60 Seconds with Charlie Field, Historic Environment Advice Assistant Apprentice

Charlie Field is a Historic Environment Advice Assistant apprentice with Historic England, funded by Benefact Trust. He started his two-year apprenticeship in September 2019 and is based in our East of England Region.

How did you come to work at Historic England?

I came to HE pretty much straight from sixth form, academically speaking at least. After finishing my A-Levels in History, English Language and Business I spent a year out working part-time jobs whilst exploring possible next steps (or should I say first steps) in building my career. I knew Uni probably wouldn’t suit me and that an apprenticeship would be a much better opportunity for me to learn, so I spent that year searching and applying for various apprenticeships that I thought I could excel at. Throughout that year I knew I wanted to start a career in the Heritage Sector but had no idea that Heritage Apprenticeships were even a possibility, as they are so few and far between. So when I saw the advert for the HEAA Apprenticeship at Historic England I knew I had to go for it.

Sum up your role and what you’re currently working on

My role as a HEAA Apprentice is varied and always changing, and I think each of the apprentices has a different experience depending on what opportunities arise in each of the Regions; and whether they’re upskillers or newbies like me. My role, at the moment, is primarily dominated by Listing. My day to day usually involves Listing Coordinator work, whether that be shadowing colleagues or dealing with listing applications and enquires. In the near future I’ll also be delving into Development Advice for the first time, shadowing colleagues from across the team. I also have my college work to be getting on with, whilst us apprentices only go to college once every couple of months or so, we have various tasks like reports and assignments to keep us busy in-between block releases. Even though all this is the plan, you never know when an exciting opportunity or surprise site visit will pop up that you’ll be able to tag along on. So my role pretty much changes from week to week.

I’m someone who enjoys being active with lots of stuff on the go, and this apprenticeship gives me a perfect opportunity to do just that.

Tell us something unusual about your role that most people wouldn’t know.

I think the college aspect of my role is very unique, specifically the way our college block releases work. Every couple of months or so me and my fellow apprentices meet up for up to a week at either a HE office or Strode College down in Somerset. In this week we fit in all our college learning for the following period of our apprenticeship and then follow it up with personal study and assignments back at the office. I think this method of integrating college into an apprenticeship is a great idea and much more conducive for learning than the traditional one day week of college method. After talking with friends with apprenticeships where their college requires them to attend one day a week, it seems this method soon becomes laborious and boring and feels more like a chore than anything else. On the other hand, attending college on bulk once every couple months feels more like an event than a chore, and as such you are actually excited to learn. I think this more unusual way of dealing with college is a much better option, for me at least.

What’s the best thing about your role or working for HE?

As I said before my role is very varied, and that variety is probably the aspect I love most about my job. Whether it be shadowing different teams, going on site visits or doing college assignments there’s always plenty going on and there is no time to get bored. I’m someone who enjoys being active with lots of stuff on the go, and this apprenticeship gives me a perfect opportunity to do just that. There is always plenty going on, or in the pipeline, that I can get involved with. So there’s never a dull moment.

What has been your HE highlight so far?

There have been a lot of highlights in my apprenticeship so far, but site visits with experts is something I always look forward to. If I had to pick one it would probably be when me and my fellow Cambridge apprentice, Gaynor, got the chance to visit Grimes Graves. The site manager was nice enough to let us visit out of season and have look around the site, both the areas open to the public and those that aren’t, which was an amazing opportunity and one I wouldn’t have been afforded if not for this apprenticeship. Best of all, after discussing the history and logistics of the site with the site manager, he let us pretend to be Neolithic miners and crawl about in the mine tunnels. Which was great (and made me feel like Indiana Jones), even despite the fact we did get proper dirty.

What is your favourite story, building, archive item or listing from across Historic England?

Being in Listing for the last few months I’ve seen and heard about a lot of interesting List entries. One that I always think of, although not a recent Listing, is the various groups of Richardson Candles around Cambridge. I think I love this listing not only because they’re lovely bespoke street lamps that are so unique to Cambridge but also because they remind me of how much I’ve learnt during my apprenticeship and how naïve I was when I started and probably still am now. One of our Listing Advisers pointed them out to me on a site visit I was tagging along on, and if she hadn’t, not only would I have never known that street furniture could be Listed but I probably wouldn’t have ever noticed them at all. I didn’t even think to look at street furniture in a Listing context, in fact I didn’t even know that ‘street furniture’ was a term people used. Thinking about how little I did actually know at the beginning of this apprenticeship really puts into context how much people have taught me over the course of my time at HE so far.