SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS
For years the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has been associated with the work of protesting against the destruction or spoiling of good examples of the building art of the past. This year it is developing the more constructive side of its activities. The following instances will suffice to illustrate this development.
First, the Society is endeavouring to show that the humbler forms of English architecture—the old cottages—should not only be saved, but used, and how they can be made decently habitable, though much injured by time and neglect. Works replete with old-time building lore should not be permanently condemned because they lack damp courses, proper ventilation, larders, or upstair fireplaces. Instead of building new at £800 or so, the Housing Committees should acquire cottages of this kind and repair them at, say, £250 or £300. To draw attention to this subject the Society has issued a well-illustrated booklet (Batsford, 94 High Holborn; 2s.), which it hopes to follow by a practical demonstration on a pair of old cottages, proving the possibility of remedying common defects. It hopes to publish the results in a second booklet which would in fact be a pictorial specification.
The second illustration of the Society's constructive activity is the offer to give lectures on the objects and work of the Society, in which special emphasis is to be laid on what may be learnt in matters of economy and beauty, from old buildings.