Heritage Now

6   HISTORIC BUILDINGS & PLACES WELCOME Manchester Assizes Court by Alfred Waterhouse, completed in 1864. This Ruskinian Gothic masterpiece was severely damaged in the Manchester blitz and demolished in 1957. ‘lists’. In November 1940 a meeting was organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and SPAB to discuss ‘action to prevent damage to historic buildings’. Out of the meeting came the resolution that under the supervision of the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments and with funding from the Treasury, an army of architects and architectural historians would be sent out to make a record of the country’s most precious historic buildings. These were Britain’s very own ‘Monuments Men’ and the mission was known as the ‘salvage scheme’. It did not take long for this initiative to be enshrined in law – the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act formalised the concept. It took a while for the lists to be developed, however. Ref- erence is made to the process in the AMS’s first volume of Transactions in 1953. A very useful step is being taken by the Ministry of Local Government and Planning in compiling Statutory Lists of old buildings worthy of preser- vation in every locality, under the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947. […] There are many organisations and societies, both national and local, concerned with this question. This is well, since the field is so vast, and so much depends on voluntary efforts. There are practical limits to what any one such body can accomplish, and this is why all should lend support to each other and work together in the closest alliance. Unfortunately, very few of the AMS’s early records survive today and we can only piece a history together by referring to those rare items which did endure, as well as later accounts. On 23 June 1945 the society’s 21st annual general meet- ing was held in Liverpool, with a reception at the Town Hall hosted by the Lord Mayor, the Rt Hon the Earl of Sefton. In September, there was an anniversary meeting at Manchester Town Hall. For reasons which are not entirely clear, John Swarbrick also set up a National Ancient Mon- uments Society in London in 1945, with council meetings held in the Oak Room at the National Liberal Club. It seems that the two organisations ran in parallel until they were amalgamated in 1953, with a headquarters in London and a branch office in Manchester. The Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act was introduced in 1953 and the society might have been expected to add ‘Historic Buildings’ to its name, however it did not. The Town and Country Planning Act of 1968 was decisive, in that it introduced the listed building consent regime. In a joint circular issued on 4 December, the Ministry of Housing and the Welsh Office named the AMS as one of the six bodies which had to be notified of any application to In 2020 AMS trustees decided it was time to act decisively, and in the end opted for something descriptive which is a clear statement of what the society does