Lauderdale House's £2m campaign for arts and heritage centre

Published: 07 July 2011
by DAN CARRIER

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 dedicated Highgate-based Lauderdale House 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. 

“The building is great, but it was never designed for this. It means it has certain limitations and things are starting to wear out.”

Plans have been drawn up by King’s Cross architects Haines Philips. Their head designer on the project, Euan Durston, knows the building well – he got married there this year.

Ms Ives said: “There has been so many little piecemeal additions to the building in the past century that are not fitting and also not fit for purpose really anymore.”

Sir Sydney Waterlow made the house his home in the 1800s, handing over the house and ­gardens – Waterlow Park – to the newly formed London County Council.

And now Ms Ives hopes Sir Sidney’s generous gesture will be reciprocated over 100 years later by those who use the house and park.

She added: “As well as financial help – we hope people living nearby will make donations – we would very much like people with skills to come forward, as they did in the past to save the home from dereliction.

“Anyone with business planning experience, fundraising skills, or anything else they could contribute, we’d love to hear from them.”