Reading rooms up for auction

A 19th Century building once used as a teetotal meeting place is to be auctioned next week.

The Parish Rooms at Laxton were built on land given by Earl Manvers of Thoresby Hall.

They were built as an alternative meeting place to the village pub.

The Parish Rooms have been empty for ten years. They were last used by the local youth club.

The building is being sold with planning permission for conversion to residential use.

The sale is taking place on the instruction of Southwell and Nottingham Diocesan Board of Finance as the custodian trustee of the Parochial Church Council of Laxton.

Acting on the instructions of the board, The County Property Auction, the auctioneering division of JHWalter, will put the building under the hammer.

Mr Rob Ward, from the auctioneers, said: “Apparently, the main use in the Victorian period was as a reading room.

“Men could go along and meet their friends or read the newspapers without the temptations of The Dovecote Arms. The rooms were teetotal, of course.”

There is planning permission for the building to be converted to a two-bedroomed property.

“It is attracting a lot of interest ahead of the auction,” said Mr Ward.

“Given the guide price — £65,000 — and its location in the middle of a really nice village, that’s perhaps hardly surprising.”

The auction, at the Bentley Hotel, Lincoln, is at 3pm on Wednesday.

The two-bedroomed 1 Airfield Cottages, Balderton, is in the same sale with a guide price of £95,000.