Abandoned 'palace' that was once workhouse office is on list of most endangered Victorian buildings
An abandoned building that once housed the offices of a Victorian workhouse organisation has been named on an endangered buildings list.
The former Office for the Board of Guardians of Walsall Poor Law Union is on The Victorian Society’s Top Ten Endangered Buildings list 2023.
The building on Pleck Road has been on the market since last year, with an asking price of £499,999, but is also in urgent need of investment and restoration to save it from having to be pulled down.
The Grade II-listed Jacobethan building was designed by Henry E. Lavender between 1898 and 1900 and is the only part of the Victorian Walsall Manor Hospital that was not demolished.
The building pre-dated the hospital as it was built as the offices for the Central Union Workhouse which housed 350 people.
The two-storey building has mullion-transom windows with a tower on the right corner with an arched doorway topped by a shield, a corbelled eaves cornice, and a lead-clad ogee dome with an ornate weathervane on the finial.
The Online Property Agency, from Birmingham, which has listed the building, describes it as a "spacious detached property with great potential situated in just walking distance of the Walsall Manor Hospital".
