In our last post we detailed the uphill struggle that we are facing to convince building owners to come forward and apply for their grants to cover around 75% of the cost of restoring their shopfronts.
Each week now we will feature a building that is targeted for improvements within the scheme. With the help of the Heritage Centre we have been able to piece together their histories and find photographic evidence to show their original features.
The aim is to make the buildings safe from the elements and restore these features. On Lord Street almost all of the shops on the left hand side of the street from the Black Bull development to the Gainsborough hotel are selected by our scheme for improvements, we just await the owners making a commitment.
In anticipation of work commencing, we have created ‘Historic Heart Boards’ to be affixed to the frontage to inform the public about the building’s history and what improvement works are planned.
We would like to share these boards with you now, while we await those building owner’s commitment. Firstly we begin with 31-33 Lord Street, a once handsome building of 3 storeys built in t
he Dutch style in the late 1700s. In the Victorian photograph to the left we see it in the centre of the view, with clean brickwork above the detailed bow windows of the two ground floor shop units. Please click on the link below for a look at our Historic Heart information board. If you can add to our knowledge with details of past businesses or photographs of the building in its heyday then please get in touch at