Listing Lowdown - February 2025

Over January we’ve seen some fascinating buildings being listed, including a controversial brutalist laboratory, a condemned c.300-year-old cottage and a former school building in central London.

Brambell Laboratory, Bangor University, listed grade II on 8th January 2025

This building has now received its second accolade – while in 1970, this building as dubbed ‘Eyesore of the Year’ by a local paper, it has now been acknowledged by Cadw as ‘a striking and confident expression of Brutalist principles’ and has been listed at grade II. Designed by the architecture practice who first suggested the perhaps even more controversial removal of the Euston Arch, the laboratory has now been noted for its associations with the zoologist and animal welfare researcher Professor Francis Brambell and its reflection of postwar biological research.

Pear Tree Cottage, Harling, Norfolk, listed at grade II on 24th January 2025

The demolition of this beautiful seventeenth- or eighteenth-century cottage was approved just over a year ago. Historic England’s decision to list the building will hopefully prevent damage occurring to the cottage, which currently lies derelict. The listing notes the building’s traditional local materials and construction – wattle and daub, timber and thatch – as well as its surviving timber frame and plan form. Hopefully this cottage’s listing marks a turning point in its fortunes.

Former St Patricks Schools, Great Chapel Street, London, listed at grade II on 20th January 2025

Right in the heart of London, this former 1880s school has been listed at grade II. A St Patrick’s School, the building is distinctive due to its rounded corner and terracotta frieze which bears the school’s name alongside shamrocks and Celtic crosses. Listed due to its completeness, the proliferation of St Patrick’s Schools reflects their increasing demand due both to London’s growing Irish population due to the famines and to the introduction in 1880 of compulsory education until the age of ten.