Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB)

We advise. We educate. We campaign. We offer help when it’s wanted and informed resistance when we are alarmed. We encourage excellence in new design to enrich and complement the historic environment.

We represent the practical and positive side of conservation. We have a firm set of principles about how old buildings should be repaired and the practical knowledge to show how these can be put into effect.

We are training the next generation to do the job with discernment and care and we are helping many others, who own or live in old buildings, to understand them better.

Our membership includes many of the leading conservation practitioners as well as home owners, living in houses spanning all historical periods, and those who simply care about old buildings.

Our successes are visible across the country. Thousands of historic buildings survive which would have been lost, mutilated or badly repaired without our intervention.

Today, the Society has a statutory role as adviser to local planning authorities.  We must be notified of listed building applications that involve total or partial demolition.  We are also informed by those religious bodies, that have an exemption from the secular system, of certain types of proposal for listed places of worship.  In addition, our Casework  includes campaigning  to protect historic buildings at risk.