Victorian banquet hall and earliest amusement park among ‘endangered’ buildings
A nineteenth-century banqueting hall for industrial labourers and the world’s first purpose-built amusement park have been ranked among the most “endangered” Victorian buildings by a charity dedicated to their preservation.
The Victorian Society’s annual top 10 list of buildings and structures in need of rescue – released on Wednesday – was described as “terrifying” by the society’s president, comedian Griff Rhys Jones.
It includes the Kursaal in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, which is believed to be the world’s first purpose-built amusement park with a circus, ballroom, arcade, dining hall, billiard room, zoo and ice rink.
Designed by architect George Sherrin and opened in 1901, a lonely Tesco Express is all that occupies the Grade II-listed site today after it was forced to close in 1986 following an unsuccessful campaign to save the attraction.
A nineteenth-century banquet hall in Newcastle, built for employees of the wealthy industrialist William Armstrong, also features on the list.
The Jesmond Dene Banqueting Hall was built by John Dobson in 1860 and subsequently expanded with a gatehouse, reception hall and display room by Norman Shaw in the following decade.
The charity said it is now “in a state of increasing decay” and may soon be unable to support the artists who continue to use it as a studio.
Each of the sites listed as in need of rescue and repair is Grade II-listed or above, meaning they are subject to regulations protecting their historical and architectural significance, but the charity said in some cases it feared this was not enough.
Other buildings on the list include one of the first tennis pavilions in the world, a requisitioned school where author Vera Brittain nursed during the First World War and a Gothic coastal villa in Devon which served as a school for girls from 1885.
St Martins in Ilfracombe, formerly known as Roslyn Hoe, had become a small hotel by the 1930s and was described by a local architect as an “exercise in symmetry”.
Rhys Jones said the list was “a testament to the excitement, variety and invention of the Victorian Age”.
“How terrifying to see buildings I have known, loved or used all my life in Southend and Cardiff in need of rescue,” he added.
“But come on. Look at the character on display here. They all add colour and story to any urban landscape.
“Their restoration and reuse make huge commercial sense. They are attractions in themselves. They are already destinations. They should be part of local pride.
“What do we want? A parking lot? A faceless block in their place? A slew of new carbon pollution? When they have so much colour, continuity and history on their side already?”
This is the fourteenth list of endangered buildings released by the Victorian Society, which was founded in 1958.
The top 10 list for 2024 is:
– Kennington Boys’ School, London
– The Kursaal, Essex
– Jesmond Dene Banqueting Hall, Newcastle
– Former Bramcote Tennis Pavilion, North Yorkshire
– St Luke’s Chapel of Nottingham City Hospital, Nottinghamshire
– St Martins (formerly Roslyn Hoe), Devon
– Chances Glassworks, West Midlands
– St Agnes’ Vicarage and Hall, Liverpool
– Former Education Department Offices, Derbyshire
– Cardiff Coal Exchange, Cardiff
