A PLANNING application has been submitted for an ambitious project to restore the remains of a historic bottle-making shop.
Opened in 1886, No: 7 Bottle Shop in St Helens was one of the world’s first regenerative furnaces for continuous glass bottle production.
Its remains stand next to the Steve Prescott Bridge on land between the Tesco supermarket and St Helens town centre – and the site is a short distance from the new £54m Glass Futures innovation centre.
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The bottle shop’s remaining structure includes an oval architectural cone, which was a feature of earlier crucible furnace batch production, and flue tunnels, which reversed air through the generators.
The site, classed as scheduled monument and grade II listed building, is all that remains of what was once the largest glass bottle production facilities in the world – Cannington Shaw.
The area would eventually become United Glass Bottles and latterly, United Glass, before closing in the late 1990s.
In June, the Cannington Shaw Preservation Trust group gathered at the site to celebrate the milestone achievement of the bottle shop being transferred into the ownership of the trust.
Restoring the bottle shop was among several projects to receive funding from the St Helens Town Deal Board, which succeeded in securing £25 million for the borough from the Governments Towns Fund initiative.
A planning application for the proposals has now been sent in to St Helens Council.
A design and access statement in the plans states: "The Trust’s first priority is to preserve the building, as a record of the town’s manufacturing past, and to create a new legacy use as a sign of the town’s future".
It says "the funds will be used to undertake the urgent and immediate work needed to arrest further deterioration of the no.7 Bottle Shop, and to begin to reverse the decline so as to create the framework for a functioning building.
"This first phase will deliver emergency/ essential works to stabilise the building, enabling works to allow access and services and a first phase of sensitive repair and restoration works".
It adds: "The Trust’s second objective is to animate the building in a way that will bring benefit to our local community.
"They will advance the education of the public in the historical, architectural and industrial significance of the building and its impact on the fortunes of our Town.
"A key component of the project is to use the process of stabilisation, conservation, and repair to train local people in traditional construction techniques."
The planning application is on a standard consultation to the public until Thursday, August 10.
A determination deadline has been set for September 8.
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