What is a historic town? Every town has a history, of course, but in some towns the legacy of the past is more easily legible through their buildings and their spatial layout than in others. This heritage - which the Historic Towns Trusts maps and atlases document so clearly - is often a chance survival.
In this webinar, Professor Rosemary Sweet will take us back to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to discover some of the reasons why the historic fabric has survived, despite the constant flux and change of the current era. It was in this period that local historians and enthusiasts first began to place a value upon buildings of the past in towns and cities such as York or Winchester or Bristol, and to take measures to record their presence and to ensure their survival. Rosemary will discuss what brought about this change in attitude; how this new appreciation of the historic built environment translated into action; and how the term "historic town" was translated into a brand for both towns and tourists.
Rosemary Sweet is a Professor of Urban History at the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester.
This talk is one of a series of four evening lectures throughout March, and is run by BALH in partnership with the Historic Towns Trust.
Admission £5, (BALH members free). If you belong to a BALH Member Society, or the Historic Towns Trust, ask them for their discount code, which will reduce your admission fee to £3.
For more information, and to register, please see the BALH website: https://www.balh.org.uk/events