The fire at the Medlock Mill in Manchester on 23rd June 2025. The building is also known as the Hotspur Press. Photo: Alan Davies on Flickr – PitHeadGear and on Twitter @pitheadbaths.
The Victorian Society is deeply concerned by a growing pattern of the Secretary of State refusing to add important historic buildings to the National Heritage List for England, even when formally recommended to do so by Historic England. Such decisions threaten to erode confidence in the statutory listing process and place irreplaceable heritage at risk.
In London, the Society was dismayed by the Minister’s decision not to list the principal surviving buildings of the former Holborn Union Infirmary and Whittington Hospital at Archway. Designed in 1879 by Henry Saxon Snell, a leading hospital architect of the Victorian period, the Holborn, Charterhouse and Clerkenwell blocks, together with the administration building and associated features, represent a significant survival of the pavilion-plan hospital movement associated with Florence Nightingale. Historic England concluded that these buildings clearly met the criteria for listing, but the Minister declined to follow its expert advice. The site, already within a Conservation Area at Risk, is subject to redevelopment proposals that would entail extensive demolition.
A similar case has recently unfolded in Manchester. Historic England recommended the first phase of Medlock Mill, built in the late 1790s or early 1800s, for listing at Grade II. The mill is recognised as the oldest or second oldest surviving spinning mill in the city, and an exceptional example of an early non-fireproof mill. Its survival of cruciform column heads, Baltic pine beams with merchant’s marks, and rare evidence of early power transmission systems make it an asset of outstanding historical and architectural significance, with strong group value as part of the wider Chorlton on Medlock mill cluster. Despite this, the Minister refused to add the building to the national list.
These are not isolated incidents. The Twentieth Century Society has recently faced two comparable refusals, in each case against the considered recommendation of Historic England. Together, these decisions mark a worrying departure from the established principle that statutory listing should be guided by transparent, expert-led assessments.
The Victorian Society, together with its fellow National Amenity Societies, will continue to press for greater accountability in listing decisions and for the protection of the nation’s architectural heritage. Ministerial discretion should not be exercised in ways that undermine the credibility of the process or leave historic buildings – recognised by experts as meeting the statutory tests – vulnerable to loss.
