Though they themselves are confused about the history of the actual article:
> Added to the site on 16-11-04
> This page was added on 22/03/2006.
I lived in England for a few years. Coming from Australia, where we have precious little surviving historical structures, either pre or post white settlement, there's a weird combination of envy, surprise, and shock at the Brit's track record.
The 'Lost gardens of Heligan'[1] are a good example, with a happy ending. Nearby, at Lyme Regis, a watermill[2] dating from the 1300's (perhaps a couple of centuries earlier) had, as recently as 1991, been been at risk from the local council of being pulled down and replaced with townhouses and retail outlets.
Hearing that, while standing in a beautiful/historic/functional building that's 3-5x older than anything we had back home, was surreal.
I appreciate the line needs to be drawn somewhere. There's an abundance of structures that I see around me each day that I'd be happy to see gone, and even if - perhaps especially if - they were still standing in a millennia, I'd encourage the demolition of.