Board of Directors

Simon is a Director at Donald Insall Associates and a passionate conservation architect.  Since he joined Insall in 2000, he has worked on some of the country’s most important historic buildings, helping to bring sites back to life through restoration and reuse and finding the most sustainable, most financially viable solution.  Many of his projects have involved public funding and working with a wide variety of stakeholders, and his passion lies in giving historic buildings a secure future through repair and sensitive intervention. His specialisms include country houses, timber-framed structures, civic buildings, and places of worship, and he is the incumbent architect at Bangor Cathedral.  Simon is on the AABC Civic Trust Awards judging panel.  

Jill is an independent architectural glass consultant with experience of historic building conservation in the public, private and voluntary sectors. As a stained and plain glass historian, she is currently a member of the Church Buildings Council’s Stained Glass Committee, chairs Wells Cathedral Fabric Advisory Committee, is the National Amenity Societies’ nominee on the Bath and Wells and Salisbury Diocesan Advisory Committees, a Trustee of Historic Building and Places and the St Andrew’s Conservation Trust. Jill is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Royal Society of Arts, a full member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation and became an AABC lay assessor in 1999.

Becky is a Conservation Architect and Associate at Patrick Wilson | Architects. She is a Director of the Architects Accredited in Building Conservation register (AABC), sits on the AABC Management Team, and is the social media lead. 

Becky is passionate about the conservation of historic fabric and the creative re-use of spaces. She enjoys engaging with clients, stakeholders and communities to find sustainable uses for buildings which suit individual and collective needs. Her project experience ranges from masterplanning for Scheduled Ancient Monuments and large-scale Ecclesiastical projects, to detailed technical design and condition surveys.

Lynda is an historic environment practitioner experienced in large scale surveys, repair strategies, heritage at risk, funding, policy development and digitisation.  She is a director of Jubb Clews Ltd, a regulated surveying practice, which serves clients in the west of the UK and on the island of Ireland.  Lynda is accredited in building conservation by, and is a fellow of, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.  She is also a full member of IHBC and volunteers for IHBC on its governance working group.  In assessing, Lynda is the external examiner of the UCLan postgraduate course in building conservation, and serves as a lay assessor in the CARE (Engineer’s) building conservation accreditation scheme. Lynda previously chaired the RICS Building Conservation Forum and served on RICS’ Governing Council. She has charity board experience as both a Trustee and Treasurer for Jewish Heritage UK, and more recently for Property Research Trust.

Dearbhail is a Conservation Architect based in Cartmel, Cumbria and works extensively throughout the northwest on a wide range of domestic, ecclesiastical, commercial and civic buildings. She is a director at John Coward Architects, an Architect Accredited in Building Conservation (AABC), and a Specialist Conservation Architect on the RIBA Conservation Register (RIBA SCA). In 2014, Dearbhail undertook the SPAB Lethaby Scholarship and has served on the SPAB Technical Panel as well as leading the SPAB in the North Regional Group.

Dearbhail was elected to the Approved Panel of Architects and Surveyors for Carlisle and Blackburn Diocese and is a member of the Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Diocese of Carlisle.

Dearbhail also voluntarily assists the School of Architecture at Liverpool University as a guest reviewer of student projects.  Dearbhail currently sits on the Management Team and the Board of the AABC. She also is a member of the National Judging Panel for the Civic Trust Awards.

After obtaining a BSc Hons in Building Technology from Manchester University, Graham qualified as a Chartered Surveyor, Chartered Builder and achieved full membership of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. 
He worked for over 25 years as a project manager in the building industry on large residential and urban regeneration projects, with the latter sparking a keen interest and enthusiasm for preserving old buildings. 

In 1993, he joined COTAC, the building conservation education charity, establishing an English network of building conservation training centres and organising regular international conferences. This was followed by development of numerous European building conservation training initiatives, working with partner countries and supported by the Council of Europe and the European Union.

He then gained experience as a regeneration and conservation officer with a London Borough, offering and managing English Heritage and HLF grant funds for refurbishment of historic buildings.

Graham joined the Building Crafts College as conservation consultant, with duties including Course Director of the Foundation Degree in Historic Building Conservation and organising other conservation activities.

Now retired, Graham continues to support COTAC as a volunteer and represents the Charity as a Director of the Architects Accredited in Building Conservation Register.  
 

Becky is an Associate Director at Donald Insall Associates. She qualified as an Architect in 2012, is ARB and AABC registered, an affiliate member of the IHBC and sits on the Victorian Society’s Northern Building Committee. Becky has a particular love of Victorian Architecture and has worked on an array of historic buildings, with projects including Rochdale Town Hall, Pontefract Castle, Abbey School and the Lion Salt Works, many of which are NLHF funded. She has also managed NLHF projects for numerous significant churches and has had much experience working at Manchester Cathedral to produce various standalone schemes.

Andrew is a conservation architect based in Sheffield, U.K. for nearly 50 years. He has enjoyed instructions involving a substantial range of projects of a dazzling variety for Scheduled Ancient Monuments, designated heritage buildings and buildings in Conservation Areas. These have ranged from the repair of a derelict dovecote, to works to major industrial buildings, monuments, houses and many others! He has always worked on a wide range of ecclesiastical buildings undergoing repair or improvement for different faiths and denominations. 

He was involved with post graduate education for Building Conservation at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London for 15 years, which has led to ongoing teaching/workshop participation for over 20 years in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He is an EU Accredited Heritage Expert involved with heritage training NGOs in Kosovo, Bosnia- Herzogovina, Serbia, Albania and Romania.

Neal is a conservation architect and director at Buttress. His experience ranges from hands-on assessment and detailed conservation design to leading multidisciplinary teams on large capital projects involving complex funders and stakeholders. He is passionate about the continued use and care of our precious historic buildings and places, ensuring that they are appropriately maintained and remain usable, accessible, and relevant to current and future generations. 

Neal is also a Director of the Architects Accredited in Building Conservation register and sits on the management team. He is a Civic Trust Conservation Awards judge and sits on the Civic Trust Award National Judging Panel representing the AABC.

Tom has technical skills as an architect as well as academic research and writing skills. Tom’s doctoral dissertation was commended as ‘outstanding’ at the RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2014, and formed the basis for two book publications Value in the View (RIBA Publishing, 2018) and The Protected Vista (Routledge, 2020). As a Partner in Purcell’s Manchester studio, Tom has advised clients on a broad range of projects from condition surveys through to the delivery of complex conservation and new-build projects on-site. He has teaching experience in architectural education, having tutored and lectured at Cardiff University, Newcastle University, the British School at Rome and the University of Queensland.

Richard is a director of Storah Architecture, a RIBA Chartered Practice providing Architectural Services and Historic Building Consultancy based in Todmorden, in the South Pennines. Rik has worked in Manchester, Skipton and Kendal, gaining experience in building conservation and ecclesiastical architecture.  Much of his experience is in traditional building repair and of modern additions to historic buildings, including private homes, country houses, large civic buildings and churches.  Many projects involve reusing and regenerating buildings or sites and development in sensitive locations. Richard is an AABC-accredited conservation architect and RIBA accredited Specialist Conservation Architect with an MA in the Conservation of Historic Buildings. He is on the approved list of architects for the Church of England in the Blackburn, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield Dioceses and for The Yorkshire Baptist Association.  He is a member of the RIBA and the IHBC. As a member of the British Standards Institute’s Committee for the Conservation of Tangible Cultural Heritage, Richard was a UK expert for the BS EN 16096:2012 Condition survey of historic buildings and a member of the drafting panel for BS 7913:2013 A Guide to the Principles of the conservation of historic buildings.

‘Dr Michael Nevell, FSA, MCIfA, is the Industrial Heritage Support Officer for England, at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. He has more than 30 years of experience as a field archaeologist, and taught undergraduates and post-graduates as a senior lecturer for 18 years at Manchester and Salford universities. A former Chair of the Association for Industrial Archaeology, he is the author of over 100 academic papers and books, including the Archaeology of Ironbridge in 20 Digs (Amberley Publishing, 2023); the Oxford Handbook of Industrial Archaeology (OUP 2022); The Archaeology of Manchester in 20 Digs (Amberley Publishing, 2020), and The Birth of an Industrial City: Glasgow and the Archaeology of the M74 (Society of Antiquaries Scotland 2016). He is President of the Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society, edits the Association for Industrial Archaeology newsletter, ‘IA News’, is the European Route of Industrial Heritage representative for England, and provides secretarial support for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Industrial Heritage.

Louise is an IHBC and AABC conservation accredited architect specialising in ecclesiastical buildings and the sensitive conversion and restoration of historic buildings. Louise is the Cathedral Architect for Blackburn Cathedral and is inspecting architect for a selection of churches within the north.

Louise has previously worked on the conservation of The Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), Drapers Livery Hall and Huddersfield Train Station. Louise is now working on several church repair and re-ordering projects, as well as the conversion of a castle into a hotel. She is also on the Fabric Advisory Committee of Ripon Cathedral and the AABC Management Team.

Professor Oriel Prizeman leads the Centre for Sustainable Building Conservation at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. Formerly an RIBA accredited Specialist Conservation Architect, she ran her own practice for sixteen years and taught design studios intermittently at Cambridge, the Royal College of Art and the University of East London. She founded the MSc in Sustainable Building Conservation at Cardiff in 2013. She was a board member of the North American based Association for Preservation Technology from 2015-17. She has a first degree and PhD from the University of Cambridge and a diploma from the Architectural Association. Her research exploits non-destructive digital models to interrogate historic environmental conditions.