English Heritage
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English Heritage Angel Awards 2012

The search is on to find winners for this year's English Heritage Angel Awards. The annual competition was founded last year by Andrew Lloyd Webber to reward the efforts of local people in saving their heritage. The Telegraph is media partner for the awards.

Have you been involved in bringing a historic house back from the brink of ruin or restoring a church or chapel to its former glory? Have you perhaps reclaimed a historic garden buried beneath a wilderness or brought new life and a constant flow of visitors to a redundant industrial site? If so, English Heritage would like to hear from you!

Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: "In founding the English Heritage Angel Awards it was Andrew Lloyd Webber's intention to shine the spotlight on people who dedicate vast amounts of time and energy to saving historic buildings, monuments and landscapes before they crumble and vanish from our history. If you are involved in rescuing a national or local treasure, please step forward and apply for an Angel award - or encourage others to apply. The future of England's heritage rests to a great extent on the efforts of local people and we want to share the good news of their many, extraordinary achievements."

For full details on how to enter for an English Heritage Angel Award, or to nominate someone else, visit www.english-heritage.org.uk/heritageangelawards. The deadline for applications is Friday 15 June.

In response to the great interest generated by last year's inaugural awards, the entry criteria have been widened. This year, rescues of Grade II buildings and sites will be eligible, as well rescues of Grade I and II* projects. The other major change is that projects no longer have to have been on the English Heritage Heritage at Risk Register, though they still have to have been significantly "at risk" of neglect and decay before being saved.

The English Heritage Angel Awards are for:

  • the best rescue or repair of a historic place of worship
  • the best rescue of a historic industrial building or site
  • the best craftsmanship employed on a heritage rescue, and
  • the best rescue of a listed building, scheduled monument, registered garden, landscape or battlefield, protected wreck or conservation area.

These will be chosen from a shortlist of 16 entries, four in each category.

A panel of judges, to be chaired by Andrew Lloyd Webber, will include Melvyn Bragg, author and archaeologist Bettany Hughes, Charles Moore of the Daily Telegraph, the Bishop of London, the Right Revd Richard Chartres, and Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage.

Those who make it onto the shortlist will be invited to a glittering awards ceremony at The Palace Theatre in London's West End in October, hosted by Clare Balding, at which they will meet Andrew Lloyd Webber and the judges and the winners will be announced.

Last year's winners included the group who rescued Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, the congregation of an inner-city church in Leeds, the owners of a medieval barn in Kent, the trust who have rescued landmark St Stephen's church in north London, a team of craftspeople and apprentices restoring the Orangery at Tyntesfield in Somerset and the former miners responsible for saving Pleasley Colliery in Nottinghamshire. To see BBC 2's Culture Show films of last year's shortlist and award winners visit the multimedia library.

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