Case Study – Almshouses Lord Leycester (Oct 2022)
The Almshouse Association made a loan of £50,000 in Q1 2020 to the Lord Leycester Almshouses. The purpose of the loan was to support funds “To renovate almshouses and provide habitable homes with a focus on needy and wounded service veterans. The almshouses date from the 15th century and require substantial external and internal renovation to make them fit for the 21st century.
Charity Background
The Lord Leycester operates in the Museum and Heritage site sector and often say they are Warwickshire’s answer to the Royal Hospital Chelsea – just smaller and older! The organisation is a Registered Charity in England that provides almshouses for veterans. The buildings are Grade 1 and Grade II listed with a Registered Garden. We are located in the centre of the town of Warwick on the western end of the High Street.
The charity has two aims:
- Caring for the collection of nationally significant heritage Grade 1 buildings comprising the Lord Leycester Hospital and the 500 year old registered garden;
- The charitable role of maintaining and providing homes for needy and wounded service personnel – a role that it has carried out continuously since 1571.
The Charity’s main source of revenue is from Heritage visitors and Guided Tours, rents from function rooms, filming, rents from properties sub-let, and donations. The Lord Leycester Hospital is open 6 days per week to visitors. In addition, they have eight Brethren living at the site as Charity recipients and four non-Brethren residents who live in the almshouses.
“Seven centuries ago, the Guilds built these medieval buildings as the centre of civic life with a strong philanthropic mission and a space for community events. In the 1500s the buildings became a “Hospital” carrying on the philanthropic tradition by caring for wounded warriors.
Time has seen the Lord Leycester retreat to where it sits today in the shadow of town life. The ancient buildings need restoring. For seven centuries the Lord Leycester was important as a centre of civic life but time and lack of funds has ravaged the fabric of the building.
The Lord Leycester Hospital is at risk but with investment and a good business plan linked to key conservation management plans that are fully implemented, it can become self-sustaining and restored to its former glory as a centre of gravity in Warwick’s historic community. It also has the potential to add significantly to the economic growth of Warwick. One of the areas to develop was the upgrading of our almshouses. We requested a £50,000 loan to begin the work on our almshouses.“
“By 2023 we want to have a strategy in place to undertake mounting Heritage/almshouse repair requirements and be able to offer far more to our Heritage visitors which in turn will also increase our footfall from 5,000 a year to 35,000. This footfall increase will generate more revenue for the Institution and the Town as we attract a greater number of non-local visitors. The Lord Leycester has the potential to take back the position of being active and central to community life in Warwick and to increase its annual footfall. We also want to upgrade and repair our almshouse residential cottages which are at the core of our charity. “
Q: What challenges were you facing before the project started?
“We could not get ahead of the bow wave on residential repairs and with sub-standard accommodation we were not in position to charge a weekly maintenance contribution.”
Q: Did you source additional funds from other organisations?
“Yes, we received donation funding from the Army Benevolent Fund, Warwick Relief in Need and Thomas Oken Trust.”
Q: What would have happened had you not been successful in receiving a loan or grant from the Association?
“Three cottages would have had to be left unoccupied without the income from the weekly maintenance contribution and we would not have upheld our full responsibility as an almshouse charity.”
Q: Did your project include making renovations to a listed building?
“It was like for like repair in a Listed Building, not renovations.”
Q: On completion of the project what feedback have you received from the residents?
“The cottages are really nice, comfortable and accessible. Our residents love their almshouse – they feel very privileged and protected to live on our site.”
