£350K restoration work at historic Elephant and Castle Yard begins

The buildings are being restored as part of Historic England’s High Street Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) programme to ensure the city’s heritage can be enjoyed for generations to come.

The HAZ scheme, funded by Wakefield Council and Historic England, is renovating Upper Westgate’s historic buildings and features.

The buildings were purchased by Barnsley-based property development group, The Boylin Group around 16 months ago.

When completed, the derelict buildings will be transformed into workshop spaces and storage units for small independent businesses.

Estates director and project manager who has led this acquisition at The Boylin Group, Alice Haworth, said: "The renovation work has begun on the buildings in the Elephant and Castle Yard.

"The buildings stood almost derelict and so we are working on repairing the exteriors of the structures including installing new roofs.

"Work will begin on repairing or replacing interior beams and fixtures in the next few months including the installation of all new windows and doors.

"We are not trying to change what is here and instead we aim to preserve what we can and bring them to a good standard.

"Historically, the building was used as a stable and more recently, as little industrial units.

"So, the space will be rented out to small independent businesses and will be used as workshops or storage units.”

The Boylin Group received £120,000 from the Council and the renovation is expected to cost around £350,000 in total.

The external work is expected to be completed in 12 to 16 weeks and the internal work will take an additional 18 weeks to be completed.

CEO Jonathan Boylin, added: “This area of Wakefield has a lot of history and old buildings.

"This site has a lot of historical importance, it is the old Elephant and Castle Yard.

"If you look back through the old surveys of Wakefield Council, it dates back a hundred years.

"We are trying to bring these old buildings back to life instead of just flattening them.

"They aren’t listed but we are trying to preserve the character of the buildings as much as possible.”

It was announced in July that The Boylin Group had acquired the site of the former Clark’s Brewery and work is underway.

Under the company’s portfolio, the Elephant and Castle Yard and Clark’s Brewery will be two of about 20 sites.

This includes the Thornes Lane in Wakefield and Massarella’s Yard on Agbrigg Road.

Thornes Lane consists of a self-storage units, for businesses, domestic, household and personal storage.

The development company will be relocating permanently to Wakefield in March of next year and expects to secure tenants for the renovated buildings in the next six to 12 months.

The HAZ is a four-year partnership between Historic England and Wakefield Council intended to bring a new lease of life to buildings in need of renovation and regeneration.

Work has already started on a former drapers’ shop, at 22 Silver Street as part of the HAZ programme.

Restoration work at the Woolpacks Inn as part of the HAZ scheme is also well under way.