Historic England has added 159 buildings to its Heritage at Risk Register in a bid to save them from being lost forever.
The organisation adds buildings to its Heritage at Risk Register if they are deemed to be under threat from decay, neglect or inappropriate development, and in the past year, 203 sites have been rescued, including a hotel that inspired Charles Dickens’s first novel.
The Great White Horse Hotel in Ipswich, Suffolk – which inspired regular guest Dickens’s first novel The Pickwick Papers and has hosted British stars and notable historical figures over the years, including the Beatles, King George II and Admiral Lord Nelson – made the at-risk list, released on Thursday.
Historic England said there is active dry rot in the second floor space named after Dickens, alongside deteriorating windows, and gutters and drainpipes that are in poor condition.
Holmfirth Conservation Area in West Yorkshire, which featured in the popular TV comedy series Last of the Summer Wine, was named among the saved sites after vacancy rates fell and buildings were repaired and repurposed.
St Mary’s Church in Stoke-By-Nayland in Suffolk, which was frequently painted by landscape artist John Constable, has also been named among the sites on the Heritage at Risk Register.
The village church is set to undergo repairs in December after a fundraising campaign by the Church Council and a £135,000 repair grant from Historic England.
Meanwhile Holbeche House in the West Midlands, which was once owned by one of the men associated with the Gunpowder Plot, is also on the at-risk list.
The house was the last refuge of the conspirators after they fled London and saw ringleader Robert Catesby killed in a gunfight three days after the plotters failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Others involved in the conspiracy were also killed or arrested there.
Historic England said the house was used as a care home but currently sits empty and is becoming a “site of concern for the local community”.
UK World Heritage Sites – in pictures
The first Heritage at Risk Register was published 25 years ago, providing an annual snapshot of the health of England’s valued historic buildings and places.
Historic England said there are 48 fewer total entries on the list compared with 2022, and about 6,800 have been removed since the list began.
The saved sites include 19th-century designed Capernwray Hall Park and Garden in Lancashire; the Napoleonic era arms depot in Weedon, Northamptonshire; and Church of the Ascension in Greater Manchester, which was repaired following a fire in 2017.
“For a quarter of a century, the Heritage at Risk Register has helped to focus efforts to preserve cherished sites across the country,” Arts and Heritage Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay said.
“It is heartening to see that so many sites have had their futures secured and have been taken off the Register over the past year thanks to the hard work of Historic England and local people.
“I look forward to the new additions to the Register receiving similar care and attention so that future generations can continue to enjoy and learn from our rich heritage for years to come.”
Historic England said it awarded £7.63 million ($9.4 million) in grants for repairs to 155 sites on the register during 2022 and 2023.
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Profile of Tamatem
Date started: March 2013
Founder: Hussam Hammo
Based: Amman, Jordan
Employees: 55
Funding: $6m
Funders: Wamda Capital, Modern Electronics (part of Al Falaisah Group) and North Base Media
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The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
MATCH INFO
Hoffenheim v Liverpool
Uefa Champions League play-off, first leg
Location: Rhein-Neckar-Arena, Sinsheim
Kick-off: Tuesday, 10.45pm (UAE)
