SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage is a pressure group in the United Kingdom that campaigns for the conservation of buildings. It is a registered charity with offices at Cowcross Street in London's Clerkenwell. Its president is Marcus Binney. It has expanded into France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Hungary, under the name SAVE Europe's Heritage.

SAVE Britain's Heritage was founded in 1975 (European Architectural Heritage Year), in the aftermath of the 1974 exhibition "The Destruction of the Country House" held at the V&A. It campaigns for the preservation and reuse of endangered historic buildings, placing particular emphasis on finding new uses for them.

SAVE was instrumental in saving buildings such as:
*Calke Abbey in Derbyshire - acquired by the National Trust in 1983
*Northington Grange in Hampshire - the surviving parts were acquired and restored by English Heritage
*Peninsula Barracks in Winchester - converted to private residential use in 1998
*Tyntesfield - acquired by the National Trust in 2002

It is not always successful. Its campaign in 1977 to 1978 to save Mentmore Towers and its collection for the nation failed; it was unable to stop the demolition of historic buildings in the City of London to make way for No 1 Poultry, and could not prevent the disposal of the interior of the Baltic Exchange which had been damaged by a Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb in 1992. It is currently campaigning to save the General Market Buildings of Smithfield Market on Farringdon Road and the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough. It has also established charitable trusts to restore:
*Barlaston Hall in Staffordshire - a Palladian villa by Sir Robert Taylor
*All Souls, Halifax - a church by George Gilbert Scott
*6 Palace Street - the oldest building in Caernarfon outside the castle

SAVE Britain's Heritage has published many campaigning books and leaflets, including "The Concrete Jerusalem" (1976), "Elysian gardens" (1979), "Vanishing London: A catalogue of decay" (1979), "The Fall of Zion" (1980), "The Country House: to be or not to be" (1982), "Estates Villages who cares?" (1983), "Crisis at Saltaire" (1986), "Pavilions in peril" (1987), "Bright future: the reuse of industrial buildings" (1990), "Stop the destruction of Bucklesbury" (1992), "Beacons of learning" (1995), "Mind over matter" (1995), "Silence in Court" (2004), and "The Guildhall Testimonial" (2006), advocating the preservation and reuse of, "inter alia", nonconformist chapels, redundant Anglican churches, Victorian mental hospitals, country houses, their gardens and outbuildings, and industrial buildings. It also publishes an action guide, to assist campaigners with setting up their own groups to advocate the case for particular buildings. It maintains an electronic register of around 700 "buildings at risk", and publishes a paper version of the register annually.

An exhibition highlighting the first 30 years of its work was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2005.

ee also

*Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings

References

* [http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/architecture/past/save/index.html SAVE Britain’s Heritage 1975-2005: 30 Years of Campaigning] , V&A
* [http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/ SAVE Britain's Heritage] website