Phillip Venning - Ab SPAB!

Phillip Venning OBE spent 28 years as Secretary of SPAB. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings was founded 137 years ago by William Morris and Venning spent half his working lifetime keeping up the good work looking after the nation's heritage.

Also a journalist, he worked on the Times Educational Supplement, but in 1977 he cut his writing teeth with a book called Wyldes - A New History.

Wyldes House was the home he shared with his mother and sister and was located down at the back of the Old Bull & Bush inn in Hampstead. The family home was an old farmhouse which was visited by Charles Dickens and William Blake. It is perhaps through this research that Venning got the bug for perserving old buildings. Anyway, he will be talking on Wednesday 17th September at 3pm in Rye's Methodist church with his subject matter the preservation of old buildings.