Photo credit: Sam Barker @skyscout_ on Instagram 18/06/2023

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President said: “These are truly exciting buildings. Pumping stations show the very best of Victorian practicality and simplicity of design and these are no exception. What great spaces they are. They need imagination and flair. This part of Norwich is a conservation area and its municipal buildings, the local pub and other structures all form an indelible part of its social history.”

Victorian Norwich had problems we would recognise today – the dumping of sewage into local rivers. In 1865, residents with riverside properties petitioned the Corporation urging it to take action to stop the pollution, threatening legal action. The Board of Health approached Joseph Bazalgette, the renowned engineer who had created central London’s sewer system. Bazalgette’s report in October 1865 proposed two intercepting sewers to dispose of the waste. The Corporation procrastinated due to the cost, before proceeding with their own engineer’s plan, that looked remarkably similar to Bazalgette’s. Trowse Pumping Station opened in 1869.

Unusually at this site just outside central Norwich the entire original complex of sewage pumping stations, boiler houses, workshops, smithy, and a terrace of workers’ houses all survived. It has an unusual combination of two listed engine houses remaining from two technological generations – the 1869 engine house built by the Norwich City Corporation, and its 1909 replacement.

The 1869 engine house’s stylish Italianate design reflects the high value placed on its important municipal function of dealing with sewage. The 1909 steam engine house is in a Free Renaissance style. Despite the loss of its machinery, the building has a complete exterior along with its internal layout.

The site was purchased from the Council in 2003 by a developer and was last used as a furniture workshop but is now derelict. If the developer cannot bring forward sensitive plans to re-use this historic site we urge them to sell to someone who will.

The full Top Ten list can be read here and includes an earl’s mansion that became a hostel for the homeless, a church where the congregation can’t hold services, two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet. The Society have also included Liverpool Street Station and the former Great Eastern Hotel in London on the 2023 list of Endangered Buildings.

The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914. The Victorian Society has announced its Top Ten Endangered List thirteen times.

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Photo credit: Connor McNeill for The Victorian Society 18/06/2023

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President said: “This a phenomenal ready-made social opportunity. It was built to allow business to be conducted face to face. The building is replete with possibilities. It is handsome. It is in a key spot in this cathedral city. It needs a new use and visionary buyer to match the ambition of its existing class. It could be offices or a restaurant. It seems to have worked well as an entertainment venue for quite some years. Is this an option? It certainly deserves our respect and Lincoln’s attention”.

This former Constitutional Club designed by William Watkins is one of Lincoln’s finest Victorian buildings. It makes quite an impact with its Flemish Renaissance gabled appearance with dome and a frieze of national crests between the windows. This striking, and now decaying, building on a corner plot in the city centre represents, in built form, the extension of the right to vote to more men by the Representation of the People Act 1884. The Association of Conservative Clubs was formed in 1894 to assist and encourage the formation of social clubs. The idea was that many new Conservative voters would want to belong to a club. Gentleman’s clubs were all the rage in the Victorian period and at the turn of the 20th century London alone boasted approximately two hundred gentleman’s clubs.

The Lincoln club was comprised of a reading room, library, and lecture room amongst other amenities. It closed in 1996 and remained empty and semi-derelict for 15 years until 2011. It then hosted two different nightclubs and a Brazilian restaurant. The club was put on the market in March 2020 and remains for sale. There must be a sympathetic buyer for this landmark central Lincoln building.

The full Top Ten list 2023 can be read here and includes an earl’s mansion that became a hostel for the homeless, a church where the congregation can’t hold services, and two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation.

The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914. The Victorian Society has announced its Top Ten list of Endangered Buildings thirteen times.

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The Coach and Horses Hotel in Wallsend is on the The Victorian Society’s Top Ten Endangered buildings list 2023. The Grade II listed former hotel is for sale has been empty for years and needs rapid investment.

Photo credit: Graham Tyrrell 18/06/2023

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Photo credit: Tim Bridges, The Victorian Society 18/06/2023

The church has started a fundraiser to meet the £250,000 cost of works.

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President said: “It’s just magnificent. The heart of many country villages is the church, and this is a gem. We cannot let it go.It would be a tragedy if Temple Grafton were to lose a second church.”

St Andrew’s church stands on the edge of a hill with commanding views across a valley to Bredon Hill and the Cotswolds. Worcestershire architect Frederick Preedy built this Gothic Church to replace an Anglo-Saxon church which was probably where William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway married. It is perhaps his finest in the West Midlands. The church was funded by William Carlisle, a Victorian thread manufacturer, who also built the new school, cottages, and vicarage along with a new house for himself.The church’s decoration illustrates the village’s links to the Knights Hospitallers who had a preceptory close by that gave Temple Grafton its name. The church includes stained glass designed by Preedy – the only architect of his time who designed and made his own stained glass windows including in the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester, and Ely.

The Church now has serious structural issues. Services can’t be held as oak shingles on the roof and spire are loose and unsafe. The belfry, rainwater goods, and high level stonework are in extremely poor condition. Scaffolding was erected in March 2023 when the congregation funded initial emergency repairs, but much more extensive works are needed to secure the church’s future.

The full Top Ten list 2023 is here and includes an earl’s mansion that became a hostel for the homeless, two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet. The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914. The Victorian Society has announced its Top Ten of Endangered buildings thirteen times.

The post St Andrew’s Church in Temple Grafton trying to raise £250,000 features on The Victorian Society’s Top Ten Endangered Buildings list 2023 appeared first on The Victorian Society.

With redevelopment plans for the wider historic Soldier’s Point area being considered, the Council should work with the owner to find an appropriate use for this building with its stunning sea views or encourage them to sell if they have no use for the building.

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President said: “Soldiers’ Point really needs some love and some help. It’s sad to see this remarkable monument to engineering falling into disrepair. It’s not too late. It is a remarkable place. It is surrounded by history and close to a remarkable engineering landmark. Anglesey had such plans for this house as a maritime museum, and I really hope that people will be motivated to find a solution to this dereliction.”

Soldier’s Point House was built by Charles Rigby, who oversaw the creation of Britain’s longest breakwater at Holyhead, which is 2.4km long and includes a now listed lighthouse.The house is castellated, perhaps in reference to Welsh castles, and has barred windows and curtain wall towers.

Charles, with his brother Joseph, were eminent London builders J D & C Rigby, and worked on some of Brunel’s civil engineering projects. The Rigby brothers’ company built Swindon (Grade II) and Steventon railway stations and those stations in between. They also built the 300 railway worker’s cottages that are now Grade II listed and form the GWR Railway Village Conservation Area in Swindon. Due to its ambition Pevsner described it as the most significant industrial housing of its era in Britain and internationally. Sir John Betjeman, the The Victorian Society’s Chair fought to save the GWR Railway Village.

Whilst at Soldier’s point Rigby was an Anglesey magistrate who also commanded the 2nd Anglesey Artillery Volunteers who he grouped together from his breakwater workers to protect his engineering project from any foreign attack – he even funded a marching brass band for his troops.

The military legacy continued in World War II when a square folly tower in the house’s screen wall became a pillbox. The building became a hotel in 1950 which closed around 2000. Plans to convert the mansion into Holyhead’s Maritime Museum were dashed by a fire in 2011. It has been an empty shell since.

Joe O’Donnell, Director, The Victorian Society said: “A common factor with most buildings on our list this year is responsible ownership. Despite all these buildings being Grade II listed they have been neglected for years. Regular, appropriate, maintenance is vital for older buildings. The owners of the buildings on our list should be responsible stewards of these nationally significant buildings.If they can’t or won’t, be that they should sell them so someone else can try and secure their futures before it is too late.”

The full Top Ten list 2023 can be read here and includes an earl’s mansion that became a hostel for the homeless, a church where the congregation can’t hold services, two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet.

The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914. The Victorian Society has announced its list thirteen times.

18/06/2023

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Picture credit: Craig Charters Cinematography 18/06/2023

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President said: “Come on Carlisle, we will surely never see the likes of these fantastical interiors again. I salute the Friends of these wonderful public baths. They have great plans to keep these amazing facilities open. They have been working hard with the newly formed Cumberland Council and we all really want them to succeed in keeping these highly decorative, relaxing, historic, and much loved baths in use. What incredible survivors. Public attractions of the future.”

Inspired by a visit to Liverpool Baths, Carlisle Council sought to improve the health and hygiene of the people of Carlisle as few working class people had access to bathrooms or washing facilities in their home. Carlisle Baths and Washhouse opened in 1884 providing first and second class plunge pools, a ladies plunge pool, slipper baths and laundry facilities. The Edwardian Turkish Baths were added in 1909 and a Ladies waiting room and slipper baths opened in 1920. Records show that by 1957 over 100,000 people were using the baths. These astoundingly beautiful, lavishly-tiled Turkish Baths have original internal decorative tiling and glazed faience work by the renowned company Minton and Hollins of Stoke. This is of great quality and is largely complete.

Carlisle City Council (CaCC) voted to close the Baths in 2022. It was one of only 12 historic baths in the UK still operating – only 9 of which are open to the public – and the only one in the north west of England. An active ‘Friends’ group continues to fight to save the Baths. Surely there is a market for a restored beautiful, restored, historic Turkish Baths for both visitors and the community hub? The Society urges Cumberland Council, who now own the baths after CaCC was dissolved, to work with the Friends to keep these baths in use for another 138 years.

The full Top Ten list can be read here, and includes an earl’s mansion that became a hostel for the homeless, a church where the congregation can’t hold services, two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet. The Victorian Society has announced its Top Ten Endangered buildings list thirteen times. The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914.

Update: On the 24th June 2023 in a news article in The Cumberland News and Star, Cumberland Council said that they are “committed to finding a viable solution’ for the Turkish Baths.” A council spokesperson said: “Cumberland Council recognises the historic significance of the Turkish Baths building in Carlisle and its listed status. We remain committed to finding a viable solution that will not only protect the building, but also provide it with a sustainable future.” Read more here

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Photo credit: Guy Newton for The Victorian Society 18/06/2023

Network Rail and developer Sellar plan to demolish much of the sympathetic 20th century trainshed which closely matches the Victorian original, severing the link between the two listed buildings and cantilever a 21-storey tower above the hotel and station. This is unprecedented over a Grade II* listed building. This scheme must be stopped if we are to remain a country which values its heritage. Network Rail should develop its estate in less sensitive areas where there is no harm to heritage to fund any improvements works beyond those that the Government is already funding. The Victorian Society has launched a fundraiser to pay for the inevitable expensive legal fight that will be needed to save the station a second time. The public can donate here.

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President and President of the Campaign to Save Liverpool Street Station (LISSCA) said: “I cannot believe that we have had to put a national monument, a great railway station, a part of the story of London and the City on to our list of endangered buildings. I am President of the reformed Liverpool Street Station Campaign which previously stopped the station’s total demolition in the 1970s. The Victorian Society is chairing the committee comprised of The Twentieth Century Society, Historic Buildings & Places, The Georgian Group, Save Britain’s Heritage, The Spitalfields Trust, Civic Voice, and London Historians. The gathering of these major voices for heritage and conservation is extremely rare and reflects how seriously we all view the threat to these glorious buildings. The Society won the fight to save Liverpool Street Station in the 1970s, and it also saved St Pancras Station too. We have to win this time because all listed buildings are at stake if the proposals to build so cavalierly on top of the station and hotel go through.”

The great rail terminus stations and their terminus hotels encapsulate the engineering and technological achievements of the Victorians. These cathedrals of steam are some of the most important Victorian buildings. The hotel is the last historic hotel in the City of London. Following the successful campaign to save the station from demolition in the 1970s, the The Victorian Society and eight other amenity societies and heritage organisations believe that if plans are approved it would set a terrible precedent which would mean that no listed building is safe from harm. The developers have repeatedly argued that this scheme will cause no harm to the historic train station. However, the facts speak for themselves.

The planning application for the highly damaging plans is expected to published in the near future. LISSCA intends to ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, to ‘call in’ plans to partially demolish Liverpool Street Station and build a tower over the grade II* former great eastern hotel and make the decision himself.

The full Top Ten list 2023 which can be read here includes an earl’s mansion that became a hostel for the homeless, a church where the congregation can’t hold services, two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet. The Victorian Society has announced its Top Ten Endangered Buildings List thirteen times.

The post Liverpool Street Station on The Victorian Society’s Top Ten Endangered Buildings list 2023 | The Victorian Society appeared first on The Victorian Society.

Photo credit: Marie Clements for The Victorian Society 18/06/2023

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President said: “These are beacons. Titans. These water towers are tremendous. In the glorious Somerset countryside, with views towards an area of natural beauty, they would make a special home, or an unusual holiday let. This has been achieved with similar structures in many other places. Conversion is far greener than building something new. We can’t throw away our industrial history.”

The distinctive, conically capped, red brick Victorian water tower has stunning views towards the Wellington Monument and the Blackdown Hills AONB. The tower is a wonder of Victorian engineering that created an organised, safe public water supply to protect public health. Following an early 1870s epidemic of typhoid fever in Wellington, the Local Board of Health commissioned architect Edward Pritchard of Birmingham and London, whose initials appear on the cockerel weathervane at the top of the tower, to build the tower.Water was pumped from local springs and stored in the tower’s 44,000 gallon tank. This replaced the 286 local wells which had become polluted. A second tower was added in the 20th-century.

Wessex Water refurbished both towers around 2009. Both were sold at auction to a developer in 2013 but they have remained vacant and neglected ever since. Somerset West and Taunton Council issued the owner with a Section 215 order to clear the site of overgrown plants and rubbish, and to mend the fence. The towers have been left to deteriorate for 13 years and there seems to be no plan on the horizon.

Joe O’Donnell, Director, The Victorian Society said: “A common factor with most buildings on our list this year is responsible ownership. Despite all these buildings being Grade II listed they have been neglected for years. Regular, appropriate, maintenance is vital for older buildings. The owners of the buildings on our list should be responsible stewards of these nationally significant buildings.If they can’t or won’t, be that they should sell them so someone else can try and secure their futures before it is too late.”

The full Top Ten list can be read here and includes an earl’s mansion in Devon that became a hostel for the homeless, a church where the congregation can’t hold services, two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet.

The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914. The Victorian Society has announced its Top Ten of Endangered buildings thirteen times.

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Photo Credit: Tim Bridges for The Victorian Society.

Griff Rhys Jones, The Victorian Society President said: “Don’t be frightened of the workhouse. They were a necessary step towards our own welfare programmes. This one became part of a hospital next door which has now been demolished. It seems extraordinarily wasteful and wilful that a new use cannot be found for this fine building. It was offices originally and could fulfil that function again. Why erect a boring cookie-cutter office design when you could work in something this stylish! This is a palace looking for a new occupant.”

This attractive Jacobethan building is the only part of the Victorian Walsall Manor Hospital that was not demolished. The Building pre-dated the hospital as it was built as the offices for the Central Union Workhouse which housed 350 people. The two storey building has mullion-transom windows with a tower on the right corner with an arched doorway topped by a shield, a corbelled eaves cornice, and a lead-clad ogee dome with an ornate weathervane on the finial. The quality of the design and building are very handsome. More details including plans and information is here https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Walsall/

The building has been left untouched since 2007 and is now marooned in front of the large new hospital. The building had been on the market since August 2022. It would make very superior offices when restored or could be converted for housing.

The full Top Ten list 2023 that can be read here includes an earl’s mansion that became a hostel for the homeless, two engineering marvels that saved lives through improving sanitation, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet. There are two Grade II listed buildings in the West Midlands on the 2023 list.

The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914.

18/06/2023

The post Former Office for the Board of Guardians of Walsall Poor Law Union features in The Victorian Society’s Top Ten Endangered Buildings list 2023 appeared first on The Victorian Society.

Photo credit: NJ Cole

Despite its significance and beauty the Italianate country house and its walled garden, designed by James Thomas Knowles (senior), are in a semi-derelict state having been used as everything from a training centre for the unemployed in the 1930s and a WWII Quaker conscientious objector refuge to a breakers yard for scrap cars. The Grade II listed 1838 house is for sale and needs a new owner willing to finish its restoration.

Griff Rhys Jones, President of the The Victorian Society, said: “Blackborough House is a survivor. It has served the community in so many guises. Please get this beautiful house a new use and a new life for another hundred years. Work has begun to restore it as two grand homes, but it now needs someone who has the tenacity to see the restoration through to its completion. It would be terrible if having begun a journey the house again slips back into decay. It is a fabulous setting and an intriguing history. It deserves to once again become a jewel in Devon’s heritage crown.”

The house was built for the recently ennobled George Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont who wanted to reflect his new social standing and match his cousin Baron Leconfield who had inherited Petworth House in Sussex. Blackborough extends over 22,000 ft sq across four floors and its features include an arched loggia around three sides of the house. The glory didn’t last long. Blackborough was split in two in 1840, one part used by a relative who was minister of the estate church, the other by the Earl when he visited the Estate. The Earl died in 1845, indebted from a spate of country house construction.

The house was subsequently used as a hunting lodge, a home for a spinster, a boys’ school, then left empty in 1913. The House survived an attempt to demolish it in 1917 although it was stripped of many of its fine features. In 1930 it was used by the Church of England as a training home for unemployed men. In 1940 the Quakers used the house as a place of refuge for pacifists providing an alternative to military service. It was a Youth Hostel for a year before becoming a garage and car scrapyard with vehicles stored inside and outside the decaying house.

Plans to turn the house into a boutique hotel were refused planning permission but permission was granted to return the house into two homes. Recent owners have begun repairs but the house is again on the market and needs someone with deep pockets and a passion for heritage to restore it. There must be someone willing to bring this sleeping beauty back to life.

The full list for 2023 which can be read here includes a church where the congregation can’t hold services, two engineering marvels that saved lives by ensuring water free of sewage, and a club where newly enfranchised voters could meet. Details of each of the Grade II listed buildings, and the threats they face,

The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914. The Victorian Society has announced its Top Ten Endangered buildings list thirteen times.

Photo credit: NJ Cole

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