Mansfield Street to get £900,000 Victorian makeover from lottery funding

How Mansfield's Leeming Street looked in the early 20th century.

A grant of £900,000 is being spent on a Mansfield street to restore it to how it looked in the early 20th century.

Leeming Street, in Mansfield town centre, is one of ten areas in the UK to receive funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund as part of its ’50 years of conservation areas’ scheme.

£921,600 will be used to conserve buildings on the street dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Heritage consultant Denis Hill says the money will improve the economy of the area and “return a lot of shop frontages to the original construction.”

He said: “It’s excellent news; anything like this goes a long way. Mansfield town centre is, generally, in relatively good condition.

“But it has its little spots where it needs work doing to it. This is one of those spots.”

An unsuccessful application was submitted for National Lottery funding two years ago, but Denis worked with the Mansfield Businesses Improvement District to lodge a second application which was successful.

Leeming Street, Mansfield town centre.

Denis said some of the shops had restoration work done several years ago, the result being that part of the street looked superior to others.

The latest restoration work, confirmed yesterday, is to create “uniformity” so the aesthetics of the street are consistent.

“The basic aim of the restoration work is to return the street to its original format where possible,” Denis said.

“Leeming Street is a relatively new street. There are two Georgian buildings and the rest are early 20th century.

“The reason for that is because Leeming Street, in 1925, was widened so a lot of the buildings came down and new ones were constructed.

“On the other side, the opportunities were also taken around the same time to rebuild. Some of them were built in the last 15 to 20 years.”

The Heritage Lottery Fund has invested more than £288m of National Lottery money in more than 439 projects conserving and renewing historic town areas in England and Wales.

The money is expected to become available next year.

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