ABSTRACT
It is one of the oddities of conservation in this country that it took 20 years to move from the protection of individual buildings to the protection of whole areas of special interest. It was true that, as we shall see, buildings could be listed for their group value, but the idea of going beyond this to consider how whole areas could be preserved seems to have taken root late in the day. This is curious, given that the Housing Acts of 1909 and 1923 had allowed-without effect-for town schemes to include provision for areas of special character; and curious too in that the planning system in this country has always considered proposals for development-any development-not just on the grounds of their intrinsic merit but also in relation to their effect on the general amenities of the environment locally and, on occasion, nationally.
