Former Carlton Cinema [© Historic England]

CHURCHES must find new uses for their historic buildings – or Islington faces losing a raft of significant landmarks, Simon Buteux of Historic England has told the Tribune.

Yesterday (Thursday) the government conservation quango issued its annual At Risk register, a survey of listed and historic buildings and monuments that are in various states of dereliction.
And in Islington, nearly half of buildings at risk are churches.

Mr Buteux said: “One of the biggest issues is repairing and restoring churches.

“There is a myth that the Church of England is rolling in money. They do not have the funds to maintain and restore them. There have been falling congregations, demographics have changed – churches have to find new uses as well as being a place of worship.

“These are landmark buildings in our cities and very valuable. Just maintaining them is really difficult. By trying to open them up for other uses, we can unlock funding.”

In total, Islington has 26 buildings at serious risk – a figure that has not decreased over the past 12 months, with 11 places of worship.

Finsbury Town Hall [Lionel Allorge_CC BY-SA 3.0]

Among the structures listed, long-forgotten catacombs that were once part of the Clerkenwell House of Correction are in danger. These were originally part of the prison, which was demolished in 1890. They were forgotten about until the Second World War, when they were used as shelters, and then closed until the 1990s when they enjoyed a brief period as a museum.

And two standout terracotta landmarks are also at risk: the Finsbury Town Hall in Rosebery Avenue, home to public records, and the Moorfields eye hospital in Old Street.

Other items include street furniture: railings around the borough’s historic Georgian Thornhill and Wilmington squares need care.

A more recent construction is a former Mecca Bingo Hall in Essex Road. Dating from 1930 when it opened as the Carlton Cinema, its standout features are falling apart.

Mr Buteux said: “Mecca Bingo is an art deco building, one of so many built in the heyday of cinema. There are some fantastic cinemas in this style that are at risk. We had a lot of these art deco, slightly whacky, interesting pleasure palaces. But by the 1980s, many had closed and turned into bingo halls, while more recently, quite a few have been converted into evangelical churches.

“They are important and offer plenty of scope for new use to secure their future.”

Moorfields [Tarquin Binary_CCBY-SA 2.5]

As more and more 20th-century buildings make the cut, Mr Buteux says what makes a building deemed suitably interesting to be deemed worth saving if in trouble is “a moving target”.

He said: “We find it usually goes back to about 30 years. Listings are now coming in from the end of the 20th century. The more recent, the higher the bar to be able to say they have a special architectural or historic interest.

“Listings are now coming in from the end of the 20th century. And you do see new buildings listed – but the more recent, the higher the bar.”

While the register makes it public which heritage buildings are in danger today, repairs are a long-term aim. Town Halls have powers to force owners to make repairs – with the ultimate sanction being a compulsory purchase order. Historic England offer advice and grants but have no statutory powers.

This means it can be a frustratingly drawn-out process.

Mr Buteux said: “The local authority has enforcement powers to order urgent works, and if they are not done, they can do it themselves.

“But they have to do this through the planning system and boroughs are really stretched. They have to have both the capacity and the will to do it. Often it isn’t very high on a list among all the other important services they have to provide.”