The Difference Between Seeing and Observing

Since my last blog in which I focussed upon theft from churches, I’ve noticed that the subject has rarely been out of the news. In a recent television report, a Lincolnshire church featured, the roof of which had been stripped of its lead. After much deliberation the decision had been made not to replace it like-for-like with lead, as this would invite further thefts. Instead, stainless steel had been used. A comment was made by one of the clergy that lead would have been preferable due to its well known ability to weather well and to accommodate the natural movement of a timber roof structure. How appropriate the new material will prove to be remains to be seen. Within days of this news item, a friend told me of the theft of lead from his village’s church, together with a small quantity of lead flashing taken from the village hall. He commented that the cost of repairing the damage to the hall would far outweigh the price the thieves would have received for the metal’s scrap value. For church committees desperately trying to make meagre funds go further in these difficult times, major expenditure such as this is bad news indeed. I have noticed that whereas at one time, doors of most churches were left open to welcome visitors and worshippers, it is becoming more usual now for them to be firmly locked. Perhaps the time has come where the adage “prevention is better than cure” is being adopted by those who are trying to take best care of their churches and contents?

As a volunteer Heritage Steward I’ve concentrated over the last few months, like many of my volunteering colleagues, upon surveying places of worship. Now that the Trust’s objective of completing all of these properties has been achieved, I have returned to surveying other buildings considered to be “at risk”. Last week I spent half a day looking at buildings in the town where I live as it occurred to me that despite driving or walking past these on many occasions, I had not really taken much notice of them as interesting structures in their own right; the difference I suppose, between “seeing” and “observing”.

The exercise of surveying (as is usual for me) resulted in coming into contact with new people: those working in the various buildings as well as members of the public curious to discover what I was doing in taking photos and writing notes! Initially I found the experience of surveying buildings in a busy town centre a little intimidating –being more used to wandering at leisure, surveying churches in quiet villages. I found myself being a little self-conscious about pointing a camera at an occupied shop, with staff and customers going about their business! I soon decided to first call in to explain my activity. Reassuringly and without exception, people were quite accepting of this! An unforeseen problem of surveying in a busy town centre location was the need to return to photograph buildings later in the day due to the view being blocked by a waiting bus or huge delivery van! Such are the obstacles faced by the volunteer Steward!

Apart from the positive experience of believing I now knowing the town centre buildings a little better, after taking a more detailed look, I realise the aesthetics of the town could be easily improved in a number of respects. Most obvious (and this could be said to be a problem in so many town centres nowadays) was the proliferation of ugly shop- front signage, often garishly over illuminated. The original, attractive frontages are either hidden or completely replaced by these modern additions. Someone, somewhere, in planning meetings has evidently approved these signs with little serious consideration of preserving local identity of the town. Being a frequent visitor to towns such as Stamford and further afield, York, I know that modernisation and commercial need can be combined and regulated to good effect. Another observation that was glaringly obvious to me through taking a closer look at the town was just how scruffy many of the off-street areas are. This includes the ubiquitous and brightly coloured, trade-size refuse bins that line many of the passages and access areas, often overflowing with shop waste. The general litter, mainly empty drinks cans, bottles and plastics are joined by literally hundreds of cigarette ends, discarded and accumulated in drain openings and gullies. Over all, there appeared to be little evidence of genuine “civic pride” from either the local authority or individual business owners, in terms of keeping some of the less obvious, but still visible local areas, in a tidy state.

As these appear to be common national problems as well as existing at a local level, I’m not quite sure what the solutions might be. If preserving our sense of heritage is to be more than mere rhetoric, however, solutions have to be found before the problem of “anonymous” and litter strewn town centres becomes irreversible.

Colin, Heritage Steward