Trustees and Regional Chairs

Kit Wedd, Deputy Chair

In 1991 Kit became the The Victorian Society’s first Education Officer, working on campaigns for the restoration of the Albert Memorial and to encourage the conservation of ‘ordinary’ Victorian and Edwardian houses. She has written and edited many books and articles on nineteenth-century buildings, and is the author of The Victorian Society Book of the Victorian House. After three decades of working for various statutory bodies and in commercial planning consultancies, she founded the historic environment consultancy Spurstone Heritage Ltd in 2017.

Tom Ashley

Tom is Head of Cathedrals and Major Church Buildings for the Church of England. He studied at Cambridge and Yale, specialising in Victorian literature and culture, before moving into the heritage sector. A former Churches Conservation Adviser and Senior Conservation Adviser at the Victorian Society, he has since held a number of roles within the Church of England, working on the conservation and sustainable future of historic churches and cathedrals. He is a member of the Society’s Southern Buildings Committee.

Alan Davies

Alan is a practising architect specialising in the conservation and adaptive re-use of historic buildings and the regeneration of historic environments. He was an architect director and was the heritage lead for a leading international practice of architects, engineers and designers. In that capacity, he was involved in conserving and adapting a range of historic building types; and prepared proposals for regenerating areas of historic towns and cities across the UK and abroad.

Alan’s interest in Victorian architecture and town planning was sparked as a student of architecture in Cardiff and has been sustained by being based for much of his career in Manchester – both cities owing their character to nineteenth century development, planning and architecture. Alan has a post-graduate qualification in town planning and is an RIBA registered conservation architect. Alan maintains a strong interest in the historic culture and architecture of his native Wales.

Alan has been a member of the Northern Buildings Committee – which comments on planning applications referred to the Society by planning authorities across the North and Wales – since 2008.

Anna Dewsnap

Anna is a curator and heritage consultant with more than 20 years’ experience across the arts, historic houses and heritage sectors. Formerly Head of House and Collections at Harewood House, she has extensive experience working with private collections, internationally renowned arts and heritage organisations, and public museums. Through her consultancy, Curatus Arts, she advises on collections, historic interiors and the care of cultural heritage. Anna has recently become one of the founding directors of the Herbert Baker Heritage Trust, established to support education, advocacy and hands-on training for young people working with heritage crafts.

Dr Sarah Flew

Dr Sarah Flew is an economic historian whose academic research centres on the financing of religious and philanthropic institutions in nineteenth-century Britain. She has particular expertise in the financing of nineteenth-century church building and the funding structures that supported the expansion of the Church of England during the Victorian period. Alongside her academic work, she is a philanthropy specialist and currently serves as Director of Development at the Royal College of Physicians.

Professor Neil Jackson RIBA FSA, Events

Neil is an architect and architectural historian and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Liverpool. He has previously served as a trustee of both the Twentieth Century Society and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, of which he was President in 2017-21. He was a founder member and first Honorary Secretary of the Avon Group of the The Victorian Society in 1978 and subsequently, in 1980-85 served as a member of the Main Committee and the General Purposes Sub-committee. Since 2016 he has sat on the Events Committee, which he chaired until 2024. He has published widely on nineteenth-century architecture, including books on Bath, Saltaire and Japan, and has maintained a long-time interest in G E Street and the use of constructional polychromy. He lives in Westminster.

Iestyn Roberts

After a successful career in retail property, Iestyn is keen to devote time to his real passion – the historic environment. He has extensive experience of dealing with local campaigners, planning consultants, property developers, architects and historians and politicians. He is a longstanding Friend of the British Museum and of Westminster Abbey, is member of the Council for British Archaeology and the Cambrian Archaeological Association. In his youth he worked on a variety of archaeological digs. Iestyn is very familiar with the challenges of maintaining historic Victorian buildings, having taken charge of the maintenance of the Welsh Chapel at Clapham Junction, in addition to his experience of maintaining his Edwardian home. He also has considerable experience of leadership roles in voluntary organisations, allied to extensive commercial experience relating to aspects of financial stability, corporate governance and Board performance.

Henry Sainty, Legal

Henry has been a solicitor for 25 years, working with clients in the not-for-profit, culture, media and sport sectors. His history degree in the 1980s fostered an abiding interest in historic buildings. He has been an active supporter of The Victorian Society talks, tours and other events for the past ten years, and has a particular interest in the social and historical context of Victorian buildings. He lives in west London with his wife Sophie (a long-standing and active volunteer member of the Society) and two young adult children. Any spare time is spent visiting towns and countryside in England and France with a box of guide books. Henry currently holds the role of the Society’s Legal Trustee.

Ben Sims

Ben is Head of Fundraising at the National Churches Trust. His previous roles include working as a fundraiser for a homelessness charity, The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and in heritage at the Arts Council, encouraging donations and offers in lieu of inheritance tax of national treasures to the UK’s galleries, museums, universities, and libraries; he also worked on the export of cultural property, and administered export bans. Ben read English at Christ Church, Oxford, specialising as a medievalist. He volunteers at Emery Walker’s House, an Arts and Crafts house museum in Chiswick, and The Listening Place, a charity that combats suicide.

Andrew Willetts, Finance

Andrew is a Chartered Accountant who has worked as a finance director and in other senior finance and commercial roles across the healthcare, retail, wholesale and charity sectors. He has also served as a trustee of a number of charities and pension schemes. He has a longstanding interest in Victorian and Edwardian architecture and lives in a Victorian Gothic house in Malvern, Worcestershire. Andrew becomes the Victorian Society’s new Finance Trustee.