If walls could talk
MORE than 30 historic properties in the city of Derry in Northern Ireland have been restored thanks to the work of the Foyle Civic Trust, which formed the Walled City Townscape Heritage Initiative and is the overall winner in this year’s Historic England Angel Awards.
Launched in England in 2011 and supported by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, the awards celebrate people across the country who have made sterling efforts to bring historic places back to life. Since their inception, similar awards have been founded in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The people’s favourite, the only award to be chosen by public vote, was Wilton’s Music Hall, which has survived numerous incarnations plus a fire and the threat of demolition before staff and volunteers brought it back into use.
Other winners include the Bulmer Brick & Tile Company, Suffolk, whose handmade bricks have sustained the likes of Hampton Court Palace and the law courts at Lincoln’s Inn Fields; the Florence Institute (or ‘the Florrie’) in Liverpool, the oldest surviving purpose-built boys’ club in Britain, now transformed into a community hub; and the regeneration of an 80-acre site at the Royal Dockyard at Chatham on the River Medway, where Nelson’s HMS Victory was made. Visit www.historicengland.org.uk for further information.