An old 19th Century hospital in Flintshire is being put up for sale at auction next week.
Lluesty hospital, built as a workhouse in the late 1830s, has not been used since the new Holywell Community Hospital opened in 2008.
The building is listed but there is land for development on the site, with room for up to 70 homes. Auctioneers have set a guide price of £150,000.
“It is a feature of Holywell,” said local historian Brian Taylor.
“There aren’t many of these workhouses left in the country,” Mr Taylor said.
The original workhouse complex and adjoining chapel were Grade II listed 20 years ago.
The early Victorian building was designed by St Asaph architect John Welch and used as a workhouse for the poor of 14 parishes.
The buildings are set in grounds of approximately 7.4 acres which have been allocated for housing development.
It is thought up to 70 houses could be built on the site.
Jean Saunders worked as a ward sister at the hospital between 1962 and 1971 and her husband, John, set up the Good Companions group in 1964 to raise money for the hospital.
Mrs Saunders welcomed the fact that the site is to be sold: “It will be strange to see it being used for something different but it will be nice to see it being cared for,” she said.
“Lluesty served the people of Holywell very well over the years, but we’ve got a brand new hospital now,” Mr Saunders said.
In 2006 television personality Cilla Black visited Lluesty as part of a BBC Wales programme called ‘Coming Home with Cilla Black’.
The auction by Lambert Smith Hampton will be held in London on 18 February.
