Victorian Society publishes 'endangered buildings list'

The Victorian Society has published this year's list of the top 10 most endangered Victorian and Edwardian buildings - all of which are listed - in a bid to raise awareness of their plight and save them from destruction and decay.

The list has been launched by comedian, actor, writer and presenter Griff Rhys Jones, vice president of the Victorian Society, who urged people in a video message to publicise the list because "they are buildings that need help and we need you to help them".

The buildings include neglected Kinmel Hall, Wales, a palatial house which has been dubbed "the Welsh Versailles" or "discount Downton" and Overstone Hall, East Midlands, with the earliest known cavity wall insulation, which is now half burnt out after fire.

Also in the top 10 are Brighton's Madeira Terrace, a seafront walk said to be the longest continuous iron structure in the world, but now closed to the public and set to be replaced, and the derelict Gothic Ladywell Baths in London.

The Sheerness Boat Store, Kent, which is the world's earliest surviving example of a kind of iron framed structure that is almost universally used in modern steel framed buildings, has made it onto the list, which is nominated by members of the public.

So to has Birnbeck Pier, Weston Super Mare, Britain's only pier leading to an island, which is close to collapse.

They are joined by scaffold-shrouded Central Plaza Hotel, Carlisle, the long-disused Hunslet and Victoria Mills, Leeds, the closed St Luke's Church in Wolverhampton which has an exceptionally well preserved Victorian interior and the deteriorating Tolly Cobbold Brewery, Ipswich.

Director of the Victorian Society Christopher Costelloe said: