Upstairs Downstairs

On a warm summer evening last June, seventy men and women concerned with the conservation and management of historic towns converged on the beautiful, golden-stone town of Stamford to discuss an at first sight unlikely topic: Living Over The Shop. Though Stamford, like Grantham, is in Lincolnshire, this had nothing to do with Baroness Thatcher and her shopkeeper alderman father, but rather with increasing concern about the effect on historic (and other) town centres of unoccupied floors above shops.

Most of the seventy came from towns whose local authorities belong to the forty-strong English Historic Towns Forum, which had arranged a one-day seminar on the subject. There are several reasons why EHTF members are worried about empty upper storeys in their town centres. One is, quite simply, physical conservation. Upper floors with no use beyond the storage of empty cardboard cartons and broken chairs are prey to a condition known to conservation officers as 'deep roof.