A house in Yorkshire takes on Palace for top award

But the merchants' house in King Street, Thorne, Doncaster, is to go head to head with Buckingham Palace in an architecture competition to celebrate the best of the Georgian era.

When it was bought by South Yorkshire Building Preservation Trust for 76,000 in 2005 the Thorne building was in a state of collapse.

Since then, renovation work has been so successful it has been shortlisted for the Georgian Group Architectural Awards 2010.

But if faces stiff competition in the category Restoration of a Georgian Building in an Urban Setting from properties in Newcastle, Tottenham High Road, London – and Buckingham Palace.

The derelict town house in the centre of Thorne Conservation Area, which was last inhabited more than 30 years ago, was sought by the trust over several years.

As project manager and architect Keith Knight assembled a specialist team of consultants including structural engineers, quantity surveyors, valuers and solicitors, and led a development appraisal from which a purchase price was negotiated.

He also made successful applications for grants totalling 90,000 from Doncaster Council and English Heritage.

Trust member Andrew Whitham became project manager for the scheme, which entailed a total cost of 430,000. The Architectural Heritage Fund chipped in with a loan of 245,000 and the trust put in 100,000.

Mr Whitham said: "There has been a lot of hard work to do – when we first became involved it had every structural defect you could imagine but we now have a complete shell both externally and internally. It just needs rewiring, replumbing and plastering.

"I was very pleased with the shortlisting and encouraged. It's nice to have something like this acknowledge.

"This has been a long-term commitment and presented us with a huge amount of headaches.

"The awards are an extraordinary competition and I'm not familiar with the detail of the Buckingham Palace scheme. I will be very interested to see what the scheme is about as well as the other two competitors in our section."

The awards ceremony will be held on November 3 at Christies, where the winners will be announced by the chairman of English Heritage, Baroness Andrews OBE.

Sponsored by Savills they reward those who have shown the vision and commitment to restore Georgian buildings and landscapes from all over Britain.

A total of 57 schemes were entered for the 2010 awards and the judging took place on October 7.

The head of the Country House department at Savills, Crispin Holborow, said: "We have been hugely impressed by all the entries this year.

"As always we are overwhelmed by the time and energy that goes into all the restorations and it never fails to amaze us that each year people continue to dedicate so much to saving these landscapes and buildings from falling into disrepair.

"Thank you to all of those who entered, we have had a very tough time deciding on the winners but have enjoyed it immensely."

The judges for the 2010 awards are: Dr John Martin Robinson (architectural historian and historic buildings consultant), Lady Nutting OBE (chairman of the Georgian Group), Prof David Watkin (Emeritus Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge), Charles Brooking (architectural historian and founder of the Brooking Collection); Charles Cator (deputy chairman, Christie's International), and Crispin Holborow (Director of Country Property, Savills).

Heritage laid down in brick

The house in King Street is built of brick with brick arches over the windows.

Endowed with a large entrance hall, there is evidence everywhere of the Dutch influence from the time of construction.

Originally there were four bedrooms and very substantial attic rooms.

Project manager Andrew Whitam says the most unusual features are the floors, which needed specialist consultation before it was decided they could be saved.

Investigations also showed that volcanic ash had been imported from the Mediterranean – an indication, he says, of Thorne's shipping past.

Mr Whitham says he has been cheered by the reaction of visitors to the house on English Heritage open days. He said: ''People were unanimously in favour of our approach – regardless of the extraordinary cost.

''It has changed the kind of perception in Thorne as to what can be achieved with a derelict building.''