Photo Credit: Mr D. R. Smith.

An extraordinary pub and hotel that has suffered much, the Grade II* Waterloo Hotel has featured in our Top Ten before. Built by Wood and Kendrick in 1907 as a showcase for brewers Mitchells & Butlers, the Waterloo was always intended to impress.

Doorway detail. Photo by Tony Hisgett

 Behind the baroque façade is a superb interior with an amazing restaurant with original grill, still in working order and considered unique. Highly decorated tiles cover walls and ceiling.

The importance of the Waterloo was recognised by English Heritage in 1999 when it upgraded the pub to Grade II*. But the last few years have seen a decline and it is now closed and in a deplorable state. Recent lead thefts will undoubtedly cause severe damage from water ingress. CAMRA’s Heritage Pubs website has great pictures of the wonderful tiled interior to the basement grill room. We believe this is intact – but for how much longer?

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Photo by Keith W Partlow

This small, spartan and pleasing railway station has suffered for decades at the hands of a private owner. Beyond its distressing neglect, there’s a unique Victorian design to admire. The station’s story of decline begins with the 1960s rail cuts, which led to its closure. A photo taken shortly afterwards in about 1970 shows the station boarded-up but fully intact.

When it was sold to a private owner, however, its real travails began. These were to last decades. One local resident recalled how holes appearing in the roof would be covered by nothing more than plywood sheeting.

Over the years, locals and heritage campaigners have raised the condition of Wingfield Station with the local Amber Valley council. The building has seen too much time go by to wait any longer. The council needs to take action urgently: compulsory purchase looks to be the only answer.

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The interior of this Grade II church, built by SS Teulon in 1850, exudes great atmosphere. But the wood floor is rotten. The stonework is crumbling inside and out. Even its weathercock was damaged by a low flying Chinook from the nearby base.

Photo: Birch Church by John Whitworth for The Victorian Society. 

Abandoned over twenty years ago, St Peter and St Paul now faces basic questions over its continued survival. Talk of a development deal, whereby surrounding land is sold for housing and thus funds church repair, is not popular locally; some residents would rather have the church demolished than more houses springing up.

Birch Church by John Whitworth

There are other options. The church is situated in Essex commuting territory. It could be converted into a seriously eyecatching house by someone with resources and the right architect.

Birch Church by John Whitworth

If this church is to be saved, it first needs to stop getting worse. That is the church’s responsibility. It is then everyone’s job to see that this charming building has the chance to survive its most testing time

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Photo Credit: Adam Slater

A striking sight from the railway, the Grade II* Mechanics Institute has truly national significance. Built in 1853-55 by Edward Roberts and paid for by rail workers, it contained the UK’s first lending library and it ran many activities and classes. The same body that ran it also opened up health services to other workers. It was enlarged in 1892-93 by Brightwen Binyon.

Nye Bevan, mastermind of the NHS said, ‘There was a complete health service in Swindon. All we had to do was expand it to the country.’

The late 20th century saw its decline. After it closed in 1986 the Institute fell prey to vandals and arsonists, and to those who wish to demolish it.

This is an important building that needs protection and support. It also needs a workable plan, so it can survive long into the future. If the private owner isn’t willing to provide this, Swindon Borough Council, whose policy is to preserve the Institute, must step in forcefully.

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Ipswich, former County Hall. Photo by Barbie Lindsay

Built in 1836-37 by W McIntosh Brooks, Ipswich’s Grade II County Hall was once the area’s gaol and law court. Following extensions for council offices in 1906 by JS Corner and Henry Miller, it then became the headquarters of East Suffolk County Council.

A building initially designed to instil awe, then inspire with civic pride, it once boasted fine wood panelling and stained glass windows. It now inspires only pity and anger.

For years, following its sale to a private owner, it has been the haunt of vandals, thieves, drug-users and squatters. Copper and lead have been stripped, letting water flood in; much of the panelling has been vandalised. The glass on the clock tower has been kicked out leaving the clock mechanism to rust in the rain.

What went wrong?

‘This is a case of a sloppily worded agreement that left the owner free to neglect a historic building,’ said Chris Costelloe, the Society’s Director. ‘County Hall was sold to a private owner. In return for permission to build flats on adjacent land, the council was supposed to get the owner to develop and protect the historic building. This didn’t happen. Security measures have clearly been inadequate.’

Chris adds, ‘We see this situation too often; it’s especially reprehensible when it occurs to a fine civic building in one of our major cities.’

Here is a case for far-reaching, draconian, and most of all, urgent action by Ipswich Council. Residents, taxpayers and elected representatives should demand that such action is taken now. The council should serve an urgent works notice to ensure the building is made secure and emergency repairs are done.

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A red-brick sentinel stands slowly crumbling at the edge of a container park. Its ornate appearance belies a practical role: it originally contained the steam engine to operate the locks at Langton Dock.

Later on, as shipping declined, the dock was left to languish; time, neglect, and Atlantic rain have left the pumphouse looking cragged and derelict. Thanks to its remote location, however, the usual stalkers of abandoned buildings, crime and vandalism, have bypassed it.

The pumphouse is certainly savable and should be regarded – like many buildings on the docks – as a valuable example of Britain’s seafaring history as well as a dramatic piece of architecture. The port owners should repair this impressive building and the council should pressure them to ensure that the work is carried out. It could, perhaps, find a new role as a unique and striking dock office.

Photo: Langton Dock Pumphouse, Langton Dock, Bootle, Sefton, Merseyside. Photo Credit: PeterMarchantNWBuildings10 under creative commons licence.

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If it wasn’t for sex discrimination, Hendrefoilan House might have avoided its present purgatory. Commissioned by Welsh industrialist and MP Lewis Llewellyn Dillwyn, Hendrefoilan House was built in 1853 by William B Colling on the site of a medieval farmhouse of the same name. When Dillwyn died, his talented novelist daughter was not allowed to inherit; the house went to his nephew and thence to a series of private owners.

The Grade II* Hendrefoilan House was taken over by the university in the 1960s. It has been used for accommodation and teaching, and latterly for nothing at all. Water floods down the outside walls, leading to damp on the inside. Lead thefts indicate that criminals are aware of it.

We urge the owner, Swansea University, to repair this impressive building and keep it safe until its future is secure. An institution devoted to learning should have more respect for a building symbolic of Wales’s industrial history and cult

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Photo: London, Holborn Circus, 1890. Courtesy City of London

Holborn Circus, meeting point of six highways, was designed by engineer William Haywood in 1867 as a commanding and visually striking junction. The highways all terminate at the same point – a statue of Prince Albert. This device gives the termination of Holborn Viaduct its visual focus.

Dickens’s Dictionary of London (1879) described Holborn Circus as ‘perhaps.. the finest piece of street architecture in the City’.

Alas, following WW2 damage, many buildings lining the Circus were demolished. The building line was set back, resulting in a vast and windy area unfriendly to pedestrians. The City of London now intends to obliterate the Victorian plan by moving the statue off to the side and blocking one of the roads. This will result in a vast area of tarmac without focus.

We call on the City of London to return to the drawing board and think strategically. The statue should remain at the heart of the Circus and future redevelopment should respect the historic lines of this important piece of townscape.

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Resembling an immense staircase, this reservoir spillway is one of our most unusual endangered buildings. It was designed to allow the release of excess water during periods of heavy rain and is the UK’s only listed spillway. The owner, Yorkshire Water, plans to remove its steps and replace the sandstone walls with coloured concrete. Its case is that the spillway does not comply with current safety standards, but the kind of flooding it seeks to manage is determined by theoretical assessment and may occur only once in 20,000 years.

Photo: Butterley reservoir spillway by Steve Partridge

The ‘upgrading’ work will result in the loss of everything that is special about the spillway. Coloured concrete is not an adequate substitute for natural stone. Villagers and visitors have formed a campaign to help protect the spillway. Yorkshire Water should listen to them and develop a plan which is less damaging to this unique example of Victorian engineering

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Photo Credit: The Victorian Society.

Its walls shrouded by ivy, a mortuary chapel looms high over a Salford cemetery. Closed and effectively abandoned in the 1980s, the Grade II chapel is listed because of its architectural importance and rarity, its significance for local people and the landscape.

Built in 1903 by Sharpe & Foster, the building has many unique features. Designed in Perpendicular Gothic, it also shows the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement, and Art Nouveau in its stained glass windows.

It is also tall: this makes it much more of a landmark than most cemetery chapels.

The chapel now faces its greatest challenge: it has no immediately obvious viable use. Add this to difficulties over access, high costs of repair and public access, and the future seems bleak. At the very least Salford City Council, who recently upgraded and refurbished Agecroft’s crematorium at some expense, should arrange for the chapel’s repair before something uglier than neglect comes calling.

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