Records of Buildings and Monuments

Nigel Clubb outlines information tech nology developments in the English Heritage Records Office.

Information is a key resource in any organisation and English Heritage is no exception. To this end, English Heritage has an Information Technology Committee chaired by the Chief Executive which devises and monitors an information technology strategy. There is a range of requirements, from financial administration and grants to the English Heritage membership system. There is also a particular need to have rapid access to up-to- date information on statutorily protected scheduled monuments and listed buildings. In 1986, a Records Office was established to curate the various English Heritage records of these items and information technology is being harnessed to provide staff with the management information they need to bring about the long- term conservation of the historic environment.

Over the years many of the existing records of English Heritage (and its predecessors) such as those of scheduled monuments have literally been wearing out through use. This is not altogether surprising since some of the records of the scheduling of monuments go back as far as 1882. However, more recent records also suffer considerable wear and tear, including the maps showing the locations of buildings dating from the resurvey of the late 1960s and 1970s. Also, the volume and complexity of the data and the ways they are put to use often justify the introduction of information technology where there are clear benefits in terms of efficiency.

The Records Office is not a public archive as such, but it is rather a store of data, many of which are created by English Heritage staff in the course of their work, such as listing and scheduling recommendations, or used by staff in answering enquiries as well as responding to development proposals. The Records Office also supplies data to county Sites and Monuments Records and to the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME); the latter maintains

the public archive on monuments and buildings and its computing activities are described elsewhere in this issue of Context by Simon Grant. The English Hertiage Buildings at Risk software is also described in this issue by Vanessa Brand.

COMPUTER MAPPING AND SCHEDULED MONUMENTS

The first major development in the Records Office was the introduction of a computer-based mapping system in 1987 in connection with the English Heritage Monuments Protection Programme (MPP) — a review and evaluation of information on monuments so that those of national significance can be identified and recommended to the Secretary of State for scheduling. Two additional objectives of the new programme are to ensure that the records of scheduled monuments are compiled in ways which will help those engaged in casework at English Heritage, and to improve the information provided to owners and occupiers of scheduled monuments and all those concerned with consent procedures.

The new mapping system holds complete national OS coverage of England at 1:10,000 scale, together with the outlines of each scheduled monument. The maps are held as “raster” or backcloth data with monuments held as “vector” overlay data. Raster technology was chosen because it provided the only method of providing complete coverage within reasonable time scales and cost. The system provides for up to 4.6 Gbytes of data to be stored on eight disk drives with two Sun file servers at the heart of the system. Currently, four Sun high-resolution graphics work-stations are connected to the system.

An interesting feature of the software devised by Advent Sytems Ltd is the ability to generate map extracts which combine graphics with text identifying the monument. These used to be prepared by hand, scissors and paste which was a highly labour-intensive operation. In due course, map extracts of the new type will be supplied to owners, occupiers, local authorities and others who need to know the locations of scheduled monuments. The

initial transfer of the existing map records to the new system has been largely completed and a checking exercise is now underway. New MPP schedulings will be notified using the computer-generated extracts.

TEXT RECORDS OF SCHEDULED MONUMENTS

A major development is also in progress in the organisation of the textual information relating to scheduled monuments in order to deal with increased data arising from MPP. The new system will cornputerise scheduling procedures and permit the development of machine-based procedures for recording and monitoring what happens to monuments, including the reports of the Field Monument Wardens who visit monuments regularly to comment on condition and management needs.

The software is being developed currently using the Oracle relational data-base and will run on a DECsystem 5400 minicomputer under the Ultrix operating system.

THE CURRENT LIST REVIEW

As mentioned above, the paper map record of listed buildings held by English Heritage has been deteriorating and is also becoming difficult to access. It is hoped that, as resources allow, the locations of buildings and, perhaps, conservation areas can be added to the computer-based mapping system.

Computerisation of the listed building data held in the statutory lists or “Greenbacks” has been under consideration for some time and English Heritage participates fully in the work of the joint Working Party with RCHME and the Department of the Environment, (see the article by Simon Grant).

In anticipation of the establishment of a full national system in due course, English Heritage is in the process of developing