Francis P. Kelly is a British architectural historian and formerly an inspector for English Heritage and Historic England, working in the south west of England. He has contributed to a number of publications on medieval buildings, and his extensive slide collection is held by Historic England. He is a member of the British Archaeological Association. Education Francis Kelly completed his MA in 1971 at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, with a dissertation on the Romanesque capitals of Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire. He has also contributed architectural photographs to the Courtauld Institute's Conway Library archive, which is currently undergoing a digitisation project. He has maintained his links with the Courtauld, and is currently listed as a supporter on the Institute's website. Professional life Kelly worked for English Heritage and Historic England for many years as an Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas in the south west of England. One highlight of his career came in 1999 when he requested a dendrochronology test on the oak roof of St Mary's Church in the village of Kempley, Gloucestershire, believed to have been built by Hugh de Lacy, a Norman baron. Tests carried out in the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory found the church roof to be the oldest surviving medieval roof so far discovered in Britain, dating back to 1120-1150. Kelly was quoted as saying: "The vulnerability of timber roof structures, which are always prone to fire and rot, makes this survival very exciting." In 2013, Kelly was required to do an emergency inspection of a Grade I listed church, St Odulph's in the village of Pillaton, Cornwall. The church had been badly damaged during a snowstorm on the night of 21 January 2013, when a thunderbolt struck the tower and heavy pieces of masonry from one of the pinnacles crashed through the tiled roof and fell into the church below. Kelly commented: "Tall corner pinnacles are a feature of Cornish church towers. The sheer engineering skill of the masons responsible for setting the pinnacles up in the first place, before the benefits of modern machinery, is a wonder in itself. Reinstating the pinnacle in 2013, even with the aid of complex scaffolding and modern lifting gear, proved no mean feat, all the more so as a result [of] having to take into account the distortions caused by time and the effects of the lightning strike." Kelly was responsible over the following months