Four endangered historic buildings are named

FOUR Grade II-listed properties in the North West have been named among the UK’s 10 most endangered historic buildings.

They have been identified by charity the Victorian Society as buildings in need of urgent help and protection.

Included are St Paul’s Church in Chester, Mount Street Hospital in Preston, St Joseph’s Seminary in Upholland, Lancashire, and Rylands Mill in Wigan. For the first time, no properties in London or the South East have been named.

“Retaining historic buildings like those in the top 10 is vital to maintaining local identity and creating places in which people want to invest, live and work,” said the society’s director Christopher Costello.

Mount Street Hospital was built as an orphanage and is a Gothic building which later became a convalescent home, but it has been empty for more than a decade.

St Paul’s is said to have a “stunning interior” which retains wall paintings and stained glass windows by leading artists.
 
The society said it was “going through a closure process after the congregation merged with another church”.

St Joseph’s is a Gothic complex which has been decaying since it closed in the early 1990s.

It was first a seminary and then a boarding school whose alumni include comedians Tom O’Connor and Johnny Vegas.

Rylands Mill is a former cotton mill, with boiler, engine house, chimney and weaving sheds which has been derelict since the early 200s and is currently for sale at £2.5m.