Pontefract Heritage Partnership is a community benefit society (registration number 7513) which has been striving since 2013 to take ownership of Pontefract Dispensary and Hermitage by community asset transfer from its current owner, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. The Dispensary is of great importance to the town: it is the only building left after Pontefract General Infirmary closed in 2011 and was demolished. It represents the 130 years that Pontefract enjoyed the benefit of a district general hospital and in its basement is the remarkable and unique medieval Hermitage. This is an irreplaceable heritage building that must be preserved, restored, and celebrated.

In these pages we describe how this heritage asset can once again be owned by the community, the history of this important site, and how the people of Pontefract can ensure its future.

What we hope to achieve

The aim of our project is to ensure the preservation and restoration of the Dispensary and Hermitage, with the building once again providing benefit to the community, and the Hermitage promoted as a heritage visitor site. The Dispensary was built by public subscription in 1880 and evolved into Pontefract General Infirmary (PGI) during the 20th century. Since 1948 it has been part of the NHS and as it is no longer required for hospital services it should be returned to the community that built it and paid for it until the NHS was created. The Mid Yorkshire Trust has agreed in principle to transfer ownership to Pontefract Heritage Partnership, which as a Community Benefit Society has the appropriate legal status. The Dispensary represents 130 years of hospital care in the town; the thousands of people who were born, treated, died, or worked there. The Hermitage is hidden in the basement of the Dispensary and despite its Grade 1 heritage listing, has never been open to the public as a visitor site. The Dispensary overlooks the Friarwood Valley, named from the Dominican Friars who occupied the site from 1256 until the Reformation in 1538/9 when it was demolished. Afterwards, for the next 400 years, liquorice was grown there, part of the confectionary industry that Pontefract is famous for. It is an important part of Pontefract’s rich history. There is more about the history of the Dispensary and Hermitage on the History page.

The Challenge

The Dispensary and Hermitage in its basement are owned by the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and since the building was closed, along with the rest of PGI in 2011, it has suffered considerably from vandalism and neglect. The building is now derelict and at risk. The Hermitage is listed grade 1 by Historic England and is also on its “At Risk” register. The Dispensary is not a listed building but is protected by being on Wakefield Council’s list of notable buildings and it is also in a designated conservation area. The Mid Yorkshire Trust has agreed in principle to the asset transfer to Pontefract Heritage Partnership, but we cannot accept the responsibility of the building in its present derelict condition and the NHS has not been able to allocate the necessary funds to repair the building. However, the main challenge will be acquiring the funds to renovate the building for a new use. This will require a large heritage grant matched with local fund raising and Pontefract Heritage Partnership became a Community Benefit Society in 2017 to allow us to issue community shares. To be successful with a grant application we need to develop a business plan which ensures that the project is sustainable; that it will pay for itself into the future.

How the project has developed and progressed

When PGI closed in 2011 it was demolished, leaving the original Dispensary standing alone on the site. The local community was concerned for the future of the building, an action committee was formed in January 2013, and we have been negotiating with the NHS since then. The action group became a limited company, Pontefract Heritage Partnership, at the end of 2013, and a Community Benefit Society in March 2017. With the help of a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund an architect was engaged to produce options for the use of the building to generate income to pay for the heritage visitor centre for the Hermitage, and by the end of 2017 we had a well-developed business plan and community share issue ready as the basis for an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Unfortunately, we could not progress with this because the NHS was not ready to engage in discussions about the future of the site.

A further two years passed, and the local community and Wakefield Council were expressing increasing concern about the derelict state of the Dispensary and the eyesore of the PGI demolition site. In September 2019 Wakefield Council commissioned a feasibility study for the development of the Dispensary and adjacent demolition site to nudge the Mid Yorkshire Trust into action. This study reported in December 2019 and concluded that the feasible option for the site is housing, and for the Dispensary, residential units. The Mid Yorkshire Trust intend to offer the site, including the Dispensary, for sale to potential developers. Progression of this option for the Dispensary implies that it would be owned by a commercial developer, and along with the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, this has led to us revising our business plan. See Latest Plans.