News across the Commonwealth
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The Commonwealth Heritage Forum has established a heritage skills training opportunity at St John’s, Antigua, as part of the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills (CHS) Training Programme.
The Commonwealth Heritage Forum will award four full bursaries to students and professionals from the Commonwealth to attend the Prince’s Foundation Summer School at Dumfries House near Glasgow, Scotland, in July 2023.
Applications are now open for two fully funded scholarships on the MA Programme at The Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts.
The Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme at Roebuck Street, Barbados, has been a huge success, drawing in over 40 young participants from across the UK, the US, and the Caribbean.
The Commonwealth Heritage Forum’s Queen Elizabeth II Heritage Skills Training Programme, generously funded by £4.5m from the Hamish Ogston Foundation, has commissioned a Vision Statement for works on Roxburgh House, Gardens, and Herbarium in Kolkata. Roxburgh is one of the main priorities for action under our Commonwealth Heritage at Risk Programme and is already featured on our website.
20-year restoration project completes at former British Residency, the first of 20 projects under the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme, a £4.5million Commonwealth-wide conservation programme funded by the Hamish Ogston Foundation. The Reception, held on Saturday 14 January celebrated the completion of the final phase of restorative work at Osmania Women’s University College in Hyderabad, once the British Residency and one of the most important European heritage buildings at risk in India.
The CHS Training Programme has awarded 6 Hamish Ogston Foundation Commonwealth Traineeships to fund the attendance of 6 UK-based participants on the course. They will join Trainees from Tulane University and the University of the West Indies in Barbados, 3–17 January. Based at Roebuck Street, Bridgetown, the training course will develop a heritage conservation management plan for this 650-meter historic street.
The Architectural Conservation Traineeship in Hyderabad was a hugely positive learning experience for all involved. The Traineeship was coordinated with the World Monuments Fund and was the first overseas project under the Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme.
Francis Maude, Director at Donald Insall Associates in London, describes the late 19th century City Hall in Georgetown, Guyana, and its connections with civic architecture in Britain. This conservation project also provides a good example of the benefits of collaborative partnerships, training workshops and formal sponsorship.
Encouraging news from Kolkata. Three landmark historic buildings have been restored for public exhibitions. Metcalfe Hall, opened in 1844, has been repaired in traditional lime plaster by the Archaeological Survey of India. Belvedere House has emerged from a five-year restoration programme with an exhibition celebrating Icons of Indian Nationalism. In the heart of the city, the old Currency Building has been refurbished for a jute and silk exhibition and fashion show.
Recollecting chapters of Delhi’s architectural evolution in the twentieth century, one undoubtedly recalls the events that took place in 1911 and 1947.
A fascinating article describing the outcome of recent archaeological excavations of a site in Jamaica occupied by successive generations of the Tainos.