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 Commit-

tee chaired by the Chief Executive which

devises and monitors an information

technology strategy. There is a range of

requirements, from financial administra-

tion and grants to the English Heritage

membership system. There is also a par-

ticular need to have rapid access to up-to-

date information on statutorily protected

scheduled monuments and listed build-

ings. In 1986, a Records Office was

established to curate the various English

Heritage records of these items and infor-

mation technology is being harnessed to

provide staff with the management infor-

mation 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 pre-

decessors) such as those of scheduled mon-

uments have literally been wearing out

through use. This is not altogether sur-

prising 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, includ-

ing 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 introduc-

tion 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 recommen-

dations, or used by staff in answering

enquiries as well as responding to develop-

ment proposals. The Records Office also

supplies data to county Sites and Mon-

uments Records and to the Royal Com-

mission 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 Con-

text by Simon Grant. The English Her-

tiage 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 mon-

uments are compiled in ways which will

help those engaged in casework at English

Heritage, and to improve the infor-

mation provided to owners and occupiers

of scheduled monuments and all those

concerned with consent procedures.

The new mapping system holds com-

plete 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 monu-

ment. 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 sup-

plied to owners, occupiers, local auth-

orities 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 com-

pleted 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 informa-

tion relating to scheduled monuments in

order to deal with increased data arising

from MPP. The new system will corn-

puterise scheduling procedures and permit

the development of machine-based pro-

cedures for recording and monitoring

what happens to monuments, including

the reports of the Field Monument War-

dens who visit monuments regularly to

comment on condition and management

needs.

The software is being developed curren-

tly using the Oracle relational data-base

and will run on a DEC system 5400 mini-

computer 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 map-

ping system.

Computerisation of the listed building

data held in the statutory lists or “Green-

backs” has been under consideration for

some time and English Heritage par-

ticipates 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

ENGLISH

HERITAGE

RECORDS OF

BUILDINGS AND

MONUMENTS

CONTEXT 25

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