Paignton's Oldway Mansion could be saved

Documents drawn up for fundraising

The government’s levelling-up fund could come to the rescue of Paignton’s decaying Oldway Mansion.

Documents have been drawn up on future fundraising for the huge house and grounds, which have been empty and falling into disrepair over the past decade.

It is estimated that it will cost upwards of £40 million to restore the house, which was once the home of the wealthy Singer sewing machine family and was designed to look like the palace of Versailles near Paris.

Now members of Torbay Council will meet community groups at a working party session on Monday to discuss a report which suggests the levelling-up fund as a possible lifeline.

Project director Katherine Findlay will present the report which says Oldway could have a ‘winning’ case to put to the government.

It compares the property to a number of other ‘grand but deteriorating’ buildings up and down the country which have been awarded such funds. The others, including buildings in Aberdeen, Porthcawl and Weston-super-Mare, all need a roughly similar level of investment to activate cultural activity, social benefits and economic development in deprived towns.

The report goes on: “There is an opportunity for Torbay to create a winning proposal with Oldway at its heart, bringing significant benefits and generating pride in Paignton and the bay.”

It says the masterplan currently being developed to create a ‘resilient future’ for the property is in line with the other projects, while Oldway will need to stress strategies for culture, healthy living and income generation.

An application is also being prepared for the National Lottery Heritage Fund to restore the Rotunda building alongside the main Oldway Mansion and turn it into a ‘family activity centre’.

Features would include a climbing wall, installed without compromising the historic fabric of the building.

Since it was built by the Singers in the nineteenth century, it has served as riding stables, a film studio and electronics workshop among other uses. It is currently empty and boarded up.

The latest plan is for the Rotunda to be brought back into commercial use in the first phase of the site’s restoration, while the mansion itself is ‘drying out’ from years of damp.

The response from the lottery so far has been ‘encouraging’, the report to Monday’s meeting says.

Any development at the Rotunda would have to be sensitive to the historic character of the building, and the activity centre would be operated by a third-party, and not by the council.

Talks have already begun with a leading supplier, who is said to be enthusiastic about the potential of the site.