A NEW WAY WITH ANCIENT MONUMENTS.
IN the address delivered on December 7th, 1911, to the Society of Antiquaries, Sir Schonberg McDonnell made a, suggestion as to the preservation of ancient monuments which, coming as it does from one who has had exceptional opportunities of studying his subject, deserves and will receive very close attention. Sir Schomberg McDonnell for the last ten years has held the position of Secretary to H.M. Office of Works, and during that time has bad wide opportunities of discovering not only the vicissitudes through which some of our most valuable national possessions have gone, but also something of the depth of interest which has been steadily growing in the efforts made towards their preservation. The attitude of the nation—or at all events the more cultured classes—towards the protection and preservation of what is old and beautiful has changed enormously since the 'forties and 'sixties, when hardly anybody cared what was done in the way of pulling down interesting ruins or subjecting churches to the process of so-called restoration—that word of most evil meaning. One aspect of that change of attitude is the appointment of the Royal Commission on Historical Monu- ments, and on that Commission Sir Schonberg McDonnell is still serving. And it is because he foresees that the work • In the South Remington Museum.
of the Commission cannot be finished for many years— possibly not within the next two generations—that be urges that there is need for some additional power as regards the protection of certain monuments being acquired by respon- sible authorities. We believe that those who will carefully look at the suggestion which he makes, drastic though it may seem at first sight, will agree with him.
Perhaps there can be no better introduction to his sugges- tion than the list which Sir Schomberg put before his audi-
ence of buildings which in our own time or within recent memory have been either threatened, or destroyed, or had become damaged through neglect. It was only a short time ago, for instance, that one of the great trilithons of Stone- henge fell. Possibly opinions may differ as to whether or not the great stone should be re-erected, but in any case might it not have been prevented from falling P Take the less well- known case of the standing stones of Laggangain. There were fifteen in 1840; in 1875 they had been reduced to seven ; and now there are two. Penmaenmawr is another instance. Here was an extremely fine example of an ancient camp ; it is now in process of demolition because a certain firm has been granted a lease which enables them to quarry granite. That process of destruction is one from which only recently efforts were successfully made to save Maumbury Rings, that wonderful Roman amphitheatre which now lies under sheep-bitten turf outside Dorchester. Railway companies had an eye on Maumbury Rings, which very nearly became flattened into sidings. Other ancient monuments have felt the pressure of other traffic. Meavy Bridge in Devonshire has gone, because it was old; Portin- scale Bridge in Cumberland is likely to follow it unless something more can be done than has been done. When we come to churches the list is longer and more unhappy than ever. Perhaps Sir Schomberg was right in referring first to St. Alban's Abbey, but certainly the case of Tewkesbury is deplorable. Tewkesbury Abbey, which was very little damaged at the Reformation, kept its wall paintings almost intact until 1809 or thereabouts, when an enthusiastic Protestant vicar covered the whole of the interior with yellow wash. This was the fate, it may be remembered, from which only an accident saved the mural paintings of St. Mary's Church in Guildford, and it would be difficult to calculate the amount of less interesting work in lesser churches which has been ruined in the same way. Another building which has escaped an unhappy fate in recent years is Melrose Abbey, which the neighbourhood, having just lost their parish church owing to a fire, proposed to the Duke of Bucoleugh should be turned into a now kirk by rebuilding and roofing the nave. But indeed the list of instances of wanton destruction and of narrow escape from ruin might be lengthened almost indefinitely. Both Eton and Winchester in the middle of the nineteenth century allowed their chapels to be knocked about, and painting and woodwork and brasses to be destroyed, to an extent which would be incredible to modern ideas if we did not know that there was almost nothing which was forbidden the mid-Victorian restorer. Merton College only retained her magnificent fourteenth-century library through the energy and foresight of a single man, the late Warden ; if it bad not been for him the library would have been demolished in a scheme of rebuilding. And of examples of comparatively recent destruction of ancient monuments which Sir Schomberg McDonnell might have added to his list there is the standing reproach of Avebury, which might have been to-day the finest monument in the country, but which has been absorbed unseen into its neighbourhood in the form of cottages and in the meaner uses of road mending, Happily now, however, it is in the safest of hands—those of the peer who takes his title from the stone circle to which Stonehenge is but a piece of crude modernism.
It is in the hope of adding something a little more rapid and certain to the machinery which exists for the protection of
these ancient monuments that Sir Seliomberg makes his pro- posal. What be suggests is, briefly, an Advisory Committee formed to warn the First Commissioner of Works on the occasion of danger threatening a monument of national interest.
This Committee, be suggests, should be essentially a body of men whom owners of historical monuments should feel they could trust. He sketches a possible composition. This would consist of the Chairmen of the three Royal Commissions on Historical Monuments in England, Scotland, and Wales, the President of the Society of Antiquaries, the President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Principal Librarian of the British Museum, the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Inspector of Ancient Monuments, two nominees of the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York, and a representative of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. This Advisory Board " should, when satisfied that any monument of national importance is in danger, represent to the First Commissioner of his Majesty's Works that the custody of it should be assumed by the nation, and that the First Cora-
missoner should thereupon, if he sees fit., move his Majesty to declare by Order in Council that the monument in question is a national monument, and is consequently transferred to the custody of the First Commissioner." Does this seem too drastic a recommendation P We do not think that on examination it will be found to be so. It interferes as little as any such recommendation possibly could with the rights of pro- perty. It leaves all property which is in the hands of a good proprietor precisely as it stands. Such property could not be regarded as in danger. It only touches property which is being spoiled or in danger of destruction ; and even so it only touches property of a certain kind. The monument would have to be decided to be national, and certain types of property—houses in actual occupation, for instance—would be specifically exempted. Nor would a proprietor be pre- vented from selling. All that would happen would be that the buyer would be prevented, under the same terms as the seller, from spoiling or destroying. This would put an end to such possibilities as the sale for erection elsewhere of such buildings as Tattershall Castle. The restriction, again, as to spoiling by other means than by breaking up would have most valuable and important results in the prevention of ill-advised restoration of such buildings as churches. It would hence- forward be impossible for an abbey like St. Albans, for instance, or a chapel like Winchester's to be ruined.
We would add a suggestion which would not only have the effect of protecting and preserving a number of historical build- ings and monuments, but would also prevent the possibility of many valuable possessions being lost to the nation owing to the incidence of excessive taxation upon particular forms of property. Let any owner of an historic building or an ancient monument who wishes to do so propose to the Office of Works that it should be scheduled. If his proposal is accepted and his property is decided to be of sufficient value to the nation to be scheduled, let it become ipso facto freed from all taxes, rates, and duties, death duties included. Once scheduled, nobody could touch it, and the fear of it being lost to the nation vanishes at once. The owner frees himself front a burden of taxation ; all that he loses is the possible value, when realized, of a monument such as a camp which occupies a large site capable of being turned into building land. There need be no fear of ordinary land being improperly scheduled in order to evade death duties and other taxes. The Advisory Committee would of course only allow voluntary scheduling in the case of genuine national monuments, and the amount of surrounding land would be closely restricted.
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