Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape)^[1] is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in Victorian England. "Ancient" is used here in the wider sense rather than the more usual modern sense of "pre-medieval."

Morris was particularly concerned about the practice, which he described as "forgery", of attempting to return functioning buildings to an idealized state from the distant past, often involving the removal of elements added in their later development, which he thought had contributed to their interest as documents of the past. Instead, he proposed that ancient buildings should be repaired, not restored, to protect as cultural heritage their entire history. Today, these principles are widely accepted.

The architect A.R. Powys served as the Secretary of the SPAB for 25 years in the early 20th century.^[2]