Revealed: The historic sites at risk of being lost to neglect and decay

Published

2 years ago

November 9, 2023

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The house where the Gunpowder Plot unravelled and a hotel that inspired Charles Dickens’ first novel are now among historic sites at risk of being lost to neglect and decay.

Some 159 buildings have been added to Historic England’s Heritage At Risk register, which details properties in danger unless efforts are made to improve them.

Holbeche House in the West Midlands was once owned by a member of the gang behind the Gunpowder Plot – but is now deemed to be at risk.

It was the final refuge of the plotters once they fled London after ringleader Robert Catesby was killed in a gunfight – three days after the failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

According to Historic England, the house was recently used a care home, but is now empty and a “site of concern for the local community”.

Also on the list this year is the Great White Horse Hotel in Ipswich, Suffolk, which inspired Charles Dickens to write The Pickwick Papers.

The hotel also hosted the likes of Admiral Lord Nelson and The Beatles in its illustrious history.

However, it now has active dry rot in the space named after the British author – as well as deteriorating windows and drain pipes and gutters in poor condition.

Other major sites on the list include a church in Suffolk once painted by John Constable, the remains of a castle built during the reign of William the Conqueror in Kent, and a mansion in Devon that was used as a WWI hospital in 1914.

A number of sites have been removed from the list after being rescued – including the filming location for the Last Of The Summer Wine.

Holmfirth Conservation Area in West Yorkshire had its buildings repaired and repurposed after vacancy rates fell.

A church in Dorset used by the Tolpuddle Martyrs, six men accused of swearing secret oaths in the 19th century, has also been saved, after 25 years on the register, using lottery grants.

Elsewhere, a Victorian substation in southwest London has been saved – as have the walls of Evesham Abbey in Worcestershire and a Napoleonic era arms depot in Northamptonshire.

Historic England said there are 48 fewer properties on the list than in 2022 – and 6,800 entries have been removed from the list since its inception in 1998.

Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England said: “Protecting our heritage is so important. It is truly inspirational to see communities coming together to help save historic buildings and places and find new uses for them.

“The Heritage At Risk programme shines a light on our historic sites most in need and can help to attract funding and help.

“After a quarter of a century of the Heritage At Risk Register, we are celebrating how many places have been saved and continue to find new ways to involve local people in caring for and enjoying their heritage.”

Arts and heritage minister Lord Parkinson said: “It is heartening to see that so many sites have had their futures secured and have been taken off the register over the past year thanks to the hard work of Historic England and local people.

“I look forward to the new additions to the register receiving similar care and attention so that future generations can continue to enjoy and learn from our rich heritage for years to come.”

More than £7.6m in grants have been issued by Historic England for repairs to 155 sites on the Heritage At Risk register during 2022 and 2023.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

55 mins ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

2 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.

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Miguell Rocha played with Jota for around ten years with Gondomar Sport Clube in Portugal.

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The former captain was seen wiping away tears as he read messages and laid his tribute down.

UK

How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk

Published

7 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk

Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.

Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”

Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.

After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.

“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.

“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”

Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.

Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.

He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”

The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.

Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.

“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”

The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.

“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.

“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”

The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.

I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.

“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.

He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.

“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.

“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”

He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.