept the reduction of the Euston Portico 351 00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:39,080 "to rubble as a total defeat, but not without the satisfaction 352 00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:41,160 "of having fought inch by inch 353 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,520 to the last ditch for its preservation." 354 00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:47,160 The lorries bore away the bones of the arch - 355 00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:50,920 according to rumour to become hardcore for an airport runway. 356 00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:57,320 It was our first battle, it was a great defeat 357 00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,440 but at the same time, it was a noisy defeat. 358 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,000 DRILLING 359 00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:08,040 This campaign brought many, many people together 360 00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:12,080 to preserve the arch. And the important thing about the campaign 361 00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:13,800 is that it lost. 362 00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:19,960 And so there was a kind of feeling of, "Never again." 363 00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:29,720 So, the heritage movement made new alliances, gained new friends 364 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,520 and adapted to fight in the modern world. 365 00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:37,240 Plans by British Rail to demolish the Victorian masterpiece 366 00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,680 of St Pancras station were successfully resisted. 367 00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:45,360 But there were more defeats, too. 368 00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:48,720 London's great Coal Exchange was demolished. 369 00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,320 The Beeching Report took an axe to the rail network, 370 00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,640 closing Victorian rural stations up and down the country. 371 00:25:55,640 --> 00:26:00,520 And in 1964, the demolition gang came for Jardine Hall 372 00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:04,840 in Dumfriesshire, the family home of Captain Ronnie Cunningham-Jardine. 373 00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:08,360 Yes, it was a very happy place. 374 00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:12,640 One was spoilt most damnably, looking back on it. 375 00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:16,960 Everything was big, had to be big. 376 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:21,360 The staircase, you could have marched an army up and down it, 377 00:26:21,360 --> 00:26:22,840 you know, all abreast. 378 00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:29,280 And me being a little fella used to swank to my friends that our house 379 00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:31,840 was really big, compared with theirs 380 00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,480 which was probably just as big! 381 00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:40,200 Built in 1818 by Scottish architect Gillespie Graham, who had worked 382 00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,280 on the Classical glories of Edinburgh New Town, 383 00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:49,080 the house was handed over to Captain Ronnie by his mother in 1962. 384 00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:53,120 It was handed to me, and then I suddenly realised, "Help. 385 00:26:53,120 --> 00:26:55,120 "What am I going to do with it?" 386 00:26:55,120 --> 00:26:58,640 I didn't think it was old enough to be a visitor attraction. 387 00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:03,640 It was a just...a mausoleum 388 00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:07,760 So I eventually said to my mother, 389 00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:10,000 "I really think I want to get rid of this place." 390 00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,240 She said, "Well, I can understand, Ronnie, but are you sure 391 00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,720 "you're doing the right thing?" 392 00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,760 And I'm afraid I said, "Yes, I think I am." 393 00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:21,280 And very upset she was. 394 00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:28,400 And so then I got on to a firm of demolishers in Glasgow. 395 00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:32,640 And they said, "We'll just have four sticks of gelignite in each corner 396 00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:34,960 "of the house, and away she'll go." 397 00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,640 Come on, boys. Come on, boys. 398 00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,400 Come. Come on. Come on. 399 00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:46,280 Now, Captain Ronnie lives in the estate Dower House. 400 00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,120 But the big house still casts a shadow. 401 00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,760 1964 I blew it up. 402 00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:58,040 1964. I can't remember the month. 403 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:03,040 But this is about the place where my mother and I stood 404 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,800 to watch the blowing up. Of course, in those days there wasn't 405 00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:14,080 this line of trees here, so you saw the whole house standing 406 00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,000 completely bare, and a very good view. 407 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:19,920 And hopefully no rocks 408 00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:23,840 and things were going to come this far from the house. 409 00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:28,640 So here we stood, and we waited. 410 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:34,840 And I remember holding my mother's hand, and this is where she went up, 411 00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:40,560 but it did take us, I told you, four times before she actually went up. 412 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:43,640 A big boom. Like, solid boom. 413 00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,920 My mother, she was upset, she was indeed. 414 00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,720 But she'd had a good life here the whole time 415 00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,120 and this was her home, destroyed. 416 00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:01,760 There we go. Very moving. 417 00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:08,000 And then we went away and had a cup of tea, I think. 418 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,640 That's what I think it was. 419 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:17,440 Anyhow, it was a bad moment, but it had to be done, in my opinion. 420 00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,760 The demise of Jardine Hall was echoed all over Britain. 421 00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:30,440 By the mid-'60s, hundreds of great country houses were in trouble. 422 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,240 The trickle of owners bringing their sorry stories to 423 00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,360 the National Trust had turned into a torrent. 424 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:37,120 But it was clear no single organisation, 425 00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:39,120 But it was clear no single organisation, 426 00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:43,680 no single tax arrangement, could hope to deal with the problem. 427 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,680 It would usher in a new age of entrepreneurial experiment. 428 00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,400 ROARING 429 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:58,200 For good or ill, the lions of Longleat re-invented the country house. 430 00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,840 And if a marquess was there to take your money at the gate, 431 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,320 so much the better! 432 00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:06,840 If you don't see any lions, I'll pay you your money back. 433 00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,120 That's a guarantee. Let me know, I'm the boss here. 434 00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:12,520 People will drive through with their windows open, 435 00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:14,120 and they put their elbows out. 436 00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,920 They must not do that. If they do it, it's their own fault. 437 00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:21,400 It's a wonderful feeling that it's alive once again, 438 00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:25,040 maybe it's not the same type of people for which it was built, 439 00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:29,040 it doesn't matter to me. After all, these big houses 440 00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:33,960 originally were built by ancestors to entertain their guests. 441 00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:38,280 Now, these people aren't my guests, but they are in a sense guests, 442 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,080 except they have to pay 3 and 6 to be my guest! 443 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:55,120 Other houses such as Woburn, Beaulieu and Chatsworth proved money 444 00:30:55,120 --> 00:31:00,800 could be made, but heritage needed a new look to attract big numbers. 445 00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:06,560 At Woburn in 1967, The Festival Of Flower Children was the ultimate new look. 446 00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:13,400 The National Trust was being left behind. 447 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:16,680 There was an enormous row in the National Trust, 448 00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:20,760 a conflict between what you might loosely call the progressives, 449 00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,040 who had an image of the trust becoming a very popular 450 00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:27,760 organisation with mass support, and the more reactionary element 451 00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,240 which said we're not in the business of bringing in millions of people 452 00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:35,160 and having a mass membership. And that led to a great deal 453 00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:39,880 of acrimony and difficulty and an Annual General Meeting when feelings 454 00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:44,880 ran very high. And after that, a committee of taste was set up. 455 00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,040 And the result of that was that they considered lots of things 456 00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:49,720 which the National Trust might sell. 457 00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,480 And the committee came to the conclusion 458 00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:56,160 that every one of them was not worthy of the organisation. 459 00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,880 And... that might have been the end of the story. 460 00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:02,680 But actually, the chairman 461 00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,920 and others were determined that progress should be made. 462 00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,880 The Trust's timing was spot on. 463 00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:18,000 In 1968, 20 million people a week for 26 episodes 464 00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,920 tuned in to see the grumpy, money-grubbing, feuding Victorians 465 00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,240 in the BBC's adaptation of The Forsyte Saga. 466 00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:29,440 Heightened emotions set against period architecture 467 00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:30,880 made gripping TV. 468 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:36,400 And suddenly every National Trust property seemed to have more of a story to tell. 469 00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,040 Hello, Forsyte. Well, I've found the very place for your house. 470 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:42,440 Look here. 471 00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:45,080 You may be clever, but this site will cost me half as much again. 472 00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,400 Hang the cost, man. Look at the view! 473 00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:52,440 The climate was in favour of a change at the Trust. 474 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:57,160 Perhaps, after all, you could have a tasteful bestseller. 475 00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,840 It was the birth of tea towel heritage. 476 00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:05,400 "Dear Miss Albeck, I venture to write to you as your name has been 477 00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,720 "given to me by Mary Trevelyan. 478 00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:10,840 "The Trust wants to commission one or two designs for tea towels 479 00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:15,600 "incorporating subjects associated with the Trust - 480 00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:17,800 "buildings, birds, flowers etc. 481 00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:22,080 "I understand you have designed some attractive things of this sort." 482 00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,800 This is the very first National Trust tea towel that I did, 483 00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:30,800 which was for a house in Devon called Saltram. 484 00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,000 And it's a design using copper pans, 485 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,880 a sort of pattern of the things that you'd find in the kitchen. 486 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:41,720 But these are specifically from that kitchen. 487 00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,440 Copper is a nice thing to draw. 488 00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:48,880 Particularly I like the shape of jelly moulds. 489 00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,200 The other one is based on the Adam carpet 490 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,200 which I really did not want to do, because 491 00:33:56,200 --> 00:34:03,560 I thought it was really sacrilege to dry up on a great designer's carpet. 492 00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,240 But I did what I was told cos I had to, really. 493 00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,960 From the Trust's founding symbol of the oak leaf 494 00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,240 to the comfy aristo-cats of country house living, 495 00:34:17,240 --> 00:34:20,440 even a well-stocked stately home larder, 496 00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,560 it was the perfect middle-class souvenir. 497 00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:34,200 By the late 1960s, the arrogant front of British Modernism 498 00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:39,480 was beginning to look flimsy, increasingly low-grade, even cynical. 499 00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:44,880 The ambition of the movement, always unrealistic, had been undermined 500 00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:49,000 by a bankrupt post-war economy and local government corruption. 501 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,080 Indeed, from the start, corners had been cut. 502 00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,280 The modern world had been built physically around 503 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:02,800 the National Health Service, education and beyond, 504 00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:08,120 was largely in new forms of architecture that were at the time 505 00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:11,280 fairly cheap, cold, dull, pretty uninteresting, 506 00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,360 that many people have come to despise in England. 507 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,280 It wasn't our finest moment in architecture. 508 00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,440 The modern movement in Britain, Modernism in Britain, 509 00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,920 was adopted awkwardly, late and rather badly, 510 00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:24,600 and cheaply, for the most part. 511 00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,280 The end of Modernism - or at least, the beginning of the end - 512 00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:36,520 had come in a spectacularly tragic fashion. 513 00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:41,440 The collapse, after a gas explosion, of a substandard skyscraper 514 00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:47,680 called Ronan Point in East London killed four people and injured 17. 515 00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,280 But in spite of the demise of Modernism, 516 00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,640 the attack on old buildings continued for several years. 517 00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,520 By the early '70s it had reached unbelievable intensity. 518 00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:08,560 There were plans to demolish Piccadilly Circus, 519 00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:11,440 Carlton House terrace, the Foreign Office, 520 00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,040 the whole area around Parliament Square... 521 00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:16,760 I mean, the most appalling things were going to be done. 522 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,920 Covent Garden was going to be like Paternoster Square in the City, 523 00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:22,920 it was going to be flattened. The Strand would become London Wall, 524 00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,120 I mean, it was horrific. 525 00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:31,720 And I think a general feeling that "Come on everybody, stop! What are we doing?" took over. 526 00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,120 We have got to show physically, by demonstration, 527 00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:41,080 even with marches, and standing outside of town halls, 528 00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:45,120 this is what we have got to do, we've got to let them know we're here. 529 00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:47,480 By 1975, according to the new pressure group 530 00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:53,040 "Save Britain's Heritage," the country was losing a listed building every day to demolition. 531 00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,960 Never a guarantee of protection, 532 00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:04,000 the listing system was now being undermined by the get-rich-quick rewards of development and councils 533 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,440 after cheap and easy solutions. 534 00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,400 The fight back united people all over the country. 535 00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:13,280 Civilisation was at risk. 536 00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,720 We can stop them. It isn't too late. 537 00:37:18,720 --> 00:37:21,920 Campaign alliances crossed traditional class divides 538 00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,920 and party politics to create a new force to be reckoned with. 539 00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:31,600 It'll take all history away, they'll do away with it completely. 540 00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:36,640 This is renowned and this should not change, certainly. 541 00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,240 Oh, no leave that. You'll ruin us. 542 00:37:39,240 --> 00:37:41,760 You'll ruin it, man. It's beautiful as it is. 543 00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:51,480 Heritage undoubtedly enters the sort of mainstream of people's 544 00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,040 consciousness, of people's concerns, in the 1970s 545 00:37:55,040 --> 00:38:01,040 and it's a direct response to the destruction of historic places, 546 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:02,960 historic places that were beautiful 547 00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,480 and more importantly historic places that people felt they owned. 548 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,040 The places where they lived, 549 00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:12,760 the places where they worked were being crunched up and taken away and replaced with concrete, 550 00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,040 and that was not something that people liked. 551 00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:28,960 Nostalgia grew like Topsy, it was a fascinating moment if you look, 552 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:34,280 whether it was in fashion, in music, in design, in architecture, 553 00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:39,520 you get this retro look, this heritage look starts to... 554 00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:43,200 Starts to become dominant, whether it's Laura Ashley dresses 555 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,840 or neo-classical architects starting to get work again, 556 00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,280 and now "let's hang on to what we know." 557 00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,880 And what we know and what we've always been good at in this country 558 00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,400 is craft and countryside and Cotswold cottages. Back they came. 559 00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:07,960 They could have shouted in the streets "Modernism is dead, long live Heritage!" 560 00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,880 And if the moment needed a headline, they got one 561 00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:16,400 when 1975 was declared European Architectural Heritage Year. 562 00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,280 Materially, it changed nothing. 563 00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,360 Emotionally, it changed rather a lot! 564 00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:27,880 It was a very imprecise term and still is a very imprecise term, 565 00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:32,240 and can cover everything from our natural heritage to our built heritage, 566 00:39:32,240 --> 00:39:35,520 to music, painting, all sort of things. 567 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,440 Heritage is a horrible word. I think we all hate it. 568 00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:40,520 I much prefer history, 569 00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,080 but that implies a sort of written, bookish history. 570 00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:47,480 I always try not to use the word heritage, 571 00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:51,120 and yet heritage is the word that means so much, that it's useful. 572 00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,800 I think in the end heritage is whatever we really care about. 573 00:39:54,800 --> 00:40:00,840 Heritage is so much more... 574 00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:03,440 ideologically unstable an idea 575 00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:08,240 than the idea of conservation or even restoration. 576 00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:12,960 It's something which is more emotional and, in my view, 577 00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:18,920 more ideological, because the question is, whose heritage is it? 578 00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:26,240 But the word "heritage" seemed to open things up. 579 00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:33,120 The upper class version of history, a mainstay of tourism and visitor attractions since the war, 580 00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:38,360 would be challenged. The Heritage industry was expanding. 581 00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,240 Although, as working class heritage stood to gain a voice, 582 00:40:42,240 --> 00:40:46,880 so British working class industrial life - for real - died. 583 00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:49,480 And it wasn't the only irony. 584 00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,080 It is the supreme paradox 585 00:40:55,080 --> 00:41:00,240 that most of the mainstream conservation bodies in Britain 586 00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:04,760 came into being as a reaction against the horrors of 587 00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:09,240 industrialisation and the effect of industrialisation on the landscape. 588 00:41:09,240 --> 00:41:14,520 All of that makes one realise how radical an idea it was to propose 589 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:20,400 the preservation of industrial sites because there was no sentiment 590 00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:26,440 amongst official conservation bodies that was sympathetic to that idea. 591 00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:31,080 There's a lot more to architecture and the nation's history and our architectural heritage 592 00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:35,160 than country houses, and always there has been a slight regrettable snobbery 593 00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:38,760 about people who are particularly obsessed with country houses, 594 00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:42,960 but there are many of us who are concerned about architecture, and we live in cities and 595 00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,440 we care about urban building where perhaps different values operate. 596 00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,440 The working classes of Britain, their history, 597 00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:54,560 was best told through a study of industrial sites. 598 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,600 Industrial revolution had begun in this country, 599 00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:01,800 enormous historic interest in the processes, in the products, 600 00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:05,720 in the way of life of most of the people in this country. 601 00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:11,960 And yet heritage had, it was felt, been fixated on ancient castles, earthworks, 602 00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:15,960 smart, aristocratic houses. What about everyman's history? 603 00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:21,200 The interesting aspect of it is that the official heritage bodies, 604 00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:24,080 the Department Of The Environment, as it was to become, 605 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,720 and the National Trust didn't know how to cope at all. 606 00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:30,720 It was entirely off their radar in terms of their ability to 607 00:42:30,720 --> 00:42:33,720 appreciate its importance, 608 00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:38,640 and certainly their capacity to handle it in a physical sense. 609 00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,600 Industrial sites were a nightmare. 610 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,720 They were huge, they were very expensive, they were often 611 00:42:45,720 --> 00:42:49,200 built out of materials that were designed to last 612 00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:53,720 as long as that industrial process was being done and no longer, 613 00:42:53,720 --> 00:42:56,360 so they were rapidly decaying. 614 00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:01,240 And the scale of the problem that was faced in terms of industry 615 00:43:01,240 --> 00:43:04,720 was so much greater, exponentially larger, 616 00:43:04,720 --> 00:43:08,280 than country houses, than castles, than anything that had to be faced before. 617 00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:12,920 A single coal mine, the amount of money that was needed to save it 618 00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,920 was so much greater than any amount of money that had been 619 00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:20,120 put forward in terms of saving heritage up until that point. 620 00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:31,440 The Office Of Works, or as it had now become, the Department Of The Environment 621 00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:35,080 bought its first industrial site in 1974. 622 00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:39,640 It was a bobbin mill in Cumbria. Stott Park had been 623 00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:44,480 producing bobbins for the cotton industry for 150 years 624 00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,280 until its closure in 1971. 625 00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,440 This was a real rescue mission to save the last factory 626 00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:56,520 doing an activity which the industrial might of the nation was built on the back of, 627 00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:01,560 and to keep it operational, which also was very, very important because most monuments that 628 00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,720 had been taken on and opened to the public were, if you like dead. 629 00:44:05,720 --> 00:44:09,640 They were places where things HAD happened, and where you 630 00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,920 had to stand and say, "Well, this is where such and such used to happen." 631 00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:19,680 It's the automatic bobbin machine which you're going to do 632 00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,720 probably 9,000 a day on here. 633 00:44:22,720 --> 00:44:25,920 Just feed them on, then you bore the hole through, take 'em off 634 00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:27,200 and put another two on. 635 00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:32,280 Then take them off, then put another two on. 636 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,400 Now, next stage is we're going to finish these and go round 637 00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:37,120 and put on the finishing lathe. 638 00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:42,680 To go to a place where the activity was actually going on 639 00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:46,920 was a completely revolutionary experience both for the visitor, 640 00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:49,720 but also for the Department of the Environment 641 00:44:49,720 --> 00:44:52,440 when they actually took the place on. 642 00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:59,120 But as industrial visitor sights 643 00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:04,200 - railway stations, factories, disused mines - grew in popularity, 644 00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,920 the country house - so infinitely re-inventable - fought back. 645 00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:13,200 Suddenly, life "below-stairs" was more interesting 646 00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:17,200 than all the fine fripperies of the drawing room. 647 00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:18,400 BELL RINGS 648 00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:22,840 One National Trust property in particular led the way. 649 00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:26,400 Erddig in North Wales broke the mould. 650 00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:31,600 Actually, the Trust, in a quite pioneering way, this was in the '70s, decided to present Erddig 651 00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:34,120 as entirely from the servants' perspective. 652 00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:38,920 And that was really exciting and visionary and new 653 00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:43,360 and actually what we discovered was really, really obvious - people love hearing about the servants, 654 00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,240 because they don't necessarily connect with the great families. 655 00:45:46,240 --> 00:45:50,680 People connect when they think their great-great-grandmother might well have been a kitchen maid. 656 00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,440 They don't think she would have been the Dowager Duchess. 657 00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:02,880 In 1979, Margaret Thatcher arrived in Downing Street 658 00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:05,640 with the biggest new broom since Clement Atlee. 659 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:10,040 Privatisation and increased profit was the order of the day 660 00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:12,840 and heritage was not excused. 661 00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:20,760 In spite of her embrace of Victorian values, 662 00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:24,040 she would seek to reverse the work of John Lubbock 663 00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:26,120 whose Ancient Monuments Act of 1882 664 00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:30,000 had first committed the state to acquiring the nation's heritage. 665 00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:37,320 Her first Secretary Of State For The Environment, Michael Heseltine, 666 00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:39,440 had clear instructions. 667 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,720 Privatise the ruined abbeys and castles of Britain! 668 00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,840 The National Trust was a very important part of the thinking 669 00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,960 because here was a private sector organisation 670 00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,520 running very important parts of Britain's heritage, 671 00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:01,120 very successfully, and 672 00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:05,400 depending on public subscription or access fees or whatever. 673 00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:12,400 And my first option was to go to, I think it was Lord Gibson at the time who was chairman, 674 00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:16,040 and say, "Look, why don't you take over the state-owned sector? 675 00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,120 "Make it into one major operation?" 676 00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,960 And I'll never forget his reply. 677 00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,320 He said, "Not with your trade unions," 678 00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,800 because he would have inherited what, quite frankly, 679 00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:33,760 was the quite unacceptable union approach to what we were trying to achieve. 680 00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:37,160 So he turned it down as an idea, flat. 681 00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:41,960 In the end, the Thatcher government opted for a series of quangos. 682 00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:47,680 English Heritage was created in 1983, Cadw in Wales in '84 683 00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:51,320 and Historic Scotland followed on. 684 00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:55,320 Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who had commercialised his own home 685 00:47:55,320 --> 00:48:00,160 so successfully in the 1960s, was the first chairman of English Heritage. 686 00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,800 The mere appointment of someone like Lord Montagu, 687 00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:08,520 as opposed to bureaucrats of whom people would not have heard, 688 00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,040 was an indication of the new priorities 689 00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,240 we wanted to establish, the new image we wanted to create. 690 00:48:14,240 --> 00:48:17,160 It was about finding ways of commercialising 691 00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:22,400 and running more cheaply, the vast number of historic buildings 692 00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:27,960 that the government had collected since the 1880s, 693 00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:30,720 and so a major brief that was given to Lord Montagu 694 00:48:30,720 --> 00:48:32,320 was, "Make 'em exciting!" 695 00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:36,000 Make those castles live and dance and sing for their money! 696 00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,520 And that's what he set out to do, essentially. 697 00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:45,720 And ever since the 1980s, the cut and thrust of the heritage market 698 00:48:45,720 --> 00:48:48,680 has meant fancy dress is on the up. 699 00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:53,000 And what's harmless fun for some is the unforgivable 700 00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,600 compromise of authenticity and atmosphere for others. 701 00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:01,720 There is of course great tension in the heritage world, 702 00:49:01,720 --> 00:49:07,400 in how you, not only preserve, but present buildings. And I suppose 703 00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,440 it's sometimes a form of snobbery that one rather objects to the 704 00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,960 vulgarisation of houses with people dressing up. I mean, I don't care for it myself, 705 00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:16,600 it's partly a matter of taste, 706 00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,440 but it does mean sometimes you can't actually enjoy the building there 707 00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:21,800 that you've gone to see. 708 00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:26,880 And so the whole world of people dressing up I personally, erm, 709 00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:30,880 don't care for. Obviously some people do like it. 710 00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,080 Darling, good evening! 711 00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:36,160 We have got to maintain our income. 712 00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,600 We now have to do that in a very competitive climate. 713 00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:42,080 Now, some people say, "You shouldn't go down that route, 714 00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,080 "you're selling out, you're Disney-fying." 715 00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:45,360 I just don't think we are. 716 00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:49,800 We've plenty of things to learn from Disney, I've got great respect for the Disney organisation. 717 00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,560 The competition for visitor attraction at weekends is intense. 718 00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,320 We've got to keep up with the game. 719 00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:06,320 In fact, today's approach to heritage is more mixed 720 00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:09,160 than many reports would have you believe. 721 00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:13,360 The tranquil, the studious authentic - even the untouched look - 722 00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:17,080 still has a place and may even be making a comeback. 723 00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,200 At Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, 724 00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:22,200 not only is there no singing-and-dancing, 725 00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:26,800 but the house is frozen at the critical point of its demise - 726 00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:32,280 a through-the-keyhole glimpse of the life-or-death moment of a stately home. 727 00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:36,000 Here, long-suffering cleaners must know the difference between 728 00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:37,960 "heritage dirt" to be saved, 729 00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:41,800 and "modern dust" to be vacuum cleaned away. 730 00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:43,920 Commercial it isn't! 731 00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:46,840 Calke came to us in 1985, 732 00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:51,440 so anything that fell before 1985 is historic and it can stay. 733 00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,560 Anything after that, which is probably created by our visitors 734 00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,520 and our building works, has to go. 735 00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:03,000 So we have got a nice sort of line about what becomes historic dirt 736 00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:05,000 and what becomes dust. 737 00:51:09,720 --> 00:51:12,800 I think our dirt and dust is Calke and it is our heritage 738 00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:14,920 and it's something that we try and keep 739 00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,000 and pass on for future generations. 740 00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:26,320 At Stonehenge, as well, tranquillity is set for a comeback. 741 00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:30,160 The prehistoric site, which has been a barometer of the heritage industry 742 00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:34,520 since the days of Britain's first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, 743 00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,840 is set to recapture some of its romance and mystery. 744 00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:44,280 English Heritage plans will see the nearby section of the busy A344 745 00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:46,920 wiped off the map later this year. 746 00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:50,960 It's certainly been in recent times described as a national disgrace. 747 00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:56,840 I'm feeling how much better it's going to be when we can get rid of 748 00:51:56,840 --> 00:52:02,760 those fences - and the road is gone and it's all back to grass land. 749 00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,200 And to really get a sense of what it would have 750 00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:11,440 been like in ancient times to arrive at this fantastic monument. 751 00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:17,840 So how does the future for heritage look in Britain today? 752 00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:20,760 Inevitably, there are challenges ahead. 753 00:52:22,720 --> 00:52:27,360 I think the National Trust has always been almost a paradox 754 00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:30,720 but it's certainly, we're about many different things. 755 00:52:30,720 --> 00:52:33,480 We're about muddy boots in the countryside, 756 00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,080 we're about saving the uplands and the coast, 757 00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:41,400 we're about nature conservation - moths, birds, bees and so on - and 758 00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:48,200 we're about Chippendale furniture, Adam interiors and fine paintings. 759 00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,840 It's not always easy to keep these things in tandem. 760 00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,840 But they are in tandem. They all depend on one thing - 761 00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,400 us having the money to do it. 762 00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:02,760 For English Heritage, the biggest challenge is 763 00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:05,200 the listing of modern buildings. 764 00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,560 But now the process has caught up 765 00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:12,200 with contemporary architecture, the bad old days of unappreciated 766 00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:17,360 styles falling through the net, supposedly, are over - even though 767 00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:21,960 the process can be hugely under pressure in times of recession. 768 00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:28,000 Ever since the shock demolition of the Art Deco Firestone Factory 769 00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:33,120 on the outskirts of London by a devious developer in 1980... 770 00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:36,120 English Heritage has been empowered to list architecture 771 00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:38,760 from between the wars. 772 00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,760 Now, post-war architecture is covered as well, and even 773 00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:47,600 a 10-year-old building at risk can be listed. 774 00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:52,000 The youngest listed building is currently Lloyds in the City 775 00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:55,000 of London, designed by Richard Rogers and completed 776 00:53:55,000 --> 00:54:01,000 in 1986. And it can only be a matter of time before the Gherkin follows. 777 00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,200 Other choices are more controversial. 778 00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:07,360 Listing recent buildings is the single most difficult thing 779 00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:11,120 that English Heritage has to do, because in the listing process 780 00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,240 you're both following taste and you're leading it. 781 00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:17,240 There are some people who already appreciate buildings that 782 00:54:17,240 --> 00:54:20,560 were put up in the '70s and '80s. There are equally quite 783 00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:23,320 a lot of people around who lived through the period when they were 784 00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:26,760 put up and think they're diabolical, ugly blots on the landscape. 785 00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:32,560 And so the job of the listing inspector is to steer 786 00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,760 the way between those two lots of opinion to work out what is 787 00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:39,520 really important for future generations. And those 788 00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:43,800 judgments are extremely difficult and can be extremely controversial. 789 00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:51,960 Imaginative re-use will be the mantra of the heritage movement in the future. 790 00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:55,200 Two great examples show the way - 791 00:54:55,200 --> 00:55:01,480 the resurrection of St Pancras Station in London as the nation's rail-link with the Continent 792 00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:09,200 and the re-invention of Bankside Power station as Tate Modern, London's home of contemporary art. 793 00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:15,760 And maybe, just maybe, a third is about to surface. 794 00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:21,400 The Euston Arch, whose demolition triggered the modern heritage movement 50 years ago, 795 00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:24,520 is set to rise again. 796 00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:28,840 Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank located the remains of 797 00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:34,080 the arch at the bottom of the River Ley in East London back in 1993. 798 00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:39,320 The stones had been acquired by British Waterways from the 799 00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:42,720 demolition contractor to plug a hole in the bed of the river. 800 00:55:44,240 --> 00:55:47,880 Now many more stones have been raised from the river bed, and with 801 00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:51,560 plans to redevelop Euston Station after the government's recent 802 00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:56,400 go ahead of the new high-speed rail link between London and the north, 803 00:55:56,400 --> 00:56:00,600 the chances of a resurrected arch have never looked better. 804 00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:04,880 Dan is meeting with structural engineer, Alan Baxter. 805 00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:09,040 This is one of the capitals of one of the Doric piers, 806 00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:11,880 framing the columns on one of the corners. 807 00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:14,240 We can see exactly where this stone was 808 00:56:14,240 --> 00:56:17,440 on the measured drawings of the building we've got 809 00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:20,240 - executed at the time in the 1950s by British Railways - 810 00:56:20,240 --> 00:56:22,160 because they wanted to demolish it. 811 00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:25,400 So it's a beautiful piece and it gives us a sense of the scale, the 812 00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:27,880 precision, the Grecian architecture. 813 00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:29,400 That's of course from demolition. 814 00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:33,600 We can fill that in. Look how accurate that still is! 815 00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:36,240 We worked out that of the stones of the arch, 816 00:56:36,240 --> 00:56:41,600 the arch had about 4,400 tons of Bramley Ford grit stone used 817 00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:46,520 to construct it in the late 1830s and there is certainly well over 818 00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:50,880 60% down there, well over, and it's in incredibly good condition. 819 00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:55,000 And this is fantastic, it's withstood 130 years of soot 820 00:56:55,000 --> 00:57:01,160 at Euston and has enjoyed 50 or so years of a nice bath. 821 00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:03,160 It's in incredibly good nick. 822 00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:06,320 They have been really, wantonly demolished. 823 00:57:06,320 --> 00:57:08,880 When it was destroyed, they could have been 824 00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:15,040 taken down stone by stone and other arches, like Marble Arch, was moved. 825 00:57:15,040 --> 00:57:18,240 It was really vandalism. 826 00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:20,800 And you can see the damage that has been done, 827 00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,760 but it's easy to repair it when we put the arch up again. 828 00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:29,440 For Dan, who believes the Euston propylaeum is one of the greatest 829 00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:33,600 structures ever made, there is one all important question. 830 00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:38,520 Coming on to money. Huge areas of speculation, 831 00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:40,680 not sure how many stones we can get back, 832 00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:43,240 not sure how much repair is necessary and so on and so forth. 833 00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:49,680 In current terms, in 2012, what do you reckon is the figure? 834 00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:51,720 I know it's slightly plucking it from the air. 835 00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:54,520 With your huge expertise and experience what do you reckon? 836 00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:58,640 Well, I think we costed it at �12 million 837 00:57:58,640 --> 00:58:02,160 and then the commercial value of the room at the top 838 00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:05,080 and the basement might be a couple of million. 839 00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:07,000 We just need �10 million, please, 840 00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,960 and there is a collecting pot for the Euston Arch Trust! 841 00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:14,800 This is a very hopeful moment for the arch, 842 00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:17,560 but for a lot of other things, too. It's not that I'm an excessive 843 00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:19,680 optimist but it's a much, 844 00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:23,520 much better climate now for the care of cities, for the care of what 845 00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:28,200 we have from the past - but also for creating really wonderful new things, too - 846 00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:33,560 so it's a time for a really interesting fusion of new and old. 847 00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:43,920 For more information about English Heritage's complementary exhibition to the series, 848 00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:50,240 visit bbc.co.uk/battleforbritainspast 849 00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:54,240 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd