Wellingborough's former drill hall will be turned into assisted living complex

The Victorian villa stood empty for years but will now be put back into use
The Victorian villa dates back to the 1860s and was originally a family home.The Victorian villa dates back to the 1860s and was originally a family home.
The Victorian villa dates back to the 1860s and was originally a family home.

Wellingborough’s historic former drill hall building is to be turned into an assisted living complex.

Wellingborough Council’s planning committee have given the nod to developer Vantage Homes Ltd to turn the Victorian building on High Street into a new housing complex.

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The scheme will feature eleven self-contained units with the exterior and slate roof remaining intact. The basement will also be converted into an apartment for the complex’s manager. An extension at the back will also be built for a kitchen and dining area.

The scheme comes after many years of uncertainty for the drill hall, which at one stage faced being bulldozed.

Wellingborough Council bought the property back in 2004 and at the end of last year it was put up for sale at an asking price of £275,000.Speaking at the meeting on Wednesday (Aug12) the council’s leader Martin Griffiths said he was ‘more than a little relieved to see the application come forward’, thanked council officer Adrian Piper for working on the scheme and that ‘it was going to be a tremendous facility.’

At the meeting, the authority’s heritage lead member Cllr Brian Skittrell paid tribute to the history of the property and suggested the idea of the new complex being called the St Helier’s after the first name of the building, which was built in the 1860s by a family who had moved from Jersey.

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In the 1860s it became a private girl’s school and it also had a time as a maternity nursing home before becoming a drill hall in the 1930s.

There were no objections to the scheme from neighbours of official consultees.