ABSTRACT
Several writers on the subject of conservation have sought to trace its earliest manifestations in Britain but few have been able to follow it much earlier than the eighteenth century. Michael Ross identifies the ‘first glimmerings’ in the latter part of the seventeenth century and cites John Aubrey’s prolific but chaotic antiquarian studies (none of which was published until after his death in 1697) and Anthony a Wood’s Historia et Antiquitates Univ. Oxon. (1674) as displaying an early interest in ancient monuments and mediaeval English architecture.1 But these are not relevant to the process of conservation as distinct from scholarly pursuits.
