Nottinghamshire has over 4,500 listed buildings, structures and monuments. Whilst the great majority are in good condition, there are a number of buildings that have fallen into disuse, dereliction and disrepair, commonly referred to as ‘Buildings at Risk’ (BaR).
To identify BaR and to monitor their condition Nottinghamshire County Council has been carrying out regular condition surveys since the end of the 1980s. The latest survey was carried out between 2000 and 2003 (with updates from 2004/5).
The current BaR Register can be accessed online, or the 2004 BaR publication can be downloaded for free as a pdf file
The register includes buildings that have been identified in the County Council’s condition survey as being ‘at risk’ by using a set of national criteria devised by English Heritage (the government’s advisory body on heritage in England).
The aim of this register is to raise awareness of the problems relating to historic buildings at risk to the wider public. It also aims to prompt the owner or members of the public to take action to get these buildings repaired and secure their long-term future.
In some cases the fate of a building could simply be turned around by changing ownership. Where appropriate, the register might help to find new owners able to repair a building at risk. For this purpose we have only buildings included in the register that are habitable, potentially habitable, or which could have some other beneficial use.
The register will help local authorities, English Heritage and Building Preservation Trusts to set priorities for planning and financing building work. It is also the intention to use the register to persuade funders to make money available at the county and local level.
Why do historic buildings become 'at risk'?There are some typical causes why buildings can become neglected and disused, and often more than one factor is involved:
Between 2001 and 2004, Nottinghamshire County Council conducted a condition and alteration survey of all listed buildings in the county. The aim was to update the records produced in 1991 and 1995, so that any listed building in a poor state of repair could be identified, and the overall situation compared with the results of previous surveys. The BaR survey was conducted using a form based on a format introduced by English Heritage in the 1980s in order to record:
The assessment of each building was based on a visual external inspection only. The survey attempted to be as extensive as possible and to include any structure which is covered by the listing status of a property, including ancillary or curtilage buildings. Also included in the survey were buildings of local interest and buildings of merit within a conservation area.
Facts and figures on buildings at risk in NottinghamshireOf the 4535 listed buildings in Nottinghamshire 333, that is 7.3 percent, were identified as being at risk. Comparing the results by district, Bassetlaw followed by Newark & Sherwood have the highest number of BaR. This reflects the fact that these are the two largest districts with the highest number of listed buildings.
Comparing the number of BaR with the number of listed buildings of each individual district it is in fact the smaller districts, i.e. Broxtowe (16 percent) and Ashfield (13.8 percent) that have the highest rate of BaR.
Ancillary structures, i.e. outbuildings, walls, gates and railings are most at risk. They make up nearly a third of all buildings and structures to be recorded at risk.
The second largest group of buildings under threat are agricultural buildings i.e. barns, stables and cartsheds. Over a third of this building type is at risk; it makes up nearly 25 percent of all buildings and structures to be recorded at risk.
Buildings in domestic use, i.e. cottages, lodges, and houses have one of the lowest rates of BaR. Only 2.1 percent of all recorded domestic properties have been identified to be at risk.
Over one fifth of garden landscape features e.g. urns, garden terraces, fountains, are at risk. They make up nearly 10 percent of all listed buildings and structures recorded to be at risk.
Commemorative records i.e. headstones, tombs, statues, make up 7.7 percent of the buildings and structures at risk.
Although there are only two industrial extraction buildings at risk, this accounts for 100 percent of this listed building type in the county (i.e. Bestwood Winding Engine and the Clipstone Headstocks).
Nearly 44 percent of Nottinghamshire’s power related buildings (i.e. windmills, watermills) are at risk.
33 percent of buildings used for storage are at risk.
Nearly a third of Nottinghamshire’s listed manufacture and processing buildings are at risk.
Nearly a quarter of all utility buildings (such as Victorian water and sewage pumping stations) are at risk.
One in every nine transport related listed buildings are at risk.
Threats to historic buildings in NottinghamshireHistoric Buildings become at risk for a variety of reasons. The situation in Nottinghamshire reflects in essence the BaR situation both regionally and country wide. In general terms, an inhabitable or usable building is less likely to become at risk than a monument or structure which is not capable of occupation.
Redundancy accounts for most buildings becoming at risk. It is usually not this factor alone but also neglect that affects a building once it has become vacant. Agricultural buildings make up the highest numbers of buildings under threat in the county. Changes in farm practices have caused traditional farm buildings all over the country to become under-used or wholly redundant and uneconomical to maintain. 
A range of 18th century agricultural buldings in Misterton, vacant and in a dire condition (left).
In the 19th and 20th centuries Nottinghamshire’s economy was dominated by the textile and coal mining industries, which left a rich built heritage. Today, most textile mills and extraction sites are redundant, many of which are of social, cultural and historic significance. Despite the importance and extent of coal mining in Nottinghamshire its building heritage is greatly undervalued. Many of the sites have been reclaimed with the headstocks, powerhouses and ancillary buildings demolished. Two of only three sites in Nottinghamshire that are protected are under threat of immediate demolition. The headstocks at Annesley Colliery are under immediate threat of demolition (right).
In Nottingham City over the recent years a considerable number of former lace factories and warehouses have been converted to other uses, some of them very successfully. For another large mill site, the former Anglo-Scotian Mills in Beeston, are being restored and redeveloped at present. Elsewhere in the county there remain large scale vacant mills whose future is unresolved and their condition progressively worsening. The late 18th century Langwith Mill in Nether Langwith is in urgent need of a sympathetic scheme that ensures its repair and long-term future (right).
Some buildings however remain at risk even though the fate of others in the near vicinity has been turned around. The Great Northern Warehouse within the Boots Island site off London Road in Nottingham has been at risk since 1983 and remains so despite the fact that the nearby Low Level Station, which was also a long term at risk building, has been successfully converted to a new use as a commercial gym. The Great Northern Warehouse in Nottingham (right).
Even for domestic properties scale can become a risk factor. Some of the county’s great country houses and associated outbuildings have been persistent problem buildings, such as Annesley Hall, Ollerton Hall, Berry Hill Hall and Debdale Hall outbuildings in Mansfield Woodhouse. The threat of redundancy and dereliction to this building type has been a nationwide problem since the 1940s. Ollerton Hall in Ollerton, a 17th century country house has been a long-term building at risk (left).
Long-term neglect is not isolated to large buildings where scale is the major hurdle, the tiny pair of Gatehouses at Drakeholes in North Nottinghamshire have equally evaded solution for over twenty years even though they could be repaired at a reasonable cost. One of the gatehouse lodges in Drakeholes. Unresolved ownership issues have prevented the repair of these tiny buildings (right).
An important part of the early industrial heritage of Nottinghamshire are the many framework knitters workshops. They are relics of a once thriving framework knitting industry in the East Midlands. 
Located mostly to the back of houses they are now redundant, and it has proven to be difficult to find any viable use for them. Due to their small footprint, do not lend themselves easily to conversion.
A mid 19th century framework knitters workshop in Sutton Bonington (right).
In a rural context there are a great number of windmills and dovecotes under threat. 32 percent of all dovecotes are at risk. Dovecotes were built from medieval times as a way of breeding pigeons to supplement the owner’s diet, especially in the winter. They are small, often two-storey structures of various shapes. Some of them are located free-standing in a field. To give them an economic use they would need to be extended, which can hardly be achieved without seriously compromising their character. A pigeoncote in Harwell, built around 1700 (left).
