A historic Newcastle building that has lain empty for nearly 15 years is to get a new lease of life thanks to funding to realise housing plans. The Grade II-listed Keelmen's Hospital on City Road is set to be restored as affordable housing following the £36,539 sum from The Architectural Heritage Fund. It follows previous efforts by Newcastle City Council to sell the derelict building, which is on Heritage England's Heritage at Risk Register.
The council and Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust, with funding and advice from Historic England, commissioned a feasibility study about returning the property back to its original use. The funding will now be used towards conversion of the building into 20 one or two-person flats with the potential for co-housing, specialist care support and sheltered housing. Read more: North East Wetherspoons included in new UK 'Grand Tour' of stand-out pubs after being named the cheapest Go here for more Newcastle news The keelmen of Tyne and Wear worked on keels - flat-bottomed boats that carried coal from the banks of the shallow Tyne out to ships that were too large to sail up the river.
The Keelmen's Hospital was built in 1701, and operated as an almshouse for retired and sick keelmen and their families for 180 years. A charitable trust set up by the city's 1,600 keelmen themselves covered the £2,000 cost of construction. Since the decline of the industry, the building served as council housing and latterly as student accommodation but ha.
