For a small island, Britain is rich in historic and cultural landscapes. It is generally accepted that there are no truly ‘wild’ places in England; all the landscape is touched by human activity to a greater or lesser extent. This is fertile ground for someone with a passion for unpicking the history of the actions and interactions between people and place, the efforts made to exploit our land, embellish it and work with it that created landscapes that are now valued locally, nationally and internationally.

Chris Mayes has had the privilege of working in both private practice and public service to realise the potential value of some of England’s most precious cultural landscapes. We are lucky to have Chris presenting a webinar to NZILA members next month, in the webinar Chris will reflect on a career that has ranged from managing private Tudor gardens to advising on World Heritage Sites, and much in between.

Chris Mayes is a Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute in the UK. He started his career training to be an architect but found that what surrounded buildings held greater fascination than the buildings themselves, and moved toward a career focussed on landscapes, and particularly heritage and cultural landscapes.

That career path has involved working as part of the management team on a private estate in Northamptonshire, local government landscape officer positions with a number of local authorities and more recently employment with both Natural England, the UK government’s advisory body on the natural environment, and Historic England, the sister body with responsibility for the historic environment.

As a landscape specialist with Natural England he was part of a small team that produced National Character Area profiles for England. His current role with Historic England sees him providing advice on heritage and cultural landscapes in the North of England.