As we approach the endgame on the fate of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and await the answer to the question of whether or not Robert Jenrick will, as he has said he will, organise a review of the planning system which has authorised the redevelopment of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in his name, but without apparently his approval, I am publishing a letter which was sent recently to Historic England, of which I was sent a copy.

It seems to me to state the case for some action and investigation being taken very cogently:-

Whitechapel Bell Foundry is indeed a very special historic place, but its exceptional nature lies not in the buildings, important as they are, but in the fact that until very recently the buildings contained and sustained a still living ancient and historic working tradition. As I am sure the individuals at Historic England must understand, were they honestly to look beyond the official line, a small, tourist attraction foundry making souvenir hand bells annexed to a coffee shop is no substitute for what the Bell Foundry has been over the last several centuries. I am aware that the Hughes family decided the business was no longer viable, but they declined to put the business to the open market to test their hypothesis. As you will know, qualified others strongly disagree as to the sustainability of the business, its adaptability to the present century.

The opinion as to whether the modern building at the rear of the site is of architectural or historic interest is of course open to debate – but again, if I may, Historic England seem to have missed the point. In this case it is not only the material culture – the bricks and mortar – that require protection but what those buildings contain: a unique and living historical tradition.

You write that ‘overall we believe that the proposals have the makings of a successful heritage regeneration scheme’ and I must say, my heart sinks. One reply would be that, had the path of sustainability been chosen and supported, regeneration would have been unnecessary – the business and the site would have continued, embracing modernisation in a way perhaps beyond the scope of the previous owners’ experience or enterprise or, indeed, imagination. A second reply would be to wonder despairingly what Historic England’s criteria for a successful heritage scheme are? Please forgive me for quoting sixties’ songwriters to you, but the words of Joni Mitchell come insistently to mind – “they take all the trees, and put them in a tree museum, then they charge all the people a dollar and half just to see them.” Is our heritage – of which Historic England are purportedly the protectors – to consist of anodyne, buffed up, roped off sites, or might it be a living and thriving and adaptive present that embraces a continuing history while looking to the future?

As I understand it the Secretary of State did not – quite – approve the scheme. Rather the necessary piece of paper was signed on his behalf by a civil servant in Bristol, and shortly afterwards the Secretary of State expressed regret at the decision via Twitter – thus adding a note of farce to this long and unhappy tale.

I would absolutely hope, as you write, that Historic England’s advice has been impartial. However, having been employed by the developer to give advice at the point of the proceedings when nothing was public – thus no opportunity allowed at that crucial moment for alternative visions for the Foundry’s future to be imagined or presented (and Historic England coming up with no such ideas itself) – I wonder if Historic England might have since felt obliged to hold to the support it gave to the developer. I do wonder, had the alternative schemes for the Foundry that have since emerged been presented to Historic England with equal weighting to the boutique hotel plans, which would have been supported? Which scheme better follows Historic England’s banner headline, “Championing England’s Heritage”?

I have been trying to stand back from the day-to-day battle over the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and figure out what I would do, in the very unlikely event that I was asked to give advice to Robert Jenrick as he embarks, as he has said he will, on his review of what is wrong with the procedures of planning.

From my experience of dealing with the Bell Foundry, the following seem to be the problems:-

Tower Hamlets is, for understandable reasons, very pro-development, feeling that new development will bring new sources of income into what is a very poor borough. But they don’t seem to be at all good at balancing this pro-development stance with the benefits of the existing built fabric and a knowledge of local history . Nor of the importance of tourism to Spitalfields. Spitalfields is being gradually hollowed out by new development with huge new residential blocks around its fringes, a new shopping mall now being planned for Brick Lane, as well as the mega-structures proposed by developers on Bishopsgate Yard. At some point, there is a risk that the existing mixed environment of old historic buildings, small shops and local businesses and some small infill will be totally overwhelmed by new tower blocks, totally out-of-scale, thereby destroying the economic and tourist honeypot that Spitalfields has become. It is not the new tower blocks which bring the tourists in.

The Bell Foundry is a symbol of the tendency to allow old buildings to be turned into bland tourist attractions, losing a sense of character and local identity, what is special about a place instead of what is standardised. This was what happened in the 1950s when it was universally felt that what was new was better than what already existed and that new development should be promoted at all costs across the political spectrum. But the conservation movement in the 1970s recognised the advantages of saving what is old, conserving and redeveloping it in an organic way, instead of just replacing it. Do we have to learn this lesson all over again ? Can we not tweak the planning laws to protect and preserve instead of supporting new development, however destructive ?

I don’t sense anyone in the Tower Hamlets planning department had any sense whatsoever of the historical interest and importance of the Bell Foundry and of the efforts which had been made to preserve it in the 1970s, so they were not able to advise their planning committee accordingly.

Historic England has become gradually demoralised by endless cuts over the last twenty years such that it has lost any real belief in its statutory role. It now takes a view that it is better to work with developers rather than against them, including developers on its board, promoting adaptation over preservation. But this leads to obvious conflicts of interest. Once it has accepted money from a developer to give advice, it is obviously very psychologically difficult for them to say that what the developer is doing is wrong.

Post-COVID, I would have thought that it is in our interests as a society to put a brake on new office and hotel development and concentrate on the benefits of what we have already got, rather than just tearing it down . But, on the contrary, the new changes to planning law look likely to promote the development of green-field sites and sticking up poorly designed housing – not social housing – on land which was previously used for farming.

It feels like we are back in the 1930s: new build good; the old can be replaced. It is this mind-set which needs to change.

I was casually browsing my Google news feed when I discovered to my surprise and pleasure a review of my my book in the South China Morning Post, not a paper that I normally have access to (see below). It says, which is true, that I would have wanted to include the new Herzog and de Meuron M+, had it been completed in time. I have only seen it from outside. And I am conscious that my survey of new museums in China is confined to those on the West Bund in Shanghai, ending with the outpost of the Centre Pompidou which opened in early 2019, the most recent of those included.

Maybe I can do a second edition…

https://amp.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3133870/art-museum-modern-times-charles-saumarez-smiths-world#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16218552317197&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com

This morning, The Heritage Crafts Association has published its list of endangered craft practices. Not surprisingly, bell founding is one of them, regarded as ‘critically endangered’. Of course, there is another Foundry at Loughborough as well, but it too is said to be struggling in spite of attracting funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

It is perhaps worth making clear in what way the alternative proposal put forward by Factum Foundation is conceptually different from that of Raycliff, the developers, since the Inspector saw no difference in his report.

Factum Foundation plan to retain the site as a whole, including the 1980s extension, as a working Foundry, continuing to make church bells, but also working with contemporary artists in order to ensure its profitability (this is its core business in Madrid). It also plans to work on the introduction of new, environmentally clean technology in conjunction with the Bartlett.

Raycliff, following criticism of its original hotel plans, now expect to instal a small Foundry into the corner of its ground floor café as a memento of the building’s previous use.

These ideas are conceptually – and practically – totally different. One preserves the Foundry in active use, keeping manufacturing alive in East London, the other treats making things merely as a picturesque curiosity, a funny bit of the old world (actually, twelfth century).

The Inspector expressed scepticism of Factum’s business plan, as if it would already have a full order book. This is surely an unreasonable requirement. It’s a fully functioning and successful business in Madrid. Why should it not be in London ?

https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/bell-founding/?s=09

There is still quite a bit of activity on twitter about the Bell Foundry. There are two key issues I have been pondering:-

1. It looks pretty obvious that Robert Jenrick’s Department passed the redevelopment without consulting him. You can hear the pleasure and glee in the coverage on planning websites that he has been so effectively snookered. So, the question is: can he circumvent the advice he is probably being given by his civil servants to let the matter drop ? Perhaps his Special Advisors can help ? Or his legal department ?

2. In the late 1970s, the Hughes wanted to move out of the historic building. The Historic Building Division of the GLC, which was extremely knowledgeable and very effective, immediately moved in and – I think – paid for the extension by James Strike, now being demolished. I haven’t consulted the relevant archive, but there must be people who know the history. Were conditions attached? Did Historic England check the relevant papers before encouraging redevelopment? I doubt it. In which case, there could have been demonstrable negligence which would emerge through Judicial Review.

It’s such a pleasure going back to the National Gallery post-lockdown, partly because everything has been re-hang to allow for works to travel to Tokyo and Canberra; partly because I find one views everything afresh after months of visual starvation.

Bartolomeus Bruyn’s Virgin, Saints and a Holy Woman, acquired 1924:-

Altdorfer’s Christ taking leave of his mother, bought in 1980 when the National Heritage Memorial Fund was first established:-

Hobbema’s Avenue at Middelharnis:-

A Pourbus portrait on loan from a private collection:-

I sensed throughout that it had hugely benefitted from a radical re-hang, everything placed more logically, with greater variety, and slightly more thematic, but not too obviously, altogether a great achievement.

I have been encouraged to illustrate my posts about the Bell Foundry with more photographs. The reason I don’t is because, much as I love the many photographs which have surfaced during the long campaign to save it, I am always wary of copyright and don’t like reproducing things without permission.

But it encouraged me to go back to some photographs I took in July 2019 when a concert was held in the back section of the Foundry which the Planning Inspector regards as totally worthless and sees no reason to spare from demolition, as is proposed in its redevelopment. It has made me recognise that planning law pays no attention, and perhaps cannot, to patina, to the slow accumulation of relics of history, which help to give a building its character. Instead, those who support the Foundry’s redevelopment, including, most remarkably, Historic England, think that it will be in some way ‘better’ if it is restored and improved, poshed up into a modern-day simulacrum of its former self. So, they welcome the intervention of the developer, who will put money into its restoration and turn it into something entirely different from what it was – more modern, more contemporary, serving cappuccinos instead of making things, which is the modern way. But they seem to have entirely forgotten, and disregard, the generations of writers and historians from William Morris onwards who have been hostile to this form of restoration, which disregards the fabric and texture of buildings, the details of construction which make them come alive, and the relics of former use, old machinery as well as bricks.

In July 2019, the fabric of the building was still substantially intact and it would still be relatively easy for someone, preferably Factum Arte, to move in to keep its continuity alive as a working environment, not as a wine bar.

Do the planners not see that there is a difference ?

I have been asked if anything can still be done about the Bell Foundry. The answer is:-

1. We need to keep the pressure up on Robert Jenrick to find a solution to the mess we are in, given that his Department has now approved redevelopment, while he himself would like it stopped. What’s the answer ?

2. There could be a legal solution by launching a Judicial Review, particularly over the fact that a junior minister made a statement last summer in the House of Lords which may have influenced the way the Planning Inquiry was handled.

3. Nothing will happen if the issue goes quiet. So, we need to do everything we can to keep up the pressure: in American newspapers if possible; on television and radio; in the Daily Mail. If anyone can help in alerting and encouraging journalists to write on it, please do.

4. There is a relatively straightforward solution if Raycliff can be persuaded to pull out of the historic part of the Foundry and concentrate on the development of the adjacent site, leaving the historic bits properly intact, as would happen in the States, where everyone knows and understands the importance of living history as being as much about people as buildings.

I have just been listening to the excellent and very thoughtful appraisal of the issues surrounding the Bell Foundry by Hettie O’Brien, who wrote the recent Guardian long read on it. She conveys how important the Foundry is to people’s experience of London: their regret that so much of London is being sold off for glassy, high-rise redevelopment; the importance of ‘intangible living heritage’ which involves the local community, not just statues of slave traders; she recognises that the redevelopment might not be horrible, but that it is a nail in the coffin for manufacturing as part of the culture of London. I recommend it:-

https://m.soundcloud.com/open-city-london/whitechapel-bell-foundry?s=09

I’ve had a long day exploring Bath, which I don’t know at all well – so incredibly rich in eighteenth-century architecture and now miraculously traffic-free.

I don’t know whether it’s a result of COVID or some ban at the outskirts. Anyway, it’s surprisingly calm post-COVID:-

In the afternoon, I walked up Great Pulteney Street:-

Up Broad Street and Lansdown Road:-

To the Royal Crescent again:-