Dudley Zoo buildings on international at risk register

Oct 7 2009 by Sarah Probert, Birmingham Post

A series of 1930s buildings at Dudley Zoo are among six sites in the UK and Ireland which have been put on an international watch list of threatened heritage, it was announced yesterday.

The 12 modernist Tecton buildings, which include six animal enclosures, have been included on The World Monuments Fund’s latest biannual list.

Led by Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin, the practice Tecton combined a passion for social reform with a deeper knowledge of European modernism.

The Bear Ravine, Polar Bear Pit and Birdhouse all survived in relatively good condition but others, such as the Penguin Pool and the Moat Café, have been demolished or altered beyond recognition.

The buildings at the zoo did not change the world but many see them as a monument to a vision of an alternative modernism.

The watch list for 2010 includes 93 sites considered to be at risk in 47 countries, ranging from the famous Peruvian site of Machu Picchu, to the Merritt Parkway road in Connecticut, US.

The World Monuments Watch aims to raise awareness of sites, from temples to rice terraces and landscapes, most at risk around the world and tries to involve people in sustainable stewardship of heritage buildings, monuments and areas.

The watch list includes six sites from the British Isles, including the Sheerness Dockyard, in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, and the Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church in Belfast. The Georgian dockyards in Kent, which include Grade one and two listed buildings and ancient scheduled monuments, are on the list because parts of the site are unused and decaying while other areas are faced with redevelopment.

The gothic revival Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church in Belfast was once home to one of the largest Methodist congregations in the Northern Irish capital, but has been derelict for almost 20 years.

There are hopes the decaying church, which sits on the boundary between Catholic and Protestant areas of the city, can be re-used as a shared heritage resource.

Five graveyards in central Edinburgh, with graves dating from the early 17th to the late 19th centuries including headstones for economist Adam Smith and inventor Robert Stevenson, are on this year’s list following years of vandalism, exposure to the elements and neglect.

So too is the Grade one listed St John the Evangelist parish church in Shobdon, Leominster, which was largely rebuilt in the 18th century in Rococo Gothic style and is now at risk due to the instability of the structure.

In Ireland, the Palladian mansion of Russborough, in Blessington, Co Wicklow, which was designed in the 1740s and donated to the Irish people in 1978, is on the watch list.

The estate, at the base of the Wicklow Mountains, has many outbuildings, water features and structures in need of repair.

Dr Jonathan Foyle, chief executive of World Monuments Fund Britain, said: “We’ve become a world of city slickers, with urbanites now outnumbering their rural cousins.

“Towns and cities are under greater pressure to make way for their new inhabitants, resulting in sites of historic significance being torn down in the name of progress, whilst land and traditional historic buildings in the countryside are left untended and abandoned.”