Cricketer's Arms: Price tag of historic pub restoration revealed

A quantity surveyor conducted a survey a few years ago before The Mechanics' Institution Trust began bringing the Cricketer's Arms pub in the town centre Railway Village back to life and said that work would cost around £1.5 million. 

The survey added that when the work was complete, the value of the building would be around £500,000, meaning that there is likely to be a loss of almost £1 million.

However, the heritage organisation believes that this lofty sum is a price worth paying to see an important part of the town's history brought back into use - and more importantly preserved for years to come. 

Earlier this year work began on restoring the pub, which has been closed since 2015, and when complete, it will see the building turned into four flats with a commercial space/community centre.  

Contractors have already finished work to restore the pub's exterior and are now working on the inside, although according to Trust chairman David Thackray, some challenges have been uncovered. 

Inside the Cricketer's Arms pub in Swindon's Railway Village (Image: Royston Cartwright)

"There are some original historic features that may not be compliant with modern fire regulations, which we will preserve, and make arrangements for compliant structures to be built around them," he said. 

"For example, there's a window that was formerly an outside window that is now within the building. We will have to seal that window, but also make sure that it’s properly recorded and then covered over so that the room is compliant."

A grant from Historic England helped pay for the outside work on the windows, doors and stonemasonry and £500,000 towards the internal redevelopment has come from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. 

But on the 'conservation deficit' Mr Thackray explained that he felt it was absolutely worth it.

"The building’s value is going up all the time as we’re working on it – before we started work on the exterior, its value was in the tens of thousands, it really didn’t have much value at all and, in fact, an earlier valuation put it at 0.

"But when we have finished the work on it and when we’ve got it to a stage where it’s producing a good income, it'll be worth £500,000.

"It is a very expensive job and a very big job but it is absolutely essential as a key building in the railway village, a real landmark building. It is so important that we preserve this heritage and use it."