Twenty years ago, English Heritage (now Historic England) published its first-ever Register of Buildings at Risk across England, which featured nearly 2,000 buildings and monuments that were ‘neglected, broken and unloved’. Recently Historic England was delighted to announce that over two-thirds of those buildings were now safe, in both urban and rural areas right across the country.

While this outcome was largely due to the collaboration and expertise of a wide number of professionals, it was also in no small part thanks to the dedication of craftsmen and women who provided their expert skills and services. There is still much to do in the future – but this was a positive step forward by those who work to protect our heritage.

E May and Sons are a family business established in 1889. Now run by the fourth generation of the family, they provide a range of building skills with an emphasis on friendly personal service, attention to customer needs and a willingness to tackle unusual projects. A small dedicated team has a total of over 130 years experience and are able to call upon the services of a group of trusted and reliable sub-contractors some of whom have worked with them for over thirty years.

A revolutionary invention - developed with the help of ballistics experts - to safeguard against metal thieves is being launched at a North Yorkshire stately home today.

Trace-in-Metal, which has been designed by a former West Yorkshire police detective, fires thousands of microdots into metal sheets “marking” them with a unique identifying code.

All animals have their natural predators - even urban birds that have had no first-hand experience of predators still carry the genetic memory. The site of a bird of prey is enough to cause the pest to take flight, and when hawks/falcons are flown in a specific routine it will alter their roosting and nesting patterns.

East Riding Pest Control Ltd have a variety of birds of prey that they use to deter many pest birds from occupying an area. Their hawks and falcons are trained over a long period specifically for bird control.

Claridge’s is recognised as the finest art deco hotel in London. Having started life as a magnificent private house, it was re established as a hotel and then purpose built on the current site in 1898. It quickly became a favourite of European royalty and heads of state.

Much of the art deco design and features added through the 1920s and 1930s remains in place and has been enhanced over the years.

Oil paintings are at great risk from damage by water, fire, vandalism, central heating, damp storage, removal, auction and the normal ageing process.

At his studio in Addlestone, Surrey, Guild of Master Craftsmen member Robert Mitchell uses modern global friendly conservation techniques to achieve some remarkable transformations on paintings from the 16th century to the present day.

When Holy Trinity Church in Leeds wanted to reduce the large running costs they were paying to keep the church warm they contacted Manchester based church heating specialists HeatinGlobal and entrusted them with the task of making a more user friendly system with reduced costs.

DeepStore Records Management, as the approved remote depository for The National Archives, has been entrusted to provide secure storage for a large volume of First World War records.

Documents from the war include regimental and individual service records, medical records and medal award index cards and associated files. Copies of original letters to families and loved ones from soldiers serving on the front line are also contained within the collection.

Allsworth Roofing are a well established provider of traditional roofing throughout Oxfordshire and the Cotswold areas and the glowing testimonials found on their website assure top rate craftsmanship in skills such as

• Traditional cotswold slate roofing
• Other traditional slate and tiles (both new and reconstituted)
• Leadwork 
• Barn interiors and exteriors 
• General building restoration
• Work on period property 

The Chideock Memorial Chapel, part of the Manor of Chideock, is a building rich with ancient English and religious history. Starting life as nothing more than a barn in the grounds of the manor house, it became a place of secret Catholic worship in the wake of the of the Civil War, before Humphrey Weld, and then his son, Charles, transformed the barn into a beautiful church, dedicated to Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs and St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus.

Obviously, with such incredible history running through the building’s very foundations, any construction work on the chapel needed the utmost care and attention to detail. Every action would need to be sympathetic to that history, and enhance rather than dilute the chapel’s architectural integrity.

This year, as we commemorate the Centenary of the First World War and the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, IKO’s thoughts turn to the construction of British war memorials built to pay homage to those who fell in battle. British War Memorials are some of the most iconic architectural structures in the world and Theipval in Picardie, France is no exception.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission contacted Bell Asphalt to assist with the roof renovation at Thiepval - the largest war memorial in the world dedicated to the missing of the Somme who died in battle and have no known graves.

In 1660 William Groves (Stone Mason) set up in business in Milton-Under-Wychwood due to the proximity of stone quarries at Upton, Taynton and Burford.

William Groves, master mason, was invited by Christopher Kempster, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren’s master mason Thomas Strong, to join Wren’s team of masons on the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

About Access is drawing on its increasing experience of historic buildings to warn owners and occupiers of their responsibilities in terms of the law and good business sense.

The unusual roof of a Byzantine-style church built in Sheffield by renowned ecclesiastical architect Adrian Gilbert Scott (1882-1963) has been restored in a painstaking project requiring all the tiles to be specially made by hand.

As a Grade II listed building of great historical and aesthetic significance, it was important that the roof, which had fallen into a state of disrepair, be restored to the curious specifications laid down by Gilbert Scott himself in 1932.

One of the UK's best known storage providers, DeepStore Records Management, is celebrating a milestone having reached over 2 million boxes of assets, which are stored within Britain’s largest salt mine.

The company, which is part of the Compass Minerals group, set up in Winsford, Cheshire, in 1998, is now aiming to increase the number of boxes it stores to 3.5 million in the next 12 months. It already operates vault space the size of 700 football pitches with items under current management equating to 3.25 million cubic feet.

Dunoon Pier dates back over 100 years and is the only remaining working Victorian pier on the Clyde. Owned by Argyll and Bute Council and under the protection of Historic Scotland, it is a landmark of the River Clyde estuary, with the pier’s building listed as Grade B.

Today, Dunoon Pier still receives a connecting ferry with Gourock and provides a vital link to the mainland which supports the local economy.