Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 December 10

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 10

Battersea Pumping Station

I am looking for the Listed Building number for the (now demolished) Grade II listed Battersea Pumping Station. Historic England have the inconvenient habit of deleting any demolished buildings from their listings; or at least from the visible and searchable listings, nor do they quote the number in their various reports that include this building. If I can identify the listing number, I can find the entry on Archive.org. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 00:34, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

This [1] appears to be what you are looking for. 2A02:C7B:209:D800:CC3F:ABE0:E834:AB77 (talk) 12:42, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, but that LCC Pumping Station is at Lots Road, Kensington, on the other side of the river, and has not (yet) been demolished. I'm looking for the Battersea [Water] Pumping Station, Cringle Street, Wandsworth.

I have discovered a copy of a version the entry here, included as a caption in the Historic England picture archive. However, it does not quote the listing number. I would still like to check the latest version(s) if possible, as there was a great deal of activity and discussion prior to the building's demolition, and it may have been updated as a consequence. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 13:01, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

The Wayback Machine now has that URL archived here. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 22:32, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the number may have been 1226087,^[2] but I had no luck on the Wayback Machine. It was located on Cringle Street, London SW8, in the Nine Elms ward of Wandsworth.  --Lambiam 12:57, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you; that is the right entry, but the Wayback Machine does not seem to be archiving any entries on that list. I shall try emailing Historic England. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 13:10, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I was doubtful about that number because the borough was listed as Kensington and Chelsea, but this organisation [3] appears to keep records. 2A02:C7B:209:D800:CC3F:ABE0:E834:AB77 (talk) 13:42, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I find archived entries on the Wayback Machine, but the earliest archiving date appears to be September 28, 2015, and the nearest numbers are 1226082 and 1226090.  --Lambiam 14:33, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Historic England responded with links to the Heritage Gateway, and to the delisting entry, and a copy of the pre-delisting entry (the text of which matches the copy I found above). This confirms that the listing number was indeed 1226087; it is also clear that it came from a 'live' system, as the entry was dated 13 Dec 2023, and the attached map was fairly recent (and certainly post-demolition). -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 20:39, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

How does a listed building end up demolished? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:30, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

The fact of a legal prohibition does not actually prevent people from doing stuff, e.g. murder, rape, arson; and cases like this illegal demolition. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:05, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

In the UK, listing does not guarantee absolute protection, a building can be de-listed, but only with the approval of the Secretary of State if there is a good enough reason (see Listed building). On the other hand, illegal demolitions are not unknown, as Jack says above. An ongoing case here is the demolition of The Crooked House pub in August. Alansplodge (talk) 19:24, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Formal delisting can take some time because of the various statutory requirements and bureaucracy. For example, St Elisabeth's Church in Eastbourne remains on the National Heritage List for England despite regrettably being demolished in autumn 2020 and looking like this when I visited a year later. I think "tidying up" of the list happens in bulk from time to time, because in 2013 four other listed buildings in Eastbourne which had been demolished at various points in earlier years were removed from the statutory list at the same time (see Listed buildings in Eastbourne) for more). Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 17:06, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs, another "cause" could be catastrophic structural problems, e.g. if a building suffers a comprehensive fire, or a structural review finds that the whole thing is just about to collapse. (I don't know how one gets permission or orders to do this in Englandandwales, but I know it's possible.) Listed-building status, and its analogues in other countries, is meant to preserve properties with heritage value, not to retain places that either have already lost their heritage value or cannot be prevented from doing so in the immediate future, especially if they pose an imminent danger to the public. Nyttend (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

(Indent) @Verbarson: et al: The Heritage Gateway is the way to search for all listed building-related info in England, including delisted and failed listing proposals. Searching for Battersea Pumping Station without quotes yielded several hits, including this confirming delisting but, more usefully, 5 hits from the Greater London Historic Environment Record (HER). Three aren't directly relevant (but may have some tangential info), but this looks to be the most useful and this has useful stuff too. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 16:57, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Hassocks5489:. that's a fantastic site, thank you. It does highlight the difficulty of finding a reference - according to the delisting page, the Battersea Water Pumping Station is 1429557. Perhaps they have a separate sequence for delisted entries.

The London (~and other counties) HER entries are also an interesting source to mine. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:28, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Verbarson: I think a new number is indeed allocated when an asset is delisted: i.e. the original number is retained as the listed building number and a new sequential number is used when something changes (a delisting in this case). At the moment, newly listed buildings have numbers in the 14xxxxx sequence (I monitor new listings on a daily basis, partly for Wikipedia purposes and partly for off-Wiki writing I do), and 1429557 looks right for when Battersea was delisted. As an example, doing a search on the National Heritage List for England across the last 7 days the latest two new listings are numbered 1486280 and 1487747; a Certificate of Immunity has been assigned 1487416; and a new "Parks and Gardens" listing is 1487578. This implies that other numbers in this sequence are being allocated (or reserved?) for other things, perhaps behind the scenes or (like delistings) things not visible on the NHLE but reachable through the Heritage Gateway. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 19:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)