City mills among top ten Victorian and Edwardian buildings ‘at risk’

A LONG-DISUSED mill complex in Leeds, Britain’s only pier built around an island and a boat store with “worldwide importance” are among the 10 most endangered Victorian and Edwardian structures, it has been revealed.

The Victorian Society has published this year’s list of the top 10 most endangered Victorian and Edwardian buildings – all of which are listed – in a bid to raise awareness of their plight and save them from destruction and decay.

They include the Grade II-listed Hunslet and Victoria Mills in Leeds were built in the 1830s and the former is already on the Heritage At Risk Register. The site is owned by property developers but has been left to crumble.

Also in the top 10 are Kinmel Hall in Wales, a palatial house which has been dubbed “the Welsh Versailles” or “discount Downton” and Overstone Hall, East Midlands, which contains the earliest known cavity wall insulation, which is now half burnt out after fire.

Brighton’s Madeira Terrace, a seafront walk said to be the longest continuous iron structure in the world, but now closed to the public and set to be replaced, and the derelict Gothic Ladywell Baths in London, are also listed.

The Sheerness Boat Store, Kent, which is the world’s earliest surviving example of a kind of iron framed structure that is almost universally used in modern steel framed buildings, has made it onto the list, which is nominated by members of the public.

Director of the Victorian Society Christopher Costelloe said: “These buildings illustrate Britain’s history in tangible form.

“All of them deserve better than their current situations.”