The Sand House Time to forgive?
Richard Bell ‘It’s terrible, what happened to all Doncaster’s lovely old buildings.’ I have heard that and similar sentiments expressed hundreds of times. Sometimes it is ‘Why on earth was the Guild Hall knocked down’ or ‘It was criminal, the way that the old Infirmary in Wood Street was demolished, virtually overnight’, but the theme remains the same. Admittedly, I am more likely than most people to be on the receiving end of these observations as they usually come just after I’ve presented one of
my illustrated talks about Doncaster’s former Victorian marvel, the Sand House, a mansion-sized dwelling carved from solid sandstone in a former quarry close to the town centre. By far the most common reaction when people discover its fate is a mixture of horror and incredulity. I have very personal reasons for mourning the passing of a truly unique residence and the magnificent network of tunnels that linked to it, as I am a great-great-grandson of Sand House creator, Henry Senior. But rather than concern myself with what might have
been, I have chosen to devote my time to establishing a lasting legacy for the Sand House, with the help of a group of committed individuals. More about that later. So much indignation from townsfolk about our lost buildings has set me wondering about what our generation might have done in our forefathers’ shoes, when decisions needed to be made about the fate of what we now think of as our heritage. Would we have been far-sighted enough to predict how engineering and architectural design, together with new technology,
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