Locating Value: assigning significance in the historical built environment, a trans-Atlantic review

All places can be thought of in some way as historical but some places are more explicitly historical than others. How then do we decide which historical places are most precious and most worthy of public esteem? How is that distinction experienced, identified and ultimately awarded? Valuing elements of the built environment through acts of designation (whether castle, phone box, road sign, parkland, or wilderness) is necessary for any society with a sense of its past and a collective desire to maintain it. But what is the difference between a Grade 1 and a Grade 2 listed building, or a state and national historic landmark, in both a technical sense, and in terms of our qualitative encounters with those places? This research will work with the National Register of Historic Places in the US, English Heritage and CADW in the UK, and an array of non-state groups and initiatives involved in alternative historic designations to investigate how value is assessed through technical procedures and how value is experienced as a quality that is actually apprehended in place.