LORD Mayor of Chester, Councillor Sherin Akhtar, and representatives from the Bluecoat Charity and Chester Civic Trust have recognised Cyril Morris for his lifelong services in the architectural preservation of the city of Chester.

Born within the city walls in 1927, Cestrian Cyril graduated in architecture and town planning before joining the Cheshire County Architect’s department shortly after the Second World War in 1949. Following the Blitz, many of the UK’s historical towns were in a sorry and neglected state with notable buildings of character and value damaged or destroyed. Chester was no exception.

In his role as director of technical services, Cyril led the post-war clean up and was actively engaged in the development and management of an innovative conservation programme dedicated to restoring and reviving the special architectural character and identity of the town.

Since retiring, Cyril has kindly donated some of his earliest architectural drawings, many of which were done by hand, to the Bluecoat Charity where they now hang proudly in the offices on Upper Northgate Street.

As a thank you, the Lord Mayor and representatives from Bluecoat presented Cyril with a beautiful drawing of his own, a pencil sketch of the historic Bluecoat building which now has pride of place alongside other mementoes in his bedroom at Grosvenor Manor.

Lord Mayor of Chester, Cllr Akhtar, was honoured to make the presentation to Cyril. She said: “It is thanks to the tireless work of Cyril in protecting and preserving Chester’s heritage that we have an architecturally significant city that we can be proud of, one that garners interest and visitors from around the World. On behalf of the city and all at Bluecoat, I’m delighted to make this presentation today. Thank you Cyril.”

Christine Russell added; “Cyril is a founder member and former Vice-President of Chester Civic Trust who we were honoured to see at our Garden Party in 2024. The drawing of the Bluecoat shows the building without the decorative railings that had been removed earlier in the 1940s for ‘the war effort’. The Civic Trust campaigned for the reinstatement of the railings, finally restored and unveiled by the former Duke of Westminster in 1987. Cyril Morris has been a lifelong champion for heritage and conservation. He is one of Chester’s unsung heroes.”

Cyril summarised; “Conservation is not about living in the past, it is the creation of an environment within which our architectural heritage can survive for future generations.”

LtoR: Chief executive officer at Chester Bluecoat Charity Mike Jenkins, Grosvenor Manor resident and architectural preservation hero Cyril Morris, chairman of Chester Civic Trust Christine Russell and Lord Mayor of Chester Cllr Sherin Akhtar.

Dr Abigail Lloyd from the University of Nottingham gave a fascinating talk on March 18th on Place-making with time-depth and connection: how to use historical place-names in modern developments. 

Link here to photos from the talk.

New housing and development schemes are often controversial and challenging to deliver. Communities may feel a keen sense of loss as the landscape around them changes. The names chosen for the new streets can feel bland, homogeneous, and commercially driven. The Institute for Name-Studies, based at the University of Nottingham, is the home of the Survey of English Place-Names, a British Academy project carried out by the English Place-Name Society for over a hundred years. Recently, researchers from the Institute partnered with GeoPlace LLP (a partnership between Local Government Authorities and the Ordnance Survey), as well as four specific local authorities, including East Cheshire, to demonstrate how to use rigorously researched historical place-names in modern street naming. This talk will explained the project (as well as other related research at the Institute), its results and future possibilities, including the legislative framework, involving street naming and numbering officers, and national policy requirements. Historical names represent a rich seam of evidence which enable us to bring to life the particular, distinctive, local character of a place and its past, its communities, their language and stories. This talk really illustrated why it matters.

Biography: Abigail comes from a varied background, including practice as a Commercial Chancery barrister. She now researches the historical landscape, using place-names in particular to aid understanding. Her PhD – When is a hill not simply a hill? Looking again at nuance in (early) medieval place-names – focussed on the relationship between hills and medieval settlement and farming in historical place-names, shedding light on various linguistic communities along the way. She has published on this topic as well as on the importance of using field-name material in the HER.

She has been involved in the planning system, both secular and ecclesiastical, in various roles, including as a DCMS appointment to the Statutory Advisory Committee, as Chair of the Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee and running the University of Oxford’s public inquiry course. At the Institute for Name-Studies, she partnered with GeoPlace LLP and various local authorities to explore the use of historical place-name information in street naming for modern developments.

As a research associate at the University of Nottingham, she has been developing the national digital database of historical place-names, including GIS-mapped web applications, whilst, at the University of Cambridge, she has been involved in a project mapping the location and perception of historical wetlands prior to drainage.  Abigail is usually to be found sinking into an upland bog, looking for a view!