Heritage. It’s what Britain does best. We are famous for it. Brand Britain and heritage are synonymous. Stately homes; crumpets and honey; cricket on the village green. This surely is what brings tourists to our shores every summer, especially Americans, many of whom seem to regret that their forebears chose an independent path, depriving later generations of castles and royalty of their own. And it’s not that we are mercenary, but those dollars and the boost they bring to the economy certainly don’t go astray.
It seems as if our castles, buildings and monuments are being cosseted as never before. As we hurtle into an uncertain future, exploring unprecedented technologies, we are at the same time embracing our past. Heritage is the next new thing.
But what is this thing called heritage? Whose heritage are we talking about, and what makes our heritage identifiably ‘British’? Does an emphasis on heritage help us to understand ourselves better as a nation or are we simply perpetuating the notion of a Britain that only ever existed for a minority – in other words, heritage as an exercise in elitism?
Film and television have played their part in reinforcing the stereotype of an endless Edwardian summer. It’s an easy and pleasant escape to revisit Brideshead for a few hours or journey to Howard’s End and pretend that is how everybody lived. Nostalgia is what is used to be.
When Margaret Thatcher established the Department of Heritage in 1983 (it’s been DCMS since 1997) participation in the new Europe, as today, was by no means universally accepted. Many feared a diminution, if not a complete loss, of Britishness and to look back to the glory days of Empire to a time when Britannia really did rule the waves was an appealing proposition. Conservative thinkers could embrace a past that appeared to offer a clear signpost as to who we were and what we stood for.
The concept of Britain as a nation predates any in Europe. We proudly talk of ‘1000 years of British history’. But the History departments in our universities have been debating whether there is such a beast for the past decade or more. When Scottish and Welsh history is taught, where does that leave ‘British’ history?
And the problem has become more complicated ever since Bede writers made the assumption that Britain is really England writ large.
There are those who can comfortably interchange the words ‘English’ and ‘British’ and know exactly what is meant. In the days of Empire when there was much to be gained, elite Scots and Welsh went along for the British ride without question. But these days nationalism is out in the open. Is one Scots first and British second, or vice versa? The whole notion of a British identity is up for question. If we can’t adequately define what is British, how can we define a British heritage?
Add gender, class, regionalism and cultural diversity to the equation and the problem of just whose heritage we are talking about becomes even more complex.
To their credit, English Heritage has been grappling with issues such as these for the past few years. Note, that’s English Heritage. There isn’t an overarching organisation for British Heritage – DCMS is as close as it gets. But even the findings of a recent report have fallen into the trap of using English and British interchangeably.
The study by English Heritage commenced in 2000, and was conducted by Market and Opinion Research International (MORI). The three objectives were to establish attitudes towards the concept of heritage; to gauge participation in heritage activities and perhaps, most interestingly, establish attitudes towards heritage by people of ethnic minority background. That couldn’t possibly be an ‘us and them’ moment coming on, could it?
‘Heritage is a concept open to a variety of interpretations’, the website tells us. ‘MORI Socioconsult is a tool which provides some insights into what the British public understand it to mean and why, and what values they associate with it.’ Yet we are also told that the survey was confined to English respondents. The English/British thing is deeply entrenched.
The survey found that around 75% of respondents agreed with the statement: ‘What I love about Britain is its heritage’. And historic buildings and palaces had been spontaneously identified as being what heritage was mostly all about. Indeed, 84% agree that they are happy to see public funding spent on heritage. A few wondered about this spending, when it could be argued that there are more urgent social issues, but overwhelmingly, heritage was seen to be A-Good-Thing.
Even more could see the benefit of heritage to tourism (94%) and providing jobs and boosting the economy (88%).
The MORI survey identified a strong feeling amongst those who would call themselves ‘traditionalists’, that British identity is ‘under threat’. They speak of a ‘national superiority’ – a belief that Britain is different through its unique culture and heritage and even superior to other nationalities in a number of ways. These same people are opposed to Britain’s participation in Europe as they fear that our ‘distinctive national identity’ will disappear. This appears to be the ‘distinctive national identity’ of the ruling class – castles and manor houses, not biscuit factories and railway yards.
Immigrants tended to view heritage as being ‘non-built’ – and more to do with culture – things such as ways of life, types of food and hair-braiding.
As these people’s roots lie elsewhere, it is perhaps not surprising that their perceptions of heritage are more easily focused on things that could be transported to a new country. For some of the group participants, ‘traditional’ English concepts of heritage, like country houses, monuments and so on meant very little indeed.
Immigrants are not the only ones who had a broader perspective on heritage, it seems. It was found that young people (presumably of all ethnicities) also do not relate to traditional ideas of heritage and hold a much more internationalist view of Britain’s place in the world.
So here we have a problem. If we can extrapolate to a broader canvas than England and look nationally, the heritage industry seems to be clinging to a past that tourists and traditionalists are demanding, but which has decreasing relevance to the changing face of today’s Britain.
The MORI report recognises this difficulty and although it falls short of making recommendations per se, it does devote a section to the implications of its findings. Consultation with local communities is regarded as essential. ‘Greater openness and consultation about what and who should be preserved in the local community would not go amiss’, the report says.
It should be ‘ensure[d] the debate is carried beyond those groups traditionally associated with the heritage’ it adds. And ‘working to increase awareness of the culture and heritage of the different ethnic communities in England would help balance the focus of the heritage in England’ it forcefully concludes.
English Heritage did not respond to an enquiry about how far down the track they were in taking these observations on board. We can only expect that they are working on it. The research would be too expensive an exercise to ignore.
With the concept of a British national identity becoming more blurred by the day, perhaps a local grassroots approach to heritage is the most appropriate way of preserving our past and exploring who we are. Regeneration of our cities is high on the national agenda but pretty streetscapes are just the beginning. The stories of the past involve workers and women, invaders and immigrants, royalty and ruffians. To understand them is to understand us.
And here is the dilemma. Is the heritage industry about such understandings, or is it about a ‘theme park’ Britain that will continue to pull in those dollars, yen and euros? The ‘Disneyfication’ of our heritage, however we choose to define it, is not inevitable. However it is the convincing of funding bodies that ‘authentic’ heritage is as worthy of their interest, when the economic benefits are not immediately apparent that is our greatest challenge.
