LOST AND ABANDONED HERITAGE OF THE COMMONWEALTH

Free Online Talks

Our friends at the Commonwealth Heritage Forum are launching a fascinating series of free, online talks on lost and abandoned built heritage sites across the Commonwealth. You can travel digitally for free to these evocative sites with expert heritage guides, commencing on Wednesday, 11 June 2025, at 6pm, with Michael Mallinson exploring the war-battered fate of heritage interventions in the port city of Suakin in Sudan. Other places featured in the series include Montserrat, Jamaica, South Australia and Pakistan.

Abandoned Houses of St Helena

Of special interest to us at UKSHHT is Peregrine Bryant's talk on the abandoned houses of St Helena. Peregrine (who is one of our trustees) is a well-known conservation architect who, working with the National Trust of St Helena, is currently drawing up a conservation plan for Jamestown. He visits the island frequently and has collected a wealth of information and photos about its remarkably rich built heritage, some bits of which have survived the vicissitudes of time rather better than others. You can explore this intriguing, occasionally elegiac history, with him on Wednesday, 9 July, at 6pm.

Rock Rose House, St Helena, prior to restoration. Image courtesy of Peregrine Bryant and the Commonwealth Heritage Forum.

Follow the link for info and joining details for all the talks in the series: https://www.commonwealthheritage.org/introducing-our-new-lecture-series-lost-abandoned-places-across-the-commonwealth/

And if you haven't already done so, do sign up to the Commonwealth Heritage Forum's newsletter. It opens the door to a little known world of intriguing, often under-appreciated heritage sites and their history.