Changing the way we do things: The impact of funding changes on heritage management and site interpretation in late twentieth-century England

Abstract

There is an underlying conflict in the management of historic sites and monuments in the UK between public interest and private property. Such conflict can be recognized in the genesis of the earliest legislation (the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882). This tension remains important and the relative weights given to public and private interest might be seen as a barometer of wider political and economic conditions. This paper seeks to address changes in the funding of archaeology and heritage presentation during the period of the Conservative administration of 1979–97, when the economics of the free market were espoused with vigour in the UK. Funding of fieldwork shifted from direct grants from the central purse, to the support of job creation schemes and latterly to developer funding. Meanwhile heritage presentation has become more aggressively commercial, as English Heritage, the National Trust, the museums and private entrepreneurs seek to maximize financial return to underwrite the conservation and curation of historic places.