The Ancient Monument Society's casework in 1999: Review of selected cases

Local planning authorities in England and Wales have been obliged to consul t the Ancient Monuments Society, and other National Amenity Societies, on a ll applications for listed building consent involving demolition, either to tal or partial, since 1972. In recent years the number of part demolition c ases has settled to something like 6,000 a year and those for complete demo lition to about 250-300. The exact number of listed buildings threatened by applications for total demolition in 1998 (the last full year at the time of writing) was 184 (the list of such cases is obtainable from the Society' s office). The cases discussed here include some of the most important in t he year and also some that are typical. In choosing cases we are necessaril y limited by the availability of good quality reproductions. The drawings h ave been kindly supplied by the architects of the various schemes and the n ames of the practices are given in the text.