Jonathan Morrison
Loss of visitor cash could leave heritage in ruins
Britain’s rich tapestry of museums and historic sites may become frayed beyond repair, writes Jonathan Morrison
In a low hill overlooking the long sweep of Sandown Bay in the Isle of Wight, Brading Roman Villa, with its collection of mosaics, should be overrun with visitors. One of the most important Roman sites in England, built shortly after the arrival of Vespasian in AD 44, it is used to welcoming 40,000 people a year.
Instead, like many of the UK’s historic attractions, its doors are locked and staff and supporters are wondering if their unique museum will survive the coronavirus lockdown. Almost entirely dependent on schoolchildren and tourists for revenue, it has, in the words of Stewart White, the chairman of trustees, been hit by “a perfect storm”.
“The lockdown has affected us very badly,” he said. “We’re not subsidised, so we need lots of visitors in the summer just to tide us over the winter months. Now it’s likely that we’ll be reopening as the season is ending, and what we’ll reopen to, heaven knows. Maybe I should have asked who I hand the keys back to.”
It is a sentiment echoed by organisations across the country. Simon Wallwork of the Arkwright Society, which runs Cromford Mills on the edge of the Peak District, said that losing an estimated 70,000 visitors put the Unesco world heritage site at risk. The mills were built in 1771 by Sir Richard Arkwright and are considered the first modern factory.
“If the lockdown goes on any longer it will test us,” Mr Wallwork said. “If it’s six months, we’re in trouble. If it came to it, other bodies might consider taking the site forward or the council might step in to save it. But we don’t know that and there’s no clarity on that. It’s intensely frustrating, not least because the 250th anniversary is next year.”
Since many independent museums and attractions live a similarly hand-to-mouth existence, “lots will just disappear”, he said.
Valerie Mills, director of the Amberley Museum near Arundel in West Sussex, another industrial heritage charity, was similarly pessimistic, admitting that survival was “pretty touch and go”.
“We have a lease from the council and we’re starting to think about what happens if we have to hand it back. If we get grants we can struggle through to September, but it’s very uncertain. It would be nice to see something more from the government that helps the cultural sector,” she said.
Brading Roman Villa, with its collection of mosaics, is used to welcoming 40,000 people a year (ALAMY)
There are 1,600 independent museums in the UK, a number that exceeds those of many of our continental neighbours. Plenty are already in existential trouble thanks to the lockdown. Most of the 8,900 staff they employ have been furloughed but maintenance, utility and security costs are harder to avoid, as are those associated with animal care. Some 34,000 volunteers have also been cast adrift, although prudent managers have tried to keep them engaged as much as possible.
Straddling the border between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, the Creswell Crags visitor centre, which preserves prehistoric dwellings from the last ice age and the extraordinary cave art within them, was one of the first organisations to sound the alarm. It has already issued an urgent appeal for funds and warned that without significant support it will not survive the summer.
Charleston in East Sussex, famous for its links to the Bloomsbury Set, which included writers and intellectuals such as Virginia Woolf and EM Forster, needs to find £400,000 to save the property from falling into disrepair. Nathaniel Hepburn, the chief executive, said that the farmhouse would face a financial “black hole” by the autumn, adding: “We need to make sure our country still has places like Charleston to come back to when this crisis subsides.”
Helen Bonser-Wilton, head of the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, said a £2.2 million shortfall meant its mission to preserve the 500-year-old flagship of Henry VIII’s navy was in “mortal peril”.
In London both the Florence Nightingale Museum at St Thomas’ Hospital, which receives 98 per cent of its income from visitors, and the Charles Dickens Museum, in Holborn, have revealed that they face battles to survive. “It is possible that so much we know and love will be lost,” Cindy Sughrue, the Dickens museum’s director, said.
Survival for the Amberley Museum near Arundel in West Sussex is “pretty touch and go” (ALAMY)
The Association of Independent Museums, which represents 1,050 organisations, fears for historic collections if the smaller museums close. About a third are designated to be of national importance. “Usually the sector can rally round,” Emma Chaplin, the director, said. “But we’re in uncharted territory and it can’t be guaranteed now. Our heritage is at risk at the moment and there won’t be enough funds to save everything and everybody.”
The main funder of the sector is the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund, which has provided £8 billion over the past 25 years and still has 2,500 projects under way at a cost of £1.1 billion. The lottery is poised to announce record sales for the year to April but acknowledged that the pandemic would affect its business over the next few months, not least because 70 per cent of lottery tickets are habitually bought in store.
Nonetheless, it announced on Tuesday that £600 million would be made available to charities and organisations affected by the pandemic. This includes £50 million to organisations the heritage fund has supported in the past, enabling 1,000 emergency grants of £50,000 each to be issued.
It is a quick response and the heritage fund is working on plans to make more money available in the longer term, not least because a survey of 1,424 organisations, which had received a grant of more than £250,000 from them in the past ten years, made for sobering reading: 11 per cent said they would not last beyond two months and 37 per cent beyond six months. Furthermore, 82 per cent of heritage organisations reported a high or moderate risk to their long-term viability, and that figure rose to 90 per cent of charity, third sector or private bodies.
“It’s bleak and I’m pretty worried,” Eilish McGuinness, executive director of business delivery at the Heritage Fund, said. “It’s probably the case that some won’t survive and that’s tough. Not many have reserves. We can’t help everyone, but we’re trying to be flexible and say the money can be used for mothballing or whatever’s needed urgently and that the agreed delivery times for projects can be delayed. Heritage is just so important for the community and social cohesion so we’re trying to make some strategic interventions. In the meantime, buy lottery tickets!”
Charleston in East Sussex needs to find £400,000 to save the property (ALAMY)
Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, which has scraped together a £2 million emergency fund from its existing budget and is offering grants of £25,000, makes a strong argument for safeguarding the wider heritage sector. The industry generates an estimated £7.1 billion for the economy and employs 100,000 construction workers and craftspeople, 6,000 archaeologists and 24,000 architects, engineers and quantity surveyors.
But while Mr Wilson is keen to preserve vital skills — “the expertise that will leave a huge hole if it’s lost” — he is looking beyond the lockdown to prioritise organisations that can “bounce back” rapidly. “Coronavirus has hit everyone hard but we can’t pour money down the drain and let people limp along without a recovery plan,” he said. “We need to target our interventions carefully but at the same time make sure we don’t abandon fragile and vulnerable places. We need to keep them safe so when the recovery comes they can get back to normal business. And we want to make sure the government hears how important heritage will be to the recovery, not least for mental health, and that it doesn’t slip down the list of priorities.”
At Wentworth Woodhouse, the grade I listed stately home in Yorkshire that is believed to have inspired Pemberley in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, thoughts are also turning to the future, even as workers prepare to return to a big construction project next month.
“We’re going to have to rethink our business plan completely,” Sarah McLeod, the chief executive, said. “We may have to rethink our staffing model, we may need to work with a lower income, and we’ll certainly need to embrace digital and find new ways of engaging with people. In the past our main source of money was large tour groups with a guide, but people aren’t going to want to be put in large groups when we reopen.”
It’s a familiar problem at the Bath Preservation Trust, which runs four small museums characterised by tiny rooms and which recently received a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to repair Beckford’s Tower, a grade I listed Georgian folly that overlooks the city and which was in danger of falling into disrepair.
Although the renovation may be delayed, the trust is determined to survive the crisis despite suffering a 90 per cent drop in revenue — after all, it points out it has come through a world war, recession, and the worst depredations of 1960s developers and planners. Introducing social distancing, contactless payment and timed tickets is just another set of challenges to be overcome.
It’s a cheering response, and one typical of the myriad organisations that make up the heritage sector, who are enduring the lockdown with stoicism and who are genuinely proud of the role they play in society.
“We’ll all be changed by this, but we’ll need a culturally rich world to return to,” Caroline Kay, the Bath trust’s chief executive, said. “The experience of World War Two taught us that what people crave when times are bad is something more than just survival. And we can give them it.”
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