'Restoration' losers get £6m from lottery

Three historic buildings that missed out on the chance to be renovated in the BBC television programme Restoration last year will be saved after all.

The Heritage Lottery Fund will announce today that it will give nearly £6m to safeguard Greyfriars Tower, Darnley Mausoleum and Brackenhill Tower. The sites were runners-up when BBC1 viewers voted to give a £3m grant to the Victoria Baths in Manchester.

The Grade II-listed Cobham Park, in Kent, and the Grade I, neo-classical Darnley Mausoleum in its grounds, will receive the largest lottery grant of £4.98m.

In the 18th century, John Bligh, the 3rd Earl of Darnley, commissioned the mausoleum as his final resting place but the building never housed his remains and has become the target of vandals and arsonists.

Greyfriars Tower in King's Lynn, the last remnant of a 13th century friary, will get £849,000 for repairs, the refurbishment of the gardens and a new visitor centre.

Brackenhill Tower, near Carlisle, which was built in 1580, will get £50,000 for a project plan, the first step towards restoring it as a visitor centre celebrating the history of the border clans.

All but two of the featured buildings are thought to have benefited financially from appearing on the programme.