- On the list is the world’s first purpose-built amusement park with circus and zoo
- A 19th-century banquet hall in Newcastle built for staff of a wealthy industrialist
- A Gothic coastal villa in Devon which served as a school for girls from 1885
A nineteeth-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 19th-century banquet hall in Newcastle, built for employees of the wealthy industrialist William Armstrong, also features on the list.
The Kursaal in Southend-on-Sea, Essex has been ranked among the most ‘endangered’ Victorian buildings by the charity dedicated to their preservation
The Jesmond Dene Banqueting Hall was built by John Dobson in 1860.
The Cardiff Coal Exchange was built in 1888 to be used as a market floor and office building for trading in coal in Cardiff. It later became a hub of the global coal trade.
St Agnes’ Vicarage and Hall in Liverpool is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
St Martins in Devon was once used as a school for girls and now is at risk of being demolished.
During World War I, Kennington Boys’ School in London was requisitioned along with adjacent buildings by the military wing of St Bart’s and became the 1st London General Hospital.
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.