Grimsby Ice Factory on Monuments Watch
8th October 2013
UK: The Grimsby Ice Factory, with its historic, irreplaceable Grade ll* listed refrigeration equipment, has been selected as one of the World’s most treasured places by the New York based World Monuments Fund.
The Ice Factory and Grimsby’s surrounding Kasbah district have been selected for inclusion on the 2014 World Monuments Watch.
The Watch is intended to call international attention to the challenges facing cultural heritage sites around the world. Inclusion on the list provides an important opportunity to promote the site locally and internationally and work towards its protection.
“The timing of this announcement could not be more fortuitous, as we prepare to make our application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the bulk of the £12m required to take the Ice Factory project forward,” commented Vicky Hartung, chair of the Great Grimsby Ice Factory Trust (GGIFT).
“We are very grateful to Jon Wright (then of the Council for British Archaeology) whose suggestion it was to nominate the Ice Factory, and who wrote a strong letter of support; to Dr. Jonathan Foyle (CEO of the WMF Britain) and his team, who visited Grimsby in July and saw first hand the magnificence and dereliction of the Factory; and to the Prince’s Regeneration Trust, NELC officers, and everyone else who has advocated for this project over the past three years.”
The World Monuments Fund is the leading independent organisation dedicated to saving the world’s most important architectural and cultural heritage sites around the globe.
The Grimsby Ice Factory was the largest in the world when it opened in 1901. It closed in 1990 and has since received grade-ll* listing for the rarity of the refrigeration equipment contained within it. The centrepiece is the plant room containing four huge J&E Hall four-cylinder compressors of 16.5in diameter, 15in stroke. The compressors are over 80 years old.
You can find out more about the World Monuments Fund listing here:
http://www.wmf.org/project/grimsby-ice-factory-and-kasbah
