Historic Buildings: Dr Adam Menuge FSA IHBC
Role:
Course Director for MSt Building History, University of Cambridge
Adam has 40 years’ experience working with the historic environment, principally on historic buildings. His DPhil thesis was on the literature and topographical writing of the Lake District. Adam has researched and recorded vernacular buildings in Yorkshire for the National Trust and Yorkshire Dales National Park, principally on upland vernacular houses and farm buildings broadly comparable to those of the Lake District, examining field barns, hogg houses and the interrelationship of vernacular buildings and farming landscapes.
While working for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) and English Heritage, the architecture of the Lake District – especially its vernacular buildings and villas – became key research interests and developed into a personal research project (initially with the late Ian Goodall) on the late 18th and 19th-century villas. He has produced research reports on buildings such as Dove Cottage (for the Wordsworth Trust), Wray Castle and Monk Coniston (both for the National Trust) and has a large body of research material.
Adam contributed to the drafting of the nomination document leading to the inscription of the English Lake District World Heritage Site and working to support the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site (DVMWHS) over many years and is currently a member of the DVMWHS Research Group.
At the University of Cambridge, he set up the first master’s programme in Building History. This is now firmly established as a leading course in the broader fields of heritage and conservation.
Adam has also undertaken historic buildings consultancy alongside teaching. including conservation management plans and statements of significance for major historic properties, working for the National Trust (Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, Blickling Hall, Norfolk, Castle Coole, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, and others), English Heritage (Hardwick Old Hall) and a range of private and local authority clients. He continues to run the Master of Studies in Building History and now lives in Suffolk.
World Heritage Specialist:
Historic environment
Vernacular buildings
Villas
Relationship between architecture, landscape, significance, and Outstanding Universal Value
