60 Seconds with Emily Putnam, Historic Environment Advice Assistant Apprentice

Emily Putnam is a Historic Environment Advice Assistant apprentice with Historic England, funded by Benefact Trust. She started her two-year apprenticeship in September 2019 and is based in our North East and Yorkshire Region.

Why did you start an apprenticeship?

I wanted to gain on the job skills in a sector that it’s important to have practical experience in, so that I could further my career. The apprenticeship gives me a really unique opportunity to explore the different departments of the organisation and spend time with each of the teams in order to allow me to choose something I would like to specialise in, in my second year. You wouldn’t be able to get this kind of experience in any other way, especially over a two year period. I’ve been really lucky that, thanks to the apprenticeship, I’m getting such a broad range of experience it’s allowing me to get a better understanding of what Historic England does and how all the departments work together in a big picture.

As well as being enjoyable, an apprenticeship is also going to give you the tools to help set you up for a future career, so it’s really worth putting yourself out there.

Would you recommend an apprenticeship to other people?

Yes definitely. I’ve learnt so much already and I’m not even half way through my apprenticeship yet. I don’t think you realize how much you’re taking in until you talk to friends or someone who isn’t familiar with what you do day to day and it’s surprising how much you’ve done, even in a short space of time. My apprenticeship is great because I’m not just office based, I get to go out on site visits to all these amazing places and get an understanding of the role Historic England plays within the heritage sector. I also get time to study at college and get to spend time in our different offices around England. I really enjoy this because we’re able to experience such incredible and wide-ranging heritage places.

What does your day look like?

I’m really lucky in the sense that no two days are the same for me. I can be out on a site visit with a colleague, shadowing a team at the office or out and about at different sites across England so it’s really varied. I’ve picked a couple of examples to show the variety of what I get to do. I’ve picked a day in the office and a day we had away on one of our study weeks.

A day in the office

A few months ago I had the chance to spend some time with the Aerial photography team with a fellow apprentice Callum. We were with them for two days and spoke to various members of their team about the different roles within the department and what they do.

To start with we were shown how to use a stereoscope, this is an optical device the team uses, essentially like a pair of glasses balanced on a frame, to create a 3D image, by overlapping two aerial photographs of the same landscape. By using the stereoscope to view the photographs it allows you to view the different features and levels of the land to gain a better understanding of the topography; rather than just viewing the 2D photograph itself. This was super cool to do but isn’t as easy as just peeking through the lenses. There is a real knack to ‘getting your eye in’ and it took me a good 5 minutes to actually be able to move the photos in a way and focus my eyes differently in order to finally see the features in picture start to jump off the page. This technique was also great to learn because the pictures were taken in the 1940’s and this is exactly how they were meant to be viewed, through a stereoscope.

It’s awesome to be viewing something in the original way they were intended to be seen. Even though technology has moved on leaps and bounds, there is something really nice about learning a new skill rather than just relying on technology to do it for us.

A day on a site visit

During our study week in December, we visited Coventry and spent the day looking around historic sites such as the Cathedral but also had plenty of opportunity to get involved in practical activities too. We had a little tour of Coventry to start, observing the numerous architectural styles which we had been studying during the week. We were then taken to a building which we had to attempt to date using the skills we’d learned. We did this by looking for clues in the architecture, building fabrics, and telltale marks of extension or further development which can give you an idea of the different phases of the building.

A common example of spotting signs of an extension is if different building materials have been used. An old stone building for example with an addition made from brick, shows the building was more than likely not built in a single phase. We split into pairs and looked at the interior and exterior, working our way through the building, noting down what we thought were clues to the building’s age and how many different phases of building it had gone through.

It was great because we also saw a number of things we hadn’t previously covered in class, such as the taper burn marks in the attic of the building. These were a way in which people would protect against evil spirits, entering your house, usually positioned near openings like windows or doors (the ones we saw were beneath a window). People would hold a candle up to the wood until they caused the wood to char and blacken.

It was great to spot new things we hadn’t come across before as it showed how complex reading a building really is and this was a great way to cement what we’d previously learned by putting it into practice.

What advice would you give someone else who wants to do an apprenticeship?

I think the best advice is choose something you’re passionate about or something that you have an interest in exploring. This is going to be your job for the next year or two, so you’ve got to be interested. Apprenticeships are a great way of getting on the job experience, especially in organisations or jobs that might be harder to get into without prior knowledge. I would also say really throw yourself into it as this isn’t a chance everyone gets, so really take advantage of the experience to get involved and make the most of the opportunities you get to learn new things.