English Heritage centralising services

I heard an amusing story this week about the way English Heritage now organise their services. Our house had a chilly morning yesterday, waking up to no light and no hot water. This little electrical drama was traced to a leaky fridge by breakfast time by my friendly local electrician.

Mosley Street Newcastle, the first street in the world to be lit by electric light © Newcastle Libraries

It turns out that he is a massive history fan and spends all his spare weekends trekking around the country in search of historic places to visit. To his chagrin, his firm has recently lost the contract from English Heritage to look after the electrics of all their properties in the region. It's a family firm and the contract had been theirs for a generation at least. My new friend still has to turn up once a year to check the bulbs to one particularly sensitive property but for everywhere else, a larger centralised firm now takes responsibility, reporting to English Heritage head office.

I should stress that I know nothing of the circumstances of this decision and English Heritage have to run a very tight ship these days to maximise their income. I think they generally do it with flair and imagination but it does seem a shame that this particular contract has been taken out of the hands of a group of committed and caring locals who were immeasurably proud of their work and their small firm in favour of a national account.

The National Trust's flagship property at Cragside, the first house in Britain to be lit by electricity © Chris Gunn/Cragside Estate

My helpful electrician had a great story. He got an emergency summons one busy weekend afternoon from the English Heritage manager at a property nearby - blackout; everything had stopped working except the alarms which were screaming away overtime. He arrived to find the harassed manager dealing, not just with the electricity outage, but with a slightly distressed group of visitors who were expecting a tour and whose ears were ringing with the deafening alarm. Having sorted the electrical problem, the only way to stop the noise was to call the alarm company with the codes. Only the manager could do this. What to do? "No problem", says my friend "You call the alarm company and I'll look after the tour". He, it turns out, knows not just the history of the property but also the history of the area and thoroughly enjoyed sharing it with the delighted group. The manager, he tells me, was relieved and thoroughly impressed. Of course, even if he may have got a few things wrong, I think the story illustrates that sometimes, local can be best.

Bulb hungry chandeliers in the drawing room at English Heritage's Brodsworth Hall © CC

#historichouses #electricians