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Casework

Casework is at the heart of what C20 is all about. We campaign to save irreplaceable buildings we love and think are outstanding.

Read about our latest Casework news here.

Below are more reflective articles by our Caseworkers.

Our expertise is recognised by our official role in the planning process. The Twentieth Century Society has to be consulted about any application for listed building consent involving demolition, anywhere in England. Although we don’t have the same legal role in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we are often asked to give our views on the future of important buildings of our period there.

We get to hear about threated buildings by lots of other routes too, and our members and supporters are always alert to threats and quick to let us know about them. Most societies like ours (such as the Victorian Society or the Ancient Monuments Society) can reckon on almost all the buildings of their period that should be listed already being safely included on the National Heritage List for England, which is run by Historic England. That’s not the case for us, and putting buildings forward for listing is a big part of what we do, and often a crucial early step in a campaign. We’ve called for much wider recognition for groups of C20 buildings, by designation of conservation areas, but generally our resources mean that we can only lend support to individual buildings if they are already listed, or we think they deserve to be.

Most churches in England and Wales do not need to apply for listed building consent and changes are managed through a separate system. C20 Society has to be consulted on these too, and has a specialist caseworker who does this.

We encourage architects, developers and owners to consult with us before they put in planning applications, so that we can explain why we think a building is important and try to help them find solutions which meet their needs and preserve what’s special about it. Sometimes that’s not possible and we end up lobbying hard against the granting of permission. The caseworkers present cases at the monthly meeting of our expert Casework Committee, who guide them and can also advise on lobbying press, working with local groups and coming up with positive suggestions for alternative design approaches, or more radical lateral ideas.

In the last resort, if an application we’ve fought against gets permission, we can sometimes reverse the decision at a public inquiry or consistory court hearing, chaired by a planning inspector, or lawyer, who will make a recommendation to the Secretary of State. We have to think very carefully about whether to do this as it is very time consuming and can be expensive.

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Sully Hospital, Vale of Glamorgan

W A Pite, Son, and Fairweather, 1936, Listed Grade II 'An outstanding example of inter-war architecture, which has survived almost unaltered'. This opening quotation from Pevsner's The Buildings of Wales, Glamorgan, astutely describes one of the last...

Refurbishment of De La Warr Pavilion

Rother District Council have just announced that they have received 6 million pounds to assist with the refurbishment of the De La Warr pavilion. The Heritage Lottery Fund has pledged £1.9 million and the Arts Council £4.1 million. So it looks like...

Bentley Wood listing

The former home of the architect Serge Chermayeff is for sale (Architects' Journal, 21.03.2002, p8). This is always a worrying stage as often prospective buyers buy important modern properties for the wrong reasons. The house comes with many acres of...

Lido update

Hilsea lido was designed in 1933, and completed in 1935, to the designs of the Portsmouth City Council Engineer's Department. [Click here for an aerial view and for the lido]. It was built in the prevalent modern style, with strong nautical imagery a...

Colin Campbell House, Plymouth

We have also supported the proposal by the Tinside Action Group (the body instrumental in the listing of Plymouth Tinside Lido) to spot-list the above building and to protect it from a current redevelopment application, which would entail the buildin...

Droitwich Lido, Worcs

The Twentieth Century Society proposed the above lido for statutory listing as an exceptionally interesting and well-preserved example of inter-war leisure architecture. The Lido is claimed as the only inland saltwater swimming facility in Britain �...

Portland House, Weymouth

The architects Lord Gerald Wellesley and Trenwith Wills built this unusual building in 1935 for Geoffrey Henry Bushby [click here for an view of the terrace and the top terrace]. It is an excellent and very complete example of the Hollywood Spanish s...

Les Lumieres, Jersey

You may remember Les Lumieres [click here for images of the south elevation and the garage], as it was the subject of the January 2001 newsletter cover story. As often with major refurbishments, another set of architects is hired once the planning ap...

Jack Straw’s Castle, London NW3

Jack Straw’s Castle is a landmark building in many ways. You would be forgiven for thinking it was much older than it really is, but then again, it was built by Raymond Erith, the skilful master of the classical language of architecture... so alth...

Pasmore Pavilion, Co. Durham

Victor Pasmore, 1967-70, not listed Peterlee and its pavilion were the fruit of the optimistic post-war climate, and their ideologies have sadly not stood the test of time very well. [Click for pictures of the Pavilion, View with houses and the Pavil...

Midland Hotel, Morecambe

The Midland Hotel has had a very chequered history and drove many of its consecutive owners to bankruptcy. It last closed down in September 2000 and has since suffered from both vandalism and damp. A private company seeking to turn it into a five sta...

Shopping in London: Now New and Improved

By now you are probably completely sick of shopping, or maybe you are just getting into the swing of things with the sales. Just in case you can’t get enough, I thought it would be a good idea to give you an architectural glimpse of the changing wo...

RIBA update

At the September Casework Committee we discussed revised plans for the Foyer ceiling. Only minor changes were now to be made. These were acceptable. The Society still has not heard anything about the Council Chamber through the official channels at W...

The Royal Festival Hall gets a 1950s makeover

We have been involved for some time with a number of applications dealing with the general refurbishment and upgrading of the Royal Festival Hall. The iconic post-war Grade I listed building, which is both spectacular architecturally and socially imp...

Bathing belles in peril: Lasting Lidos

Despite this hot summer we are enjoying, we do not tend to think of Britain as a place particularly conducive to outdoor bathing. In a country where the average temperature hovers around 17 degrees nothing testifies to the optimistic spirit of interw...

Changes at the RIBA

There are multiple changes proposed for the interior of the RIBA Building, which if implemented, pose a potential threat to the integrity of the seminal fabric of the institution. The various schemes have been sent to us individually and we only gra...

Preservation of Housing Estates

The Society’s involvement regarding large listed housing estates usually concerns the alteration of what may seem like incidental details: The installation of railings, the enclosure of areas for security purposes or the replacement of paving stone...