Private Passions

The historian Simon Thurley tells Michael Berkeley about his passion for ancient buildings and the music associated with them. At the age of seven, Simon Thurley dug up what turned out to be Roman remains in his back garden in Cambridgeshire, and a lifelong passion for history - and historic buildings - was ignited. He went on to work as Curator of Historic Royal Palaces and as the Director of the Museum of London. Then, in 2002, at the astonishingly young age of 39, he was appointed Chief Executive of English Heritage, a post he held for 13 years, during which time he was responsible for overseeing over 400 historic sites from Dover Castle to Stonehenge. He is the author of more than a dozen books about history and architecture and since 2021 he has chaired the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the fund of last resort to protect the nation’s most vulnerable heritage when other routes have failed. Simon tells Michael about the building mania of Henry VIII, how we can make old buildings sustainable to li