An international organisation for all those interested in lesser traditional buildings

Conferences

The Group's conferences are where members meet to study buildings and discuss their findings.

Spring Conferences

In the spring we meet in a different part of the country each year to visit a selection of buildings in the local vernacular tradition. Local experts are on hand to explain the background and more experienced members help others to interpret them. In the evenings, lectures and discussions allow the day's findings to be explored further.

Somerset conference 2006

Recent spring conference venues:

Future spring conferences include:

Spring Conference Bursaries
Bursaries are offered each year to enable a registered student or a professional in the early years of his or her career to attend the spring conference. Details on how to apply for a bursary for the next spring conference will be published here in due course.

Winter Conferences

The winter conference takes a theme of current interest and explores it in depth through papers given by experts in the field.

Recent winter conference themes include:

The next winter conference will be held on 13-14 December 2008 at the University of Leicester, on the theme of Marginal Architecture. It will look at more than one aspect or approach; some types of building will turn out to be marginal in more than one sense. The talks will cover not only buildings characteristic of the lower edge of the vernacular, and on the boundary between permanency and impermanency, and their materials and construction, but also buildings created or used by people who, in one sense or another, may be thought of as on the margins of society and economy. They will examine buildings at the geographical margins, including the highland zone and the margins of British settlement in America, and more locally, buildings on the margins of settlement or cultivation; some specialist buildings of marginal activities, and some of apparently ephemeral materials.

Winter Conference Bursaries
Bursaries are offered each year to enable a registered student or a professional in the early years of his or her career to attend the winter conference. Details on how to apply for a bursary for the next winter conference will be published here in due course.

Oxford Weekend Schools

The Group contributes to an annual weekend school held in Oxford and run by the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. It is open to the public and topics have included:

The next weekend school will be held on 26-28 September 2008 and the subject matter will be Vernacular Interiors in the British Tradition. Decoration, fixtures and furnishings are what bring the rooms within buildings to life. They at once reveal something of their time - its taste and ways of life - and of the individuality of the builders, owners and occupiers of houses. This weekend, which brings together some of the acknowledged experts from both the British Isles and the United States of America, is centred around the interiors of vernacular houses between the end of the middle ages and the nineteenth century. It will provide an introduction to interiors in the 'British tradition' on both sides of the Atlantic, and will draw on the work of the latest scholarship in the field. For full programme and information on how to book, please see the Vernacular Interiors in the British Tradition course details on the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education web pages.

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