The latest Buildings at Risk List from the Twentieth Century Society (C20) is an intriguing mix of Modernist gems, pre-Premier League football architecture and the first designs of the Millennium.
Sunwin House department store brought Bauhaus flavour to the streets of Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1936, but it’s been empty for 14 years and is at risk of ‘creeping neglect’. C20 hopes Bradford’s 2025 UK City of Culture status might spark a revival of interest. Much interior detailing, including brass Art Deco handrails, survives.
Sunwin House has been empty for more than a decade and is now at risk of 'creeping neglect'.
In Lancashire, Blackpool’s Grand National Rollercoaster (1935), one of the last and ‘most innovative and evocative’ of pre-war wooden rollercoasters, is under threat of demolition. Newcastle United’s Brutalist east stand at St James’ Park, built in the 1970s, is also vulnerable, with the club’s owners looking to redevelop or rebuild.
When it opened in 2000, the National Wildflower Centre, Knowsley, Merseyside, was an expression of Millennium-era optimism, but its operating company went into liquidation in 2017. With no alternative use, the council wants to demolish; C20 director Catherine Croft describes it as ‘the product of an era where unprecedented public funding delivered some ambitious and extraordinary projects’.
The National Wildflower Centre in Merseyside (2000) is at risk of demolition because of cost and safety concerns.
Sheffield's National Centre for Popular Music was cited as 'extremely vulnerable' following news that the previous occupants, Sheffield Hallam University's student union, was relocating.
More positively, in the 80th-anniversary year of the liberation of Auschwitz, C20 is celebrating Historic England’s award of Grade II-listed status to Brighton and Hove Reform Synagogue.
The Society had long championed the building, with its stained glass windows that the National Portrait Gallery’s chief curator Alison Smith describes as ‘one of the great religious artworks of the 20th century’, but which had faced demolition. No longer thought to be at risk, it becomes only the second post-war listed synagogue in England.
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A private island in the Thames Estuary is up for sale at £50,000, complete with its own Victorian fortDarnet Fort, is seeking a new owner — but it's going to need someone of great vision and spirit.
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A 500-year-old house with interiors by Soho House's designer, gardens by an RHS Chelsea gold medallist and its own grass tennis courtHaslingfield Manor is an extraordinary mix of styles and ideas, from Tudor Britain to the cutting edge of modern design. Penny Churchill takes a look.
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Utterly wonderful country homes for sale across Britain, from a 10-bedroom mansion to a Devon hideaway, as seen in Country LifeFrom an irresistibly charming house in Devon to a 400-year-old commutable home in Hertfordshire, here's our pick of some of the best homes to come to market via Country Life in the past week.
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The London house where Rolls-Royce's co-founder Charles Rolls tinkered with his very first car is for sale at £17 millionCharles Rolls, the engineer and co-founder of Rolls-Royce, got his hands dirty when using the stables of this fine London home as a makeshift garage. Annabel Dixon reports.
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A vineyard for sale on the slopes above 'the best beach in Britain' is for sale at just £650,000In the beautifully unspoilt Devon village of Bantham, an award-winning vineyard is for sale. Toby Keel takes a look.
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This spectacular 14th-century castle has had its price cut by £7.5 million. Here's whyThe art and science of being an estate agent is never trickier than when dealing with homes that are being sold for the first time in centuries — and Ripley Castle in Yorkshire provides the perfect example. Lucy Denton explains more.
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A simply perfect thatched cottage in Devon, with charm, walled gardens and all the space you need for family lifeThatched cottages are often pretty, but pretty small — but Julie Harding finds one brings which blends cottage charm with the space of a country manor.
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'A rare gem' of a country house, in 163 acres of the idyllic Colne Valley, just 50 minutes from the CityThe Regency-style Over Hall in Colne Engaine is a country house whose previous owner has spent 40 years getting everything just right. Penny Churchill takes a look.
