News

A band of volunteers and expert craftspeople will gather over two days to help repair Wolfeton Riding House and its surrounding buildings in Charminster, Dorchester.

Stonemason Sean Henderson, carpenter and joiner Sam Matthams,  stonemason Luke O’Hanlon, and bricklayer Matthew Wilson, are the latest recruits to the SPAB's Fellowship - a unique educational scheme designed to nurture and develop the hands-on skills needed to care for old buildings.

The SPAB Scholarship is a prestigious training scheme for young building professionals to gain practical building repair skills from the some of the UK’s most experienced craftspeople. Surveyor Daniel Shemming and architects Christian Montez, Holly Spilsbury and Bethan Watson have embarked on a programme of site, workshop and studio visits across the country. 

The SPAB held its first meeting on 22 March 1877. We looked in our archive to find how we've celebrated some of our significant anniversaries.  

We explore an unusual example of when John Ruskin became actively involved in a fundraising campaign to save a medieval church.

Inspired by the first talk of our spring lecture series on John Ruskin and his support of craftmanship, here we explore Ruskin's skill as a draughtsman and teacher of drawing. 

SPAB Fenland & Wash regional group volunteer Clive Baker champions an imaginative example of re-use. Once a redundant Georgian church, St. Paul’s, Portland Square in Bristol is now a circus school.

As our new Scholars prepare for their year of conservation discoveries, we look to a valued past Scholar. In June 2018 local Scholar Peter Carey (1977) showed us behind the scenes of the redevelopment of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre, a building that he had been passionate about for decades.

We explored our archive for records of the SPAB's activity on Valentine's day. In 1895 founding committee members were discussing repairs to Eckington bridge in Worcestershire.

SPAB member Janice Gooch is fascinated by a former hunting lodge, and makes a case for the identity of its unknown architect.