Saturday 15 March 2014

'I'm here to help down and outs'

Simon Thurley describes his job at English Heritage as 'moulding history'. He tells Alice Thomson what's worth preserving - and what should be knocked down

Simon Thurley
Thurley is relieved he's not running the National Trust: 'It's politics with a little p - doing up council houses that once belonged to a Beatle. We're political with a capital P' 

Across the council estates, past the spot where a man was shot last week, and along a narrow, cobbled street stand a pair of wrought-iron gates. Behind them lies the "finest and most handsome" house in London: a 17th-century treasure, according to Simon Thurley in The Time Out Book of London Walks.

The William and Mary rectory in Stepney, which belonged to an old sea captain who worked for the East India Company, has 30 rooms, wooden ships' floorboards, stags' heads, sage green walls and a dining room for 40. Its garden could have been designed for Henry VIII at Hampton Court. What Thurley fails to tell Time Out readers is that this is his house. He rescued it four years ago from developers who had bought it from Tower Hamlets council.

It used to be a career advisory office, with taps spouting brown water, no heating and a 10-minute hike between the kitchen and dining room. On the ceilings, you can still see the marks left by the strip lighting.

Appropriately, Thurley names "ruins" as his recreation in Who's Who. He recently took over as chief executive of English Heritage, and seems to be exactly what the beleaguered old Ministry of Works needs. He even loves drama and dressing up. For his 40th birthday party in August, he donned knickerbockers to masquerade as Charles II and then changed into Nell Gwyn, complete with cleavage, after dinner. As director of the Museum of London, he put Lady McAlpine's Vivienne Westwood corsets beside scholarly exhibitions about the Romans, and he opened the coffin of a Roman woman live on television.

When I arrive at his house at 8pm, he appears like a ghost at the door; his face is white, his hair luminous yellow, his neck hidden behind a vast polo neck. "I haven't eaten for two days," he says. "I've been struck down by the plague."

The house is freezing; we walk up endless stairs, past murals of seafarers, to huddle in front of the fire in the drawing room. The sideboard looks like a 19th-century bar, covered with dusty liqueurs, two open bottles of champagne and a brace of stuffed duck. Piles of books prop up the springs of the sofa, cobwebs sag between oil paintings.

"I'm afraid there's only one comfy chair in the house," Simon says, as he sits on it.

His wife, Katharine, a couture milliner, finds warmth in a studio flat in Pimlico during the day, but they both love the house. As Thurley is talking about his new task of touring the nation's wrecks, she says: "We miss you when you're away."

English Heritage has been unloved for far too long. It went through four chief executives in seven years. No one cared. Successive arts ministers haven't had a clue what it does, even though it has a budget of £150 million a year.

Why did Thurley take the job? He was already the successful young director of the Museum of London, tipped to take over either the British Museum or the National Portrait Gallery.

"I was never interested in the Portrait Gallery or the National; they're smaller, less interesting and filled with flat art. The job's too easy," he says. "I'm a historian - I love old buildings and archaeology; lots of old skeletons."

But the British Museum is stuffed with mummies and far more glamorous. "The two jobs were advertised in the same week. I felt hideously disloyal leaving the Museum of London, but I wrote a long list of pros and cons and, in the end, I decided EH was crying out for me."

So the ruins beckoned.

"When you're first asked to be in Who's Who - and that happened ages ago - I didn't really think before I put 'ruins' as my passion, but they are. EH has 412 of them, all in desperate need of care."

What is his favourite property?

"Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire and Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire: I'd love either as my country house. One of the reasons people go to EH properties is to imagine. We're peddling an enchanted dream, encouraging visitors to fantasise about what it would have been like to live in a turret or own a wine cellar."

English Heritage is the owner of last resort. "We take the real down and outs, the beautiful buildings that are either too raddled or impossible to run commercially, and we coax them back to life. Stonehenge, shipwrecks, royal palaces, ancient monuments, castles, abbeys, churches; they're a third of what we do and they include some heart-breaking stories.

We're not the National Trust; we're funded by the Government. Our aim is to preserve our heritage for everyone, from the professor to the schoolchild wanting to know where the Romans had their bath."

In the past, the organisation has been accused of being twee, ruining old castles by installing tea shops, lavatories and gimmicks. "We're far less homogenous than the National Trust, with its tea towels. Some academics say they hate the mown grass, but they're snobs. Visiting a site isn't just an aesthetic experience, it's physical. You're knackered and thirsty after half an hour and need a cup of tea. If you've driven an hour to a Roman site, the first thing you want is a lavatory, not to visit some ancient water cistern."

He's relieved he's not running the National Trust. "It's politics with a little p - doing up council houses that once belonged to a Beatle. We're political with a capital P - we're moulding history and we employ 1,800 people to help."

The staff ensure that developers don't tear down the past - even buildings such as Centre Point, the Barbican and a prisoner-of-war camp. "We protect the best from every decade. The premise is easy: keep the good stuff, knock down the bad."

What would he knock down, then?

"St Bart's Hospital, for a start. Kensington Barracks overlooking Hyde Park. The Arndale centre in Wandsworth - quite a lot of shopping centres, actually. It's a long time before we have to agonise about the Dome. But go to Birmingham, and we've listed the Rotunda. The tricky part with modern architecture is recognising what's good. No one's going to argue about Lincoln Cathedral."

English Heritage has a reputation as a fuddy-duddy outfit, determined to block every exciting new project that endangers its gargoyles. "We used to be the people who liked to say no," says Thurley. "But I want to change all that. The best way of securing a future for many buildings is to find a commercial use for them. I'd prefer an old house to be turned into a hotel than to be left derelict. Tate Modern is tremendous: the building wasn't even listed and now it's had a new lease of life."

He is determined to clear out the bats from EH's belfry. "Architects and developers think we're a fetter to progress. My role is to show we can help regeneration. Look at Notting Hill - everyone now wants to live there because most of the houses haven't been torn down."

People, he believes, like living in old buildings. "Even new Barratt homes use a traditional model from the 18th century."

So he'd tear down all 20th-century housing? "I used to live in a Thirties mansion block in Stockwell, which I adored, and I'd love a loft conversion by the Thames, with central heating and no woodworm. We should have both."

It's all down to education, he says. "If people understand the area around them, they value it, so there is less vandalism. It's a virtuous circle."

How do you capture the interest of the public? "Conservation is going to hit the big screen next summer," he says. "The makers of Big Brother are making a programme called Restoration - it's going to be like Pop Idol for old buildings."

Isn't that trite? "I've nothing against turning my buildings into stars. They're all bidding to have a make-over; one ruin will be returned to its former glory."

He's the first professional historian to be asked to run EH. "They used to think that EH could be run in the same way as transport or health - by bureaucrats. We've had plan after plan and focus groups; now, we need vision. I'm only 40 - I'll be around for a while."

His relationship with the Government will be crucial. Wigs and old tapestries are not Tony Blair's thing; he prefers people carriers and guitars. "My job is to bash the Government if I think they're trampling over our heritage. I'll have to use persuasion or duff them up in public, but it will be fun."

He's one of the few heads of the cosy arts establishment who has no links to New Labour. "We've got a modernising Government that likes looking forward and hates looking back. They are always looking at what they can discard. Tourism will soon be the biggest industry in the world. Our past is our future. It also gives everyone a sense of place and identity."

Thurley was one of the first historians to stride around Britain's battlefields on television - will he give all that up now? "I'll be back soon, doing the Romans. I love communicating history. But everyone's in it now, flailing their arms around. I've been there before history was hip. It annoys me seeing academics cravenly beg to go on television."

His own interest in EH property goes back to when he had just learnt to walk. "The first one I remember is Hadrian's Wall. My father was a country vet, my mother was a JP and social worker. I was a country bumpkin, brought up in Cambridgeshire. We spent our weekends and holidays going to see stuff. Then I went to Kimbolton School, in a castle, and I've spent the rest of my life dreaming about moats."

After A-levels, however, he chose the brutal architecture of London University as the backdrop to continue his passion. "I remember the day I got off the train. I loved London so much I've never left, until this job came up. Now I'm discovering Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol."

Thurley started working with English Heritage at 26. "After Hampton Court burnt down, I was on a special team, working as an inspector." The Royal Palace Agency was set up and he was asked to be the first curator at 28.

"The Royal Palaces job was paradise. We suddenly made a great deal of money very quickly. Hampton Court, Kensington Palace and the Tower of London were all gems. We never bumped into many of the Royals - except Princess Margaret, who came for picnics at Hampton Court - but I think we can count Prince Charles as a supporter."

So who is the enemy? "Thoughtlessness, ignorance, carelessness, blind lack of understanding: they are the enemies."

Ken Livingstone makes him recoil. "He's obsessed by creating a modern city - a New York - but even New York is mainly 19th century. He's ruining London. People are tearing up their front gardens because of him. No one around here can park any more. Babies are being fumigated in their prams by his traffic policy, just so the tourists can skip across Trafalgar Square. London should be for Londoners first."

The author and critic A N Wilson describes Thurley as "a man in a million. He has shameless ambition, charm, humour, scholarship and brio." Thurley laughs at this. "I don't think I'm ambitious at all. It's all chance, and I'm energetic. I didn't even publish a book until I was 30. But my Royal Palaces series has done rather well."

The secret, he says, is always to take a down-and-out. "If you're going to a new job, go for the scruffiest, most uncared-for, desperate institution. Then whatever you do can only be better." It sounds as though his next job should be leading the Tory party.

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