Francis Brown

I am a PhD candidate on a studentship entitled 'The Heritage, History, and Archaeology of Sherborne Abbey, Dorset', fully funded by Sherborne Abbey and the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of Exeter. This studentship comprises a PhD project, and the writing of a Conservation Management Plan for Sherborne Abbey, a Major Parish Church where I am involved in a research and advisory capacity with an ongoing programme of conservation and redevelopment, and sit on the Fabric Committee. My PhD research is an interdisciplinary micro-history of Sherborne Abbey and town over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as a case study for cultural change in provincial English society over this period. Having approached this project from a background in Heritage Studies, however, my wider academic interests also encompass the concepts of 'heritage', 'modernity', and 'historical culture' more generally, as well as contemporary heritage and conservation discourses, and, in particular, church conservation theory and practice.