Our Expertise
Consulting & Assessment
Squire Heritage Consulting provides specialist heritage, conservation and townscape advice for projects involving listed buildings, conservation areas and the wider historic environment. Our work combines historic and architectural research with assessment of significance, setting and townscape to provide clear and practical advice throughout the design and planning process.
We help clients understand heritage constraints and opportunities, assess development options and shape proposals that respond to their historic context.
Specialist Heritage Services
Heritage Statements & Impact Assessments
We assess heritage significance and the effects of proposed change, informing design and supporting planning and listed building consent applications.
Heritage Statements · Evaluations of Significance · Heritage Impact Assessments · Setting Impact Assessments
Listed Building & Conservation Area Advice
We assess significance and capacity for change, advising on repair, alteration, extension and development affecting listed buildings and conservation areas. This includes conversion and environmental improvements that support continued use while retaining significant fabric and character.
Historic Building Assessments · Conservation Area Appraisals · Repair Advice & Schedules · Listing & Delisting Advice · Advice on Certificates of Immunity from Listing
Heritage-led Design Advice
Early advice identifies heritage constraints and opportunities before substantial design work. We review development options and inform proposals and pre-application discussions, helping reduce the risk of avoidable redesign.
Pre-Application Advice · Design Review · Heritage Feasibility · Development Options and Advocacy
Townscape, Setting & Visual Assessment
We assess the character of buildings, spaces and views and the effects of proposed development, informing site layouts, scale, massing and design.
Townscape Assessments · Visual Impact Assessments · Views Analysis
Planning Appeals & Hearings
We provide independent heritage reviews and advice on the merits of an appeal, preparing written representations and rebuttal evidence and supporting clients at hearings.
Appeal Advice · Independent Heritage Review · Written Representations · Rebuttal Evidence · Hearings
Conservation Management
Conservation management plans and statements establish significance and guide future use, repair and change. Historic building recording documents a building’s development and surviving fabric, including where required by planning conditions.
Conservation Management Plans & Statements · Historic Building Recording · Written Schemes of Investigation
Historic & Architectural Research
Our assessments are supported by archival research, historic map and plan analysis, building investigation and architectural assessment. Where required, this includes archaeological desk-based assessment to identify known remains, assess archaeological potential and inform further investigation.
Heritage Resources & Guidance
Guidance and information for the historic environment.
Understanding historic buildings and places often involves drawing on a wide range of specialist guidance, archives and research sources. The following resources provide useful information on the conservation, assessment and management of the historic environment, as well as sources for researching individual buildings, conservation areas and heritage assets.
Squire Heritage Consulting regularly draws on national and local heritage guidance, historic records and specialist research as part of our assessment of significance and the effects of proposed change. The resources below provide a useful starting point for property owners, architects, planning consultants and others working with historic buildings and places.
Heritage Guidance & Research
- Historic England — The Government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment in England. Historic England publishes extensive guidance on listed buildings, conservation areas, setting, significance, building conservation, climate change and the management of historic places.
- National Heritage List for England — The official record of nationally designated heritage assets, including listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens and protected wreck sites.
- Heritage Gateway — Provides access to information from a range of national and local historic-environment records and can be a useful starting point for researching buildings, archaeological sites and historic places.
Professional Heritage Organisations
- Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) — The professional body for specialists working in the conservation and management of the historic environment. It provides professional standards, technical information, training and conservation resources.
National Amenity Societies
- The Georgian Group — concerned with the conservation of buildings and designed landscapes dating principally from the Georgian period.
- The Victorian Society — concerned with Victorian and Edwardian architecture and the conservation of buildings of those periods.
- The Twentieth Century Society — promotes understanding and conservation of twentieth- and twenty-first-century architecture and design.
- The Gardens Trust — concerned with the conservation and study of historic designed landscapes, parks and gardens.
- Council for British Archaeology — promotes archaeology and the understanding and protection of the historic environment.