Plea to recognise Alfred Wainwright's birthplace

The birthplace of fell-walking author and artist Alfred Wainwright should be made a registered building, a council has been told.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's independent opposition leader Mustafa Desai said the home on Audley Range in Blackburn should be listed as a heritage asset for extra protection.

He said the writer, who popularised hill walking and wrote several well-known Lake District guidebooks, should be "celebrated as a significant Blackburn figure".

The suggestion was made as the authority's executive board debated an update to the register of listed buildings in the borough.

Wainwright, a lifelong Blackburn Rovers fan and former Blackburn Borough Council finance officer, died of a heart attack in 1991 aged 84 in Kendal, Cumbria.

Desai recently completed the coveted Wainwright Challenge of climbing all 214 peaks listed in the author's Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells.

He told the meeting Wainwright's Blackburn home was a "glaring omission" from the register.

The authority's Labour leader Phil Riley said the list of registered buildings was not "set in stone" and could be updated.

Councillor Desai told the Local Democracy Reporting Service Wainwright "did a lot to promote walking and the outdoors which are important to people's physical and mental health".

Twenty-eight new heritage sites have been nominated to join the 24 buildings already listed by the council.

These include old mills associated with Blackburn and Darwen's cotton industry history, war memorials and other sites of historical interest.

They include the Punch Hotel in Chapels, Darwen, Hoddlesden Tram Shelter and three original stone-built bridges over the Leeds Liverpool Canal in Blackburn.

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