The Judging Panel

Jasper Conran

British designer Jasper Conran, OBE, trained at Parsons School of Design in New York before launching his first womenswear collection in 1978 and becoming a founding member of the London Designer Collections – subsequently renamed London Fashion Week.

For more than four decades, Conran’s work has spanned womenswear, menswear, fragrance, accessories, luggage, and expansive collections for the home. Jasper Conran is the recipient of numerous honours, including British Fashion Council Designer of the Year and British Collections Award. In 2008, he was awarded an OBE for services to retail. He has served as Chairman and Creative Director of The Conran Shop, as a Trustee of The Wallace Collection for eight years, and has held academic roles including a professorship at the University of the Arts London, alongside two honorary doctorates.

Jasper Conran has extensive experience working with historic houses. These include Flemings Hall (Grade II*), a medieval property rebuilt in the 16th and early 17th centuries; Ven House (Grade I), c.1730; Walpole House (Grade II), 18th century; New Wardour Castle (Grade I), c.1770; 36 Sackville Street (Grade II*), c.1731and Bettiscombe Manor (Grade II*), dating from the 16th to early 18th centuries.

Alice Loxton

Alice Loxton is a young historian, writer and presenter. She has worked with many organisations to bring history to mainstream audiences. Alice shares her love of history via her social media channels, particularly via Instagram, where she has over 1.8 million followers (@history_alice). She has worked with many heritage groups to create social media history content.

Alice has appeared on several history documentaries for Channel 5, Sky Arts and Channel 4. She has also provided Royal commentary for BBC News, NBC News and Sunrise on Channel 7 Australia.

Alice presented numerous documentaries for History Hit alongside the likes of Dan Snow and Dan Cruickshank. She also hosted the Historic Locations series on the History Hit YouTube channel, which explored the secrets of some of the greatest historic locations in Britain. 

Xavier Bray

Dr Xavier Bray is an art historian specialising in Spanish art and Director of the Wallace Collection, London, since 2016. He completed his PhD in 1999 at Trinity College, Dublin, on Goya as a painter of religious imagery. He was Chief Curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London and the Museum of Fine Arts, Bilbao, as well as Assistant Curator at the National Gallery. He has curated a wide range of exhibitions including El Greco, Velázquez, The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting & Sculpture 1600-1700, Murillo & Justino de Neve: The Art of Friendship, Goya: The Portraits and Ribera: The Art of Violence.

Since joining the Wallace Collection, he has overseen and co-curated several exhibitions including Richard Wallace: The Collector, Henry Moore: The Helmet Heads, Manolo Blahnik: An Enquiring Mind, Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company, Frans Hals: The Male Portraits, Faithful and Fearless: Portraits of Dogs, Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King and most recently with Sir Grayson Perry, Delusions of Grandeur and Caravaggio’s Cupid. In May 2026, the Wallace Collection will present the first ever UK retrospective of Winston Churchill’s creative oeuvre, Winston Churchill: The Painter.

Will Richards

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 the shortlisted contenders. You can follow their progress on Dreweatts’ or Historic Houses’ social media or at historichouses.org/the-collections-award.