Harriet has had a career long engagement with heritage and the built environment, with its conservation, funding, sustainability, interpretation and promotion.

Harriet worked in the Lake District, Northern Ireland and latterly the West Midlands, first in the museum sector, then in research on vernacular buildings and their sustainable reuse. From 2004 Harriet worked at the Ironbridge Institute in the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site – where she created a new post graduate practical degree in Historic Environment Conservation for Birmingham University.

 Harriet was a committee member of the Heritage Lottery Fund and was awarded an MBE for services to heritage in 2014, followed by a Historic England Heritage Angel Award and a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship to study historic building maintenance in Europe. She moved to Edinburgh in 2023.