Great Thurlow windmill. Taken off the English Heritage building at risk list.

By Matt Gaw
Friday, October 12, 2012
9:00 AM

TEN of East Anglia’s most vulnerable Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings have been added to England Heritage’s at-risk register.

The announcement that the iconic Clare Castle and fire-ravaged Cupola House in Bury St Edmunds will join a list of 92 other buildings that could be lost due to neglect, decay or dereliction, came at the same time as plans to assess some 50,000 Grade II listed buildings were unveiled.

Heritage bosses last night said that the loss of any historic building was like “rubbing out the past” and added that the county’s “wealth” of important Grade II buildings deserved special attention.

Greg Luton, English Heritage planning director for the East of England, said that the 52,396 Grade II buildings in the region accounted for 90.8% of the region’s listed buildings.

“Grade II listed buildings are the bulk of the East of England’s heritage treasury. When one of them is lost, it is as though someone has rubbed out a bit of the past – something that made your street or your village special will have gone.”

Mr Luton said the number of Grade II listed buildings was too great for English Heritage to survey on its own.“We need help from local authorities, national parks, heritage and community groups to find the most efficient way of conducting such an exercise,” he added.

English Heritage said they plan to fund nine to 15 pilot surveys around the country, which means that councils and community groups will receive assistance to locate at-risk buildings.

Mr Luton added: “This is not just bean-counting. It really works. In London, Grade II buildings have been included on the Heritage at Risk Register since 1991, and 96% of them have been saved since then.”

Simon Cairns, director of the Suffolk Preservation Society, said there has been a tendency to be “complacent” about Grade II buildings. “Traditionally we’ve only looked at the Grade II* and Grade I, the sexy or intriguing buildings. But the mainstays of our historic building stock is the Grade II buildings – the day-to-day buildings that we live in and around.

“There has been complacency, a tendency to think, ‘It is only Grade II’. Suffolk is highly unusual in the amount of medieval churches and the wonderful stock of medieval farm houses and cottages that you just don’t find in other counties. But once it is gone, it is gone.”

Mr Cairns said it was particularly important that resources were in place to look after historical buildings given the economic climate, which he said, could mean costly maintenance is not carried out by owners. He was also concerned that cuts to national and local government would mean councils had a “reduced capacity” to deal with vulnerable properties.

Brian Moody, a trustee at Essex Heritage Trust, said it was “vital” to protect the region’s heritage and encouraged owners of listed properties, which are open to the public and need renovations, to apply to the trust for funding. Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils, whose wards Mr Cairns said contain many of Suffolk’s listed properties, said they wanted to know how the English Heritage funding could be assessed.

Essex county councillor Jeremy Lucas, Cabinet member for Environment and Culture said their authority has recorded the condition of Grade II listed buildings in the Essex Heritage at Risk register for many years.

She added: “Like most local authorities across the country, maintaining this important work with increasingly squeezed resources is a challenge. We are always looking for innovative solutions to address these challenges and this is why we offer our full support to English Heritage, to carry out this important work.”

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