The Georgian Group, the society founded in 1937 to protect and promote Georgian buildings, has appointed Dr Anya Lucas FSA as its next Director it was announced today, Tuesday 4 February 2025.
The appointment was made by The Georgian Group’s Board of Trustees and Anya Lucas will take up leadership of the Group – which is both a statutory consultee in the planning system and a membership organisation – in April 2025. She will lead a team of eight staff who are based at the organisation’s head office in Fitzroy Square, London and regionally.
The appointment follows the retirement of historian David Adshead FSA who joined the Group in 2018 after a career as Head Curator and Architectural Historian at the National Trust. David Adshead led the Georgian Group’s efforts to save the London Custom House from harmful conversion proposals – a case the organisation fought and won at public inquiry in 2022. In addition to strengthening the Group’s casework capacity, he has overseen a series of successful educational initiatives such as the Wren 300 festival.
Anya Lucas joins as Director after a 20-year career working in heritage and corporate communications and in both the public and private sectors. She has significant experience of campaigning on issues related to the built environment and historic buildings. She holds a PhD in architectural history from the Courtauld Institute and her research on British architecture of the long eighteenth century has been published in both mainstream and academic books and articles. For the last two years she has provided conservation advice for the Georgian Group in the south of England.
Paul Zisman, Chairman of The Georgian Group, said: “David Adshead leaves with the huge gratitude of all the Trustees and staff and with the Georgian Group in a strong position. We are delighted to welcome Anya Lucas as our next Director. Anya combines significant communications and campaigning experience with an understanding of heritage protection legislation and policy and a deep knowledge of the architecture of our period. She brings valuable experience and insights at a time when the built environment is the subject of intense national debate. I know that she has the vision and energy to build on recent successes and lead the Group forward. We look forward to working with her”
Anya Lucas said: “I am delighted and honoured to have been entrusted with leadership of the Georgian Group. From its earliest days defending Georgian London from demolition, the Group has pursued its objectives assertively and creatively. Although a small team, the Group has an outsize impact on the planning process. It makes a huge contribution to the built environment by protecting a wide range of Georgian buildings and promoting thoughtful high-quality design in their setting. As a Society, it has combined this seriousness of purpose with a great capacity to bring together people who are passionate about buildings of this period – from owners and architects to academics, conservators and craftspeople. I very much look forward to working with the Group’s Trustees and its dedicated team of staff.”
Anya Lucas is a heritage and communications professional as well as a historian specialising in British architecture of the long eighteenth century. Her PhD at the Courtauld Institute (2016) examined the architecture of London’s Livery Halls. She is co-author of The Livery Halls of the City of London (2018). Until 2019 Anya was Research Curator for the Painted Hall Conservation Project at Greenwich, London where she co-authored a book on the subject – The Painted Hall: Sir James Thornhill’s Masterpiece at Greenwich (2019). Following an undergraduate degree at Cambridge (2002), Anya began her career working on corporate communications and campaigns for English Heritage/Historic England (2004-2008) and as a PR Account Director specialising in campaigning and the arts and heritage sectors. She is a former Visiting Scholar at the Yale Center for British Art and contributor to Court, Country, City: British Art and Architecture 1660-1735 (Yale University Press, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2016). For the last two years Anya has worked as a Conservation Adviser for the Georgian Group in the South of England. She was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in January 2025.