Lincoln’s Heritage Skills Centre at Work

“It’s quite interesting to be asked to write a ‘views from Castle Hill’ piece when your view is currently a building site!

I took up the post of Manager of the Heritage Skills Centre at Lincoln Castle in January. If you’ve never heard of the centre (HSC), or have no idea where it is within the Castle, you are forgiven. The HSC was designed to embody the conservation principles that drive work in the historic environment, both when working with historic fabric and new build interventions in an historic landscape (or in this case site). With our green roof and curvy aspect we blend seamlessly into the grounds and can only be seen from the walls or looking over the edge of South Lawn. The building is constructed of many natural materials that are sympathetic to its surroundings without pretending to be historic, and has many a ‘green’ feature integrated into the design to manage its impact on the wider environment. The centre occupies what was once the Castle car park and provides high quality workshop space for training in traditional craft and building skills.

You may already be familiar with this story – and many of you probably have been around since the HSC was first dreamt up – but I am new not only to the HSC, but also the County, so the fascination is fresh for me still. For the past 8 years I’ve been up in the North East, first at university and later working for a charitable trust on a project that raised awareness of, and provided training opportunities in, traditional heritage skills. When the opportunity came up to be involved in the HSC I jumped at the chance to build a programme from the ground up. One that covers both craft and building skills; that raises awareness of the need for these skills to conserve our historic environment and the opportunities that the sector provides for those looking for a fulfilling career; that works with primary school children who want to know how castles are built, homeowners who want to look after their 18^th Century cottage or Victorian terrace, builders who want to learn traditional construction methods to diversify their businesses, and professionals who need to understand traditional materials and methods to specify and inspect works to historic buildings.

That leaves quite a lot to do, and brings me back to the (literal) view from my window. With the Lincoln Castle Revealed project in full swing the HSC is very much in the middle of a building site. This is messy, noisy and disruptive, but was not off-putting when I came to look at the Centre and interview for this post. Quite the opposite in fact. The feeling that rubbed off on me then, and has only been increased since moving to the city, is one of being involved at the very beginning of something really rather fantastic ; in the Heritage Skills Centre, Lincoln Castle and the wider city. There is a great deal of time and money being invested in the heritage of Lincoln at the moment as we gear up to Magna Carta’s anniversary next year which is looking not just to the 2015 festivities but will continue to impact the area’s profile for years to come, marking it out as a centre for research and training as well as a world class visitor destination.

To sum up my view from Castle Hill – watch this space….!”

Kathryn Banfield is Manager of the Heritage Skills Centre in Lincoln