SAVE at 50

On the 50th anniversary of SAVE Britain's Heritage, Simon Jenkins, a trustee since 1975, looks back on the past half century of successes and failures

- Simon Jenkin

VISITORS left the gallery with tears streaming down their faces. That is what Sir Roy Strong, director of the V&A Museum, recorded in his memoir of the 'Destruction of the Country House' exhibition in 1974. No wonder The Observer called the V&A show 'the most emotive, propagandist exhibition ever to grace a public museum's walls'. Sir Roy declared that 'no other country has been party to such artistic destruction in a period of peace'.

By the time it was staged, British buildings were finally being listed for preservation. The National Trust was taking ownership of more each year. Yet it was reported that one house a week was still being lost. Hidden behind walls and up drives, the massacre continued. There was no one to love them and few to care.

The mid 1970s saw a counterrevolution in attitudes to architecture. The previous decade had marked the partial collapse of Modernism as the guiding ideology of British town planning. The teaching of its figurehead, the Swiss-born Le Corbusier, that old buildings were by their nature obsolete, still ruled most architecture colleges and planning departments. However, London's Whitehall, Soho and Piccadilly Circus had at least escaped demolition. The residents of Covent Garden revolted against being evicted to make way for a second Barbican. A giant Motorway Box encircling central London was abandoned.