The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (sometimes known as Anti-Scrape) was founded by William Morris, Philip Webb and others, in 1877, to oppose what they saw as destructive 'Restoration' of ancient buildings then occurring in Victorian England.
Morris was particularly concerned about the practice, which he described as "forgery", of attempting to return buildings to an idealised state from the distant past, which often involved the removal of elements added in their later development and which Morris saw as contributing to their interest as documents of the past. Instead, he proposed that ancient buildings should be repaired, not restored, so that their entire history would be protected as cultural heritage.
Today, the SPAB still operates according to Morris's original manifesto. It campaigns, advises, runs training programmes and courses, conducts research and publishes information. The Society must be notified of all applications in England and Wales to demolish in whole or part any listed building. It currently has c.8,500 members (2012).
The Society also has a branch in Scotland, and the Mills Section, which is the only British national body concerned with the protection, repair and continued use of traditional windmills and watermills.
The society, which is a registered charity, is based at 37 Spital Square, London E1 6DY, England.
Famous quotes containing the words ancient buildings, society, protection, ancient and/or buildings:
“I am ... willing to admit that some people might live there for years, or even a lifetime, so protected that they never sense the sweet stench of corruption that is all around them—the keen, thin scent of decay that pervades everything and accuses with a terrible accusation the superficial youthfulness, the abounding undergraduate noise, that fills those ancient buildings.”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)
“... the mass migrations now habitual in our nation are disastrous to the family and to the formation of individual character. It is impossible to create a stable society if something like a third of our people are constantly moving about. We cannot grow fine human beings, any more than we can grow fine trees, if they are constantly torn up by the roots and transplanted ...”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Guns have metamorphosed into cameras in this earnest comedy, the ecology safari, because nature has ceased to be what it always had been—what people needed protection from. Now nature tamed, endangered, mortal—needs to be protected from people.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“It is the dissenter, the theorist, the aspirant, who is quitting this ancient domain to embark on seas of adventure, who engages our interest. Omitting then for the present all notice of the stationary class, we shall find that the movement party divides itself into two classes, the actors, and the students.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If the factory people outside the colleges live under the discipline of narrow means, the people inside live under almost every other kind of discipline except that of narrow means—from the fruity austerities of learning, through the iron rations of English gentlemanhood, down to the modest disadvantages of occupying cold stone buildings without central heating and having to cross two or three quadrangles to take a bath.”
—Margaret Halsey (b. 1910)