Building of the Month September 2019: 51 Tickford Street, Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire

Photo: Eveleigh Photography

Newport Pagnell, now vastly overshadowed by Milton Keynes across the M1, is an attractive historic town, with numerous listed buildings from churches and abbeys to banks and almshouses. Practically the whole of Tickford Street, where this building is, is listed, as is much else in the town. Not much else though is of this age or decrepitude. Plainly it was not always called The Wrestlers, nor was it always roofed with corrugated iron – both details mentioned in the Historic England listing. At grade II it doesn’t qualify for inclusion in the Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register, but it is on the local authority’s, and richly deserves to be on SAVE’s.

It needs money, surely, but unlike so many larger buildings it doesn’t require great imagination to come up with a reuse. Its most recent incarnation was as a garage – the old Aston Martin works are adjacent, and the shiny new ones opposite – but other interesting buildings on the street are shops and houses. Behind is a residential area, with a mix of old and new, and some good trees. Anyone interested in high-end British cars, but perhaps not so interested in the road layout of Milton Keynes, would be advised to look at Newport Pagnell.