Sympathetic restoration work to a Grade II listed Sandwell house has been recognised in a building excellence award.
The Lightwoods House restoration scheme picked up the Best Public Building title in the West Midlands Building Excellence Awards.
The house and park have undergone a transformation under the £5.2 million Lightwoods Park and House restoration project, with £3.6 million secured from Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and the Big Lottery Fund (BIG).
As part of the project the Grade II listed house, built in 1791, has been lovingly restored back to its former glory and is now a high-quality venue for a wide range of community activities as well as public and private events.
Now there is a tea room, community rooms for training, classes and exhibitions, a children’s centre, a large function room for events such as wedding ceremonies, receptions and conferences as well as numerous office spaces to let.
The building’s many original features have been carefully restored by the contractors, Conservation Heritage Building & Conservation (Staffordshire) Ltd, working alongside architects from Sandwell Council’s Urban Design team.
Nominations for the prestigious awards are made by building control teams from councils across the West Midlands metropolitan region and were presented to winners at an event held at Birmingham’s ICC on Friday (April 28).
Sandwell’s other winner was a new self-build in Corngreaves Road, Cradley Heath which picked up the Best Individual Home award.
The private self-build project beat far bigger and more expensive new builds because of the combination quality of build achieved, the complexity of the engineering works required to address the requirements, the difficult location and the fact that the design and almost all of the physical work was carried out by the owner himself.
Accord’s striking Eastern Gateway Phase 3 building on West Bromwich High Street and the small housing development at Holly Lane Smethwick by Devan Homes were also Highly Commended in the awards.
