“Heritage: Challenges, Opportunities and Solutions”

With a lifetime interest in heritage in India this day conference, generously supported by HES, Pilgrim Trust, William Grant Foundation, and others meant Graham and I heard short presentations by people of different ages, nationalities, and experience speaking about Scotland’s built heritage. This led to Q&A, but with frequent mentions of the utter iniquity of VAT levy on restoration, conservation and re-purposing as opposed to the zero rate on new build. One speaker emphasised that both France and Switzerland had found a satisfactory solution. It all seemed to mesh so well with the RSA’s new mission “Design for Life: To Regenerate People Place and Planet” to which Ann Packard referred in her Introduction.

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We both enjoyed the day enormously as it gave the opportunity to listen to people with a lifetime’s commitment to The Built Heritage and the preservation/restoration/repurposing of great and modest buildings and how they impact on the lives of the rest of us. Walking to the conference down the High Street of Edinburgh and entering the Close – Old Assembly Close to enter the Faculty of Advocates further enforced the historic and heritage aspect, whilst on the streets folk of all ages were milling around, drinking coffee, and enjoying the tourism experience.

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It has subsequently made me think back and reflect. In 1986 I joined a team of people tasked with providing the defence in a highly unusual case. The wonderful little church of St Stephen Walbrook, the masterpiece of the great Sir Christopher Wren had been newly restored after war damage thanks to Peter Palumbo who had deep pockets. It was his idea then to commission the great Henry Moore to design and create an entirely new altar. This was put in place – glaringly modern. The church authorities were not impressed and demanded it be removed but Peter Palumbo appealed that decision and thus it went to The Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved to be discussed. The last time that court sat was six hundred years before, so there were no precedents to which one could refer. The three Appeal Court Judges sat in the Privy Council offices in Downing Street and heard the For and Against for the Henry Moore Altar. The judgment was that it could remain but to appease the Chancellor of the Ecclesiastical Court it was required a satisfactory plinth was created. Whereas the altar is in Travertine Marble the plinth was to be in Chassagne marble. There it sits in its glory and the fusion between 17/18th century architecture and the modern design has been a success. The old and the new in the late decades of the 20th century. Sir Christopher Wren as we all know is the celebrated architect of the ‘new’ St Paul’s Cathedral that was built after the Great Fire of London.

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In India where I was born and grew up the various wonderful monuments and heritage sites needed maintenance and restoration. The Aga Khan Foundation took upon itself to achieve this in great part and the magnificent Humayun’s Tomb was one of their great successes to celebrate the half century of India’s Nationhood. The Foundation embarked on further restoration and reconfiguration in the area with the Nizamuddin Basti (village area) ?and then the Sundar Nursery which was finally completed in 2018. The principal was Dr Ratish Nanda. The old and the new but with huge respect to the old yet welcoming the young of today. Humayun’s Tomb, and the Sundar Nursery alongside attract crowds of Indians and foreigners and have brought beauty to Delhi along with other careful restoration.

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Similarly in Rajasthan the various royal and noble Rajput families have achieved wonderful restoration and conservation and repurposing with their Palaces, Forts, Havelis, Step Wells which has led to relevant initiatives with water conservation, encouraging local crafts, wildlife conservation and greening the desert state. I think particularly of the Mehrangarh Fort Trust in Jodhpur and the Mewar Trust that has achieved similarly in Udaipur. Both initiatives of the erstwhile maharajas of Marwar and Mewar. Again the ‘spin off’ has been other inspiring ideas such as the Rao Jodah Desert Garden in Jodhpur. The palaces are very often repurposed into luxury hotels, and the other noble families with their forts and castles are also similarly encouraging tourism. https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXj1EN2fYzr1NrEV6

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In Kerala, the Muziris Trust had embarked on the archaeological excavation of the area of what was Muziris which is now part of the city of Ernakulam/Kochi. In the BCE age Muziris was the focus of Mediterranean traders from Greece and Rome, the middle eastern kingdoms of the day and even China to trade in spices. Pepper and other spices were highly prized in those civilisations. The Muziris Trust under the wise leadership of Dr Benny Kuriakose has then led to the restoration of synagogues and local Keralan palace buildings and is hugely impressive. I was a guest of the State of Kerala – the ethos was that Kerala has been a mixing pot for millennia and they wish to celebrate that reality, and this is how that originated… Greek names are still found like Kuriakose in Kerala, and then came Portuguese and British. No visit to Kochi would be complete without visiting the Muziris project for the professionals who were talking on the 17th of May.

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And now I return to Scotland. Last weekend we drove to Dumfries House, a forty-mile drive from us along the A70. It was a stunning beautiful day, and the house was busy with the Boswell Book Festival, but the grounds were fully of happy visitors such as us. King Charles has very successfully achieved a restoration, and a repurpose of that magnificent place in the very nick of time. We are enthusiastic gardeners so particularly loved the beauty of the spring gardens. On the return journey we dropped into a place of which we had never heard but saw the sign on the outward journey. Glenbuck Heritage Village. The well-maintained road leads off into a series of low hillocks past a loch with swans swimming and arrives at a flat sizeable area. There is no village. This is a memory of the village of Glenbuck that stood here right into the 1950s and until more recently until open cast mining. These were mining families who had been here for centuries and there is a strong Covenanter connection too. Better to call it heritage village site as there is nothing of the village to see at all. An extraordinary experience to come to an entire once thriving village of industrial archaeology and sporting history and realise the ENTIRE place has been razed with no sign there was anything there before. Interesting interpretive panels and ground layout of the church and the Shankly house plot provide information. To survey the now lovely remote green landscape is a sad and tragic reminder of how our past can disappear in a few short years. The towering windfarm behind the site is a strange lesson in our life’s change in energy supply. The activity and misery of mineworkers’ lives is commemorated here. Interesting interpretive panels and ground layout of the church and Shankly house plot. Bill Shankly was the legendary footballer and manager for Liverpool and to this day the memorial to where the Shankly family lived is like a shrine for Liverpool supporters. This little village bred a whole host of footballers. To survey the now lovely remote green landscape is a sad and tragic reminder of how our past can disappear in a couple of decades. The towering windfarm behind the site is a stark contrast with the change in energy supply. Here, in my lifetime these folk lived without adequate sanitation and modern amenities it seems. Now people come to walk their dogs and have a picnic. We both felt it was very moving. For us, the contrast between the REPURPOSE of Dumfries House in all its beauty and this one time village of diligent people scratching a living for centuries but now obliterated was stark. https://photos.app.goo.gl/54BNdbjVzJ4N2BLs8

Finally, I take you back to India. There is something special called Mahindra World Cities, the brainchild of Anand Mahindra one of India’s great entrepreneurs. I had the good fortune to be invited to visit the one on outskirts of Chennai twice, and the one at Jaipur in the last few years. These are a remarkable success with a third accomplished recently at Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The mantra of MWC is LIVELIHOOD LIVING LIFE. Indeed, without Livelihood we cannot Live and then carve out a stable Life. That is the case for us all globally. In Scotland that is as important as it is in India or elsewhere. The Design for Life is vital for us all. My Salute to the speakers at the Conference spelling out the importance of the Built Heritage which informs and influences and is essential to us always. https://photos.app.goo.gl/S5xhA1vQkX3c21cF3

Aline Dobbie??my latest book is India-ji available through Amazon in print in India but e-book on Kindle worldwide.??www.thepeacockscall.co.uk