Listed lifeline for Strand Union Workhouse - Government agrees to look at protecting building ‘that inspired Dickens’ from demolition
Published: 12 November 2010
by JOSH LOEB
A HISTORIC former workhouse threatened with demolition has been handed a lifeline after a central government department agreed to re-examine a decision not to list it.
An application to replace the Strand Union Workhouse in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, with shops, offices and social housing was registered by the building’s owner, University College London Hospital (UCLH) NHS Foundation Trust, in July.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) had previously decided against listing the building – but in a dramatic volte-face, DCMS spokesman Toby Sargent told the West End Extra on Wednesday that the case would now be reopened.
English Heritage yesterday (Thursday) said they were “moving swiftly” to persuade the department that there is new evidence of the historic significance of the property, which was built in the 1770s and which campaigners say inspired parts of Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist. The workhouse is also deemed important because the medical officer attached to it, Dr Joseph Rogers, campaigned against harsh conditions for the urban poor and the Poor Laws.
Medical historian Ruth Richardson called the DCMS’s announcement “absolutely wonderful” and said that if the building is granted listed status, it could spell the end of UCLH’s plans.
She said: “Had the DCMS said, ‘No we won’t look at this again’, we’d be lost. Now we’ll have to see how it goes, but there is obviously real enthusiasm for this building.”
A petition against the proposed demolition has been signed by hundreds of people including the actors Simon Callow and Griff Rhys Jones as well as historian Dan Cruickshank.
Mr Cruickshank said the site could be converted into flats without having to demolish the building.
He added: “It is in good nick and is reusable. It seems to me that if listing is to mean anything then a building of this importance should be listed.”
A spokesman for UCLH said last week that they were required to provide social housing as a condition of being granted planning permission to build their new base on Euston Road in 2005 and that the workhouse site had been agreed on “after years of negotiation”.
The spokesman added: “We have consulted the local community and were pleased that the vast majority of people supported our plans.”
In light of the DCMS’s announcement, the West End Extra contacted the hospital again yesterday but a spokesman said they had no further comments at this stage.
The Strand Union Workhouse lies just over the border from Westminster and comes under the jurisdiction of Camden Council, which is yet set a date to hear UCLH’s application.