Boston Manor House in Hounslow is set to receive funding towards essential restoration from the Historic Houses Foundation.
The Historic Houses Foundation is a major beneficiary of the Heritage Stimulus Fund, recently announced by the UK Government and Historic England, which will provide invaluable support for restoration work on some of England’s most important and vulnerable historic buildings.
The Historic Houses Foundation will now be able to set in place a programme of urgent work that would not otherwise have been possible. Over the past 17 years the Foundation has distributed over £11 million in grant aid to nearly 250 vital restoration projects in England and Wales.
The Historic Houses Foundation is one of the leading funders of architectural conservation and one of the only bodies able to support buildings in private ownership. The nationally recognised expertise of its eight volunteer Trustees makes it ideally suited to identifying those projects most in need of support and after careful consideration, 18 nationally important properties across England were selected to benefit from these funds – of which Boston Manor House is one.
Boston Manor House, one of the earliest examples of a neo-classical house of the English Renaissance, now belongs to the London Borough of Hounslow. These funds will cover the restoration of the Jacobean Revival stone porch part of the regeneration project planned for 2020 which can now go ahead. The house and its exceptional Jacobean interiors, first created for Lady Mary Reade in 1623, will now be on track to become an important community resource for the people of Hounslow 400 years later.
Work will begin immediately and continue over the winter months before the start of the new tourist season in Spring 2021 and is expected to provide welcome employment to a wide range of traditional craftsmen and building professionals in addition to other local employment opportunities.
Cllr Samia Chaudhary, Cabinet Member for Leisure Services at Hounslow Council said: “We are delighted that Boston Manor House has been selected to receive this grant enabling us to fully restore the deteriorating porch at this magnificent Grade 1 listed Jacobean Revival manor house. With public finances under severe pressure, without funding such as this generous award from the Historic Houses Foundation, it is hard to see where we would find alternative funds for this essential restoration work.
“We have a duty to the borough and to future generations to conserve and maintain Hounslow’s unique heritage assets. The skills required to complete conservation work also need to be protected and this project will support employment for highly skilled artisan specialists.”
