Plans to demolish derelict Northampton Grade II listed home

The owner of a Grade II listed stately home has applied to demolish it as it said a "miraculous restoration" will never happen.

Overstone Hall in Northampton has been derelict since a huge fire in April 2001 and was hit by another blaze last month.

Barry Howard Homes bought the hall, and 35 acres of land around it, in 2015.

The company said it had the "absolute intentions" of restoring it but the plan was no longer viable.

In the planning application for demolition submitted to West Northamptonshire Council the developer said it had "taken all reasonable action to arrest the decline of the remaining parts" of the hall.

But the Local Democracy Reporting Service said the document states: "Time is not on the side of Overstone Hall, it will not restore itself.

"The reality is that no one has identified a strategy to secure the full restoration of Overstone Hall during the past 20 years."

It said the hope of the hall being restored was like "waiting for Godot".

In 2019, plans by Barry Howard Homes to turn it into 52 homes was rejected, but permission for its restoration was granted.

The application for demolition said the building was "in a derelict and perilous condition".

It said was not in the public interest to let it deteriorate "towards collapse, on the basis of some forlorn hope that a hitherto unidentified finance resource may become available at some time in the future to achieve a miraculous restoration of Overstone Hall to its former glory".

Originally commissioned by Lady Overstone in 1860, she died before it was finished and apparently her husband hated all 119 rooms.

It then became a school, then the headquarters of a Pentecostal church, but has been badly damaged by the fire, as well as weather and vandalism.

West Northamptonshire Council has yet to make a decision on the application.

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