The Annual Dinner of the IHBC’s 2018 School on June 22 in Belfast’s City Hall – which that night the Institute shared with a Canadian ‘Narnia’ conference – included the presentations of awards, prizes and certificates to a range of winners and School delegates from across the IHBC’s renowned Annual Gus Astley Student Award, presented by the judge for the year, Carole Souter CBE, and its two Marsh Awards.
Marsh Christian Trust trustee Lorraine Ryan, presented Amy Ward, stonemason and conservator for Mono Masonry, with her Marsh Award and £500 prize for ‘Successful Learning’.Among other considerations, the Award judges recognised how ‘Amy`s experience in stone conservation bridges the gap between heritage conservation and stonemasonry. She shares her skills with others [and] has given training sessions to two apprentices around the traditional skills of draughtsmanship of traditional masonry mouldings; in addition to her paid work at the Company, her Master Degree in Conservation Studies at the University of York is giving her the foundations to progress even further within the company’.Amy joined the IHBC as Affiliate member after the ‘Course Connection Day’.
Dr Jane Grenville OBE was selected for the IHBC’s Marsh Award for Community Contribution (Retired Member), securing £500 and a place at the School.This award recognised Jane’s ‘innovative contribution has been in setting up a student ‘Planning Club’ with University of York which scans the weekly planning lists to make a first sift of significant cases for comment.Jane’s Planning Club effectively links volunteer student community effort with positive planning for the historic environment’.Unfortunately Jane was not able to attend the School and so received her certificate and award at home.
Gus Astley Student Awards judge for the year, Carole Souter, and Fund Trustee and IHBC Research co-ordinator Bob Kindred MBE both spoke to the successful IHBC submissions for 2017.
Bob Kindred said: ‘The prestige of these Awards grows from year to year and I look forward to seeing the submissions for the 2018 Gus Astley Student Awards – the closing date for which is 31st July –and promoting the results at the Annual School in Nottingham next year.’
The winner of the IHBC Gus Astley Student Award for 2017 was Rodolfo Acevedo Rodríguez, then on the IHBC-recognised conservation course at University of Cambridge, for his work on the history, design and function of Thornton Abbey Gatehouse, Lincolnshire, selected by the judge for the year, Carole Souter CBE, as a ‘clear, informative, well researched and beautifully produced and illustrated’ representation of current conservation-related course work.
Rodolfo received a free place at the IHBC’s School, a £500 cash award and a certificate.
Also selected for high commendation, and offered places at the School and awards, were:
? Maria-Theodora Tzeli, from the IHBC-recognised conservation course at the University of Edinburgh, ‘on the restoration of Classical monuments in Ancient Greece… as a clear and well developed analysis of the history of the subject’.
? Sean McEntee, from the IHBC-recognised conservation course at the University of Leicester – and a member of staff of the main School sponsor for 2018, Heritage Collective – for his ‘interesting attempt to apply detailed analytical tools to a set of issues at Norton Folgate which are often discussed on the basis of emotion and assertion’.
The Gus Astley Fund’s `Trustee selection’ for special commendation in 2018, also recommended by Souter, was:
? Matthew Orme, from University of Kent, for his `extraordinary outlier of Patent Office and Inventors Workshop for Kentish Inventors, which read as a cross between an architectural submission and a magical realist essay.’
To find out about the IHBC Marsh Awards and see the 2018 Marsh Award winners see the IHBC NewsBlog
For more background to the Student Awards see the IHBC NewsBlog
For more on the Gus Astley Student Award, and to submit for the 2018 award, which closes on 31 July, see the website
For more on the 2018 School, and other IHBC Schools past and future, see the website
