Chris Wood

BSc MSc(Oxf) GradDip(BldgCons)AA MRICS MRTPI IHBC FSA

Chris is now retired but has worked on historic buildings and their conservation for nearly 40 years.  Formerly Head of Building Conservation and Research at Historic England (formerly English Heritage), where he worked for 26 years. The team provided technical advice on repairing and treating buildings and materials, commissions and carries out research on the same, publishes the results and then disseminates them at conferences, seminars and training events.

Chris has managed and carried out dozens of research projects. He has written numerous Advice and Guidance Notes following research projects, along with Research Transactions, technical papers and articles. He was also Series Editor for the 11 volumes of the English Heritage Practical Building Conservation Handbooks which were finally published in 2015. He was the main author of the Roofing volume and provided text to most of the others.

He also managed and contributed to the English Heritage Masterclasses that were run at their training centre at Fort Brockhurst, Gosport. Since they moved to West Dean College he has maintained his involvement with them, particularly roofing.

Standard setting is an important part of his work. This means contributing to various Standards Committees, sitting on Building Regulations Advisory Committees and Govt working parties.

Prior to joining English Heritage in 1993, he worked for over five years for an architects’ practice.  This included running a team of 15 architects, preparing schemes, obtaining consents and running jobs on listed buildings. Before that he was a conservation officer for over 10 years at two authorities where a high proportion of his work centred on roofing problems.