The first grant project of the Blakey Moor Townscape Heritage Initiative, Blackburn is now successfully completed.
The Ribblesdale Hotel was built just after 1900 and in more recent times was known as ‘Baroque’ owing to it’s corner dome. It’s really a blend of Jacobean and Elizabethan features in a busy style made popular by the Victorian architect of London’s Palace Theatre, Thomas Edward Collcutt (1840-1924), who also designed Blackburn Museum not so far away. Whether Collcutt also designed the Ribblesdale Hotel is not known but the style was used by many other architects.
The restoration was undertaken by the surveyor Andrew Davies of Blackburn with Darwen Council guided by the Council’s Conservation Officer, David Morris. The original colour scheme was restored after paint samples were taken. The project has been a great success and the transformation shows how conservation can transform the character of our heritage areas for the better.