VILLAGE LIFE CHANGING

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29739, 5 February 1962, Page 20

VILLAGE LIFE CHANGING

Big Problem In England

( N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, February 2. “Sometimes a decision is taken too hurriedly with an old building. It is pulled down, and then people regret it,” said the Earl of Euston, chairman ot the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, at Wellington today. He is to make a tour of historical places in New Zealand and will lecture under the auspices of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Lord Euston said one of the greatest problems in England today was not only the preservation of ancient churches, but the actual villages in which they stood. “The picture has changed entirely over the centuries. The roads through these villages were never intended to carry today’s traffic," he said. A good many owners of famous houses had solved their particular problems by handing over the ancestral properties to the national trust, which was now the largest landowner in England.

Some landowners, such as the Duke of Bedford, who had to find several millions in death duties, had attempted to pay off their inbetedness to the Treasury by inviting the public to inspect Woburn Abbey. “But though the duke has attracted some 400.000 people annually and everyone pays half a crown, that return does not allow any margin of profit,” he said. “Also I do not know if this procession of the public through one’s house is the answer. Personally, I would not like to live in a home under such conditions.”