Monday 15th January 2018 - Wayne Cocroft
How the Cold War became heritage:
Wayne Cocroft, Historic England It is now over 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent demise of the communist regimes that had dominated Eastern Europe for over 40 years. This abrupt end to a political reality that had defined world politics for a generation led to a massive drawdown of military forces and an expectation of a ‘Peace Dividend’. In the United Kingdom many hundreds of defence sites ranging from large airfields to small monitoring posts were closed and placed on the open market.
The number of sites being released appeared to be overwhelming, but also presented a unique opportunity to safeguard key sites that reflected our national experience of this period of recent history. Drawing on examples from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, this talk will explore how the most significant Cold War sites were selected for protection and how they are now being conserved and presented.
Wayne Cocroft is an archaeologist and Manager of Historic England’s Investigation East team based in Cambridge. For over 25 years he has specialised in the archaeological recording and assessment of redundant military sites. He is co-author of Cold War building for nuclear confrontation 1946-1989 (2003), A Fearsome Heritage diverse legacies of the Cold War (2007), and recently Der Teufelsberg in Berlin Eine archäologische Bestandsaufnahme des westlichen Horchpostens im Kalten Krieg (2016). He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
http://www.historicengland.org.uk/research/current-research/assessing-significance/military/cold-war/
How the Cold War became heritage:
Wayne Cocroft, Historic England It is now over 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent demise of the communist regimes that had dominated Eastern Europe for over 40 years. This abrupt end to a political reality that had defined world politics for a generation led to a massive drawdown of military forces and an expectation of a ‘Peace Dividend’. In the United Kingdom many hundreds of defence sites ranging from large airfields to small monitoring posts were closed and placed on the open market.
The number of sites being released appeared to be overwhelming, but also presented a unique opportunity to safeguard key sites that reflected our national experience of this period of recent history. Drawing on examples from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, this talk will explore how the most significant Cold War sites were selected for protection and how they are now being conserved and presented.
Wayne Cocroft is an archaeologist and Manager of Historic England’s Investigation East team based in Cambridge. For over 25 years he has specialised in the archaeological recording and assessment of redundant military sites. He is co-author of Cold War building for nuclear confrontation 1946-1989 (2003), A Fearsome Heritage diverse legacies of the Cold War (2007), and recently Der Teufelsberg in Berlin Eine archäologische Bestandsaufnahme des westlichen Horchpostens im Kalten Krieg (2016). He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
http://www.historicengland.org.uk/research/current-research/assessing-significance/military/cold-war/