Willerby Manor Hotel, Hull
A converted 19th-century mansion house, now a Best Western hotel, is to be flattened for 50 homes:
This proposal comes much to the chagrin of local residents who have overwhelmingly objected to the idea. The original mansion is still visible behind the later additions, and a detailed history of the property is available here courtesy of research by Margaret McGlashan.
The hotel closed during the Covid-19 pandemic and did not reopen. I suppose the owners realised housing was the way to go. So this Victorian Manor, possibly the historic seat of Willerby, will be lost because of the lockdown. That’s important. We will slowly see this happen more as large property owners apply the guillotine to the risky elements of their portfolios. This is what happens when ownership is not local.
The historic map above shows the original manor house in isolation before it was consumed by the hotel complex. The distance between the village and the house on the maps provides so much narrative of the social history of East Yorkshire. When it’s not there anymore, neither is Willerby’s story.
Former Sunday School, Birr Road, Bradford
Demolition of a stunning listed ecclesiastical building:
Another shocking application to denude Bradford of her history. This is the former Sunday school to the rear of Most Holy Trinity & Our Lady of Pochaiv Church in Manningham, and it is a stunning building, which cumulatively with the church forms an almost abbey size Catholic campus in the city.
The plan is to knock it down and get ten houses in there. Needless to say the housing crisis will be cited by the applicant as justification, when the building could clearly accommodate that many flats, with much lower carbon expenditure required.
A YouTube video here does a brilliant walk-around of the building. The structure appears to be sound. Granted, the windows are boarded up and someone has tagged the shutters, but the masonry looks as fresh as the day it was built. The roof also appears to be in order, particularly for a building that hasn’t been in full use for ten years. Then again, churches are built to last. I mean really last – beyond the market forces and council housing strategies of the moment.
There is no reason to demolish this building other than the fact that it would make more money as developable land. But when a building is listed, and in a conservation area, and immediately adjacent the setting of a church, and is consecrated ground (I could go on…) the economic imperative is second to its heritage significance.
How annoying that the Council is being emotionally blackmailed by the notion of enabling development that would subsidise the main church building. I need only mention that the Catholic Church is rolling in it, and doesn’t need subsidising at the expense of a crime against heritage.
I’m also saddened to see the Ukrainian Church supportive of the proposal. I mean no disrespect, but the congregation should not have the final say as putative owners. It may be their church now, but it wasn’t always. This was built for the people of Yorkshire long before and it remains our history.
The Demolition Register 