Fundraisers appeal for help to make historic arts centre Lauderdale House ‘fit for purpose’

LAUDERDALE House is due to be at the centre of a £2million fundraising campaign to create a new arts and heritage centre in Waterlow Park, Highgate.

The Lauderdale House Society, who manage the building and use it for community events, arts and education programmes, have drawn up a masterplan that will see 20th-century exten­sions knocked down and new studio spaces created.

A £128,000 grant from the Lottery Heritage Fund has been spent on surveyors and architects. Now the society plan a further bid for £500,000 from the fund in January, and hope to raise the rest through smaller donations from charities and the centre’s users.

It will be the second time people living near the Grade II-listed building have stepped in to help. After the house was devastated by fire in 1963, a team of Highgate-based enthusiasts led by Lady Sasha Young and architect Oliver Cox raised funds to put a roof on the building and restore it to its former glory. It reopened as a community arts building in 1978.

Manager Catherine Ives said the house needs some pricey maintenance work done on it – an electrical refit costing £100,000 is due – and this was the perfect opportunity to sensitively restore parts that had not been touched when the house was revamped previously.

She said: “For some years we have been using the house for lots of different events, education and arts program­mes. There have been so many piecemeal additions to the building in the past century that are not fitting and also not fit for purpose really any more.

Published: 8th July, 2011
by DAN CARRIER