The Judging Panel

Rita Konig

Known throughout the U.K. and U.S. for her fresh take on traditional style, award-winning interior designer and design journalist Rita Konig is regularly included on Architectural Digest’s AD100 and ELLE Decor’s A-List, and in 2024, was honored as Condé Nast’s House & Garden “Designer of the Year Award.” In addition to having her work featured on the covers of various international magazines, Rita has written design advice columns for some of the world’s top publications, including British Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar US, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph and House & Garden. In 2019, Rita launched her first hugely successful online course with Create Academy – Rita Konig’s Ultimate Guide to Interior Design – followed in 2024 by her second, wildly popular course, The Advanced Guide to Interior Design. Rita’s stylish product design collaborations with luxury brands like Schumacher, The Lacquer Company, and Oficina Inglesa are beloved by designers, architects and homeowners alike. In addition to working on design projects around the globe, Rita splits her time between London and Palm Beach, Florida, where her U.S. team is based.

Francis Terry, MA (Cantab), Dip Arch, RIBA

Francis Terry has carved a unique place in twenty-first British architecture, with an encyclopedic knowledge of classical architecture and a genuine desire to mould this to his clients many and varied requirements. He was described recently in Country Life, as “A leading light among the new generation of Classical architects”.

Following university, Francis spent 20 years working with Quinlan Terry with whom he became a partner in 2004. Together they worked on a series of great country house projects, including Ferne Park in Wiltshire, for Viscount and Viscountess Rothermere and Kilboy in Ireland for the Ryan family. David Watkin wrote of their work at Kilboy that it ‘is surely the greatest work so far of Quinlan and Francis Terry… [and] one of the finest classical houses of any period’; they also worked on notable public projects in this period including Queen Mother Square in Poundbury, Dorset for King Charles III when he was the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cornwall. They also designed the New Infirmary to the Chelsea Hospital which opened in 2009, which provides more up to date facilities for the pensioners, in a style which honoured the great Wren tradition.

In 2016, Francis left his father’s practice to form his own office with his wife Miranda. He continues to work on major country house projects, securing a series of significant ‘Gummer Law’ permissions. Central to Francis’ practice is his ability as an artist. His proposals are always accompanied by highly accurate but evocative watercolour or pencil presentations, which help capture the imagination of client and planner alike. Few architects can visualise their work in this fashion in the modern age, but it also reveals the artistic way in which Terry’s designs have evolved in his mind’s eye.

Geoffrey Heath-Taylor

Geoff is the founder and co-host of 'The Country House Podcast.' He cut his teeth at Country Life magazine before becoming a freelance writer and consultant to family offices on art and philanthropy. He has lived in Switzerland, France and the Middle East, but now splits his time between London and Devon (where he rents a cottage on an HHA member's estate). He continues to write regularly for the national and international press, and his writings can be found in The Spectator, The Telegraph, The Mail, The Critic and Tatler.

Dr Tessa Murdoch FSA

Tessa’s 1982 Ph.D Huguenot Artists, Designers and Craftsmen in Great Britain and Ireland, 1680-1760, led to the Museum of London’s exhibition The Quiet Conquest, the Huguenots 1685-1985. Appointed V&A furniture curator from 1990 and from 2002 Deputy Keeper, Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass. New galleries curated include Sacred Silver and Stained Glass, 2005 and Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, 2008. Recent publications include Europe Divided: Huguenot Refugee Art and Culture (V&A, 2021) and as consultant Great Irish Households: Inventories from the long eighteenth century (John Adamson, November 2022), the sequel to Noble Households: Eighteenth Century Inventories of Great English Houses, 2006, a tribute to John Cornforth. Tessa edited Boughton House: The English Versailles, 1992 (Christie’s/Faber) with eighteen contributions on aspects of the architecture, collections and landscape. She has co-edited A Cultural History of Craft in the Age of Enlightenment forthcoming 2026.

Tessa advises the National Trust, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, is Trustee, Idlewild Trust, and Chair of Trustees, The Huguenot Museum, Rochester. She curated their current exhibition Sarah Lethieullier’s 1730s Dolls House. A livery member of the Libraries and Archives Committee, Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, in 2019, following training with goldsmith Rod Kelly in Shetland, Tessa registered her own mark with the London Assay Office as a goldsmith maker.

Tessa joined the Acceptance in Lieu Panel, Arts Council England in 2022 which also advises on the Cultural Gift Scheme, introduced in 2012. She was appointed the panel’s Deputy Chair in 2024.

Will Richards, Co-Chairman, Dreweatts

Will Richards is Co-Chairman of Gurr Johns’ Auction Division (Dreweatts and Forum Auctions) alongside Harry Smith and is based at Dreweatts’ Pall Mall office in London and at the Donnington Priory salerooms in Newbury. He has over 30 years’ experience in the auction business and has been responsible for many of the single owner and collections sales held at Dreweatts.

Will advises an international body of private clients, institutions and public galleries on all aspects of managing collections.

What are the judges looking for?

The sorts of things likely to catch the judges’ eyes include:

• New conservation approaches, techniques, needs, challenges, projects, or efforts
• New ways of arranging, presenting, interpreting, capturing, communicating, or organising a collection, perhaps to draw out new links or connections to people, places, stories, or other objects, or to attract new audiences or respond to new or changed priorities among the public, academia, or the owners and curators
• New additions, acquisitions, returns, restorations, recoveries, rationalisations, or any other change to the composition and make-up of the collection to better preserve, protect, or enhance it
• New research, discoveries, understandings or realisations that shed new light on the academic, artistic, intellectual, historical, or social content and meaning of the collection and take forward, add to, or change its story in some way

Over the summer, the panel will visit up to five shortlisted contenders. You can follow their progress on Dreweatts’ or Historic Houses’ social media or at historichouses.org/the-collections-award.