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Gavin Stamp

We have learned with great sadness of the death of one of our Vice-Presidents, Professor Gavin Stamp. Writer, broadcaster, teacher, preservationist and glorious polemicist, it was entirely appropriate that one of his last contributions as Private Eye’s “Piloti” was an impassioned plea to protect London’s St Mary-le-Strand from proposals to remove its pews and install glass-fronted galleries as part of a plan to convert it into a museum. Whether it was twentieth century, Victorian, Georgian or earlier architecture, Gavin championed understanding of Britain’s architectural past, often with eloquent anger and always with an appreciation that every age is capable of producing buildings of quality. A valued friend of the Ecclesiological Society and advocate of the living role of historic churches today, we will miss him.