• historic
• parks
  • birkenhead park
  • heaton park
  • the mere at ellesmere
  • sefton park
  • stanley park
  • thame park
  • werneth park
• ecclesiastical
• secular
• domestic

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Client	Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
Location	Oldham, Manchester
Status	Grade II listed
Summary	Condition report and design-led feasibility study into the restoration and conversion of the music rooms within the park to support a grant application
Completion	n/a
Build Value	£3.5m

Werneth Park, on the southern approach to Oldham, has associations with the town's most famous Victorian industrialist families. The Music Rooms were originally part of a mansion built for the Platt family who were keen patrons of music and community performance. After 1902 the mansion was acquired by Sarah Lees, the suffragist and social campaigner who demolished the residence but retained the auditorium, conservatory and fernery and added a reception suite.

In 1935 the park and its buildings were gifted to Oldham Council. The Music Rooms complex remained in public use until the 1990's but is now derelict and fire damaged. The intention now is for the building to be carefully restored and adapted for a new use as a local community resource equipped with high quality catering facilities.

Lloyd Evans Prichard was commissioned by Oldham Council as architects for this project. The first stage – carrying out a design led feasibility study – has now been completed to RIBA Stage C and will form the basis of an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for grant assistance. In parallel to this the Practice was also commissioned to produce a Conservation Management Plan – including in its scope both park and buildings.

The focus of the feasibility study was to arrive at a proposal that could provide the necessary facilities to make the Music Rooms complex viable in its new use but without undermining its architectural character. In the resulting scheme the auditorium and octagonal Edwardian reception suite will be restored to their original condition with additional servicing facilities provided by means of an extended basement. The derelict conservatory will be replaced by a new glass and steel catering facility providing the park with a much needed café/restaurant facility, to be run on a commercial basis. The design also includes landscaping proposals aimed at improving the physical relationship between the Music Rooms and the wider park.