Locating value: assigning significance in the historical built environment, a trans-Atlantic review.

All places can be thought of in some way as historical but some places are more explicitly "historical" than others. How then do we decide which historical places are most precious and most worthy of public esteem? How is that distinction experienced, identified and ultimately awarded? Valuing elements of the built environment through acts of designation (whether castle, phone box, road sign, parkland, or wilderness) is necessary for any society with a sense of its past and a collective desire to maintain it. But what is the difference between a Grade 1 and a Grade 2 listed building, or a state and national historic landmark, in both a technical sense, and in terms of our qualitative encounters with those places? This research will work with the National Register of Historic Places in the US, English Heritage and CADW in the UK, and an array of non-state groups and initiatives involved in alternative historic designations to investigate how value is assessed through technical procedures and how value is experienced as a quality that is actually apprehended in place.

The project is designed to ensure that the research engages non-academic beneficiaries and delivers intended impacts through its collaborative nature at the outset with the cross-sector trans-Atlantic Advisory Group; through timetabled meetings with that Advisory Group driven around commentary and input into monthly PI-compiled working papers; through the iterative nature of the project's interview component; through a dissemination strategy geared around practitioner publications; and through the specified design of a "Locating Value" practitioner protocol which will be developed and refined through consultation.

This research will benefit a wide range of audiences in the US and UK directly and indirectly including public sector institutions with remits in cultural and historical resource management and planning, as well as third sector operations (for example conservation groups, community arts organizations, urban planners and private historic preservation consultancies).

The broader public sphere will benefit from the research, in particular, individuals with a specific interest or declared stake in the historical built environment, and also, more widely, anyone who visits or comes into regular contact with places and landscapes badged as "historic".

Specific impacts include the cultivation of a more refined connection between the way value is formally assigned and the way it is experienced in the historical built environment; an associated increase in the effectiveness of investment in the historic built environment and its regulation; an improved "public buy in" to the management of the historical built environment; greater opportunities for engagement and collaboration with local community groups about the merit and significance of historic buildings and more ephemeral places; an enhanced capacity for historical built resources within local neighbourhoods and communities to foster social cohesion, active citizenship, and cultural vibrancy.