CCT's Sarah Robinson awarded OBE
We are delighted to announce that Sarah Robinson, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Conservation at The Churches Conservation Trust has been awarded an OBE in the 2021 New Year Honours List.
Sarah is a true expert in historic building conservation and repair with a 30-year career history in the heritage sector. A charted structural engineer by training and spending her early career was with Alan Baxter & Associates, working on important historic buildings such as Hampton Court Palace, Marlborough House and Southwell Minster.
For 25 years, Sarah has worked at the Churches Conservation Trust, Starting as a caseworker and moving up to Chief Caseworker, Director of Conservation in 2003 and then made Deputy Chief Executive in 2010. In 2017, Sarah was appointed to acting Chief Executive and oversaw the appointment of a new Chief Executive.
A past SPAB scholar (Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings), in 2003, Sarah created CCT’s first conservation policy and continued to oversee and curate CCT’s approach to historic building repair and adaptation. CCT is an award-winning organisation and in no small part due to Sarah’s approach to and oversight of the conservation policy. The greatest accolade was CCT gaining the Europa Nostra Dedicated Service Award and declared a Grand Prix laureate in 2015. This is the most prestigious prize in the heritage field.
In a demonstration of Sarah’s skills, she was responsible for oversight of the highly successful regeneration programme that CCT put together for a programme of projects to repurpose historic churches for sustainable future uses. The projects at All Souls Bolton, St Nicholas Kings Lynn, St Mary-at-the-Quay Ipswich, Holy Trinity Sunderland and St Swithun’s Worcester were all delivered from her teams. These complex reuse projects have all been undertaken whilst ensuring that all new vestings to CCT are repaired with great care and expertise.
As well as delivering high-quality conservation and reuse projects, Sarah has also ensured that the important work of Health and Safety and Safeguarding have been priorities for CCT. She is a pivotal member of the Bats in Churches project, which seeks to address how humans and bats can co-exist in historic church buildings.
During the lockdown period, Sarah has chaired the CCT’s Reopening Taskforce, responsible for the reopening of our 356 churches ensuring that they are safe to visit, coordinating a nationwide process involving staff and volunteers, and providing advice to staff and volunteers on how to work safely during the pandemic.
Sarah is the Chair of the Technical Advisory Group for St George’s Chapel, Windsor as well as a member of their Fabric Advisory Committee.
Everyone at the trust would like to extend their congratulations to Sarah. We would also like to say thank you, your dedication and passion for saving historic buildings at risk has allowed us to undertake amazing work, which helps restore these buildings to their rightful place in the community.