Almost eighty residents were given a guided tour of 60 King Street on Saturday (23rd April) as part of the Town Council’s consultation on future uses for the grade II* listed building.
60 King Street (also known as Kings Coffee House and formerly home to La Belle Epoque) has been vacant since 2019 and the Town Council is working on a major heritage lottery fund bid to restore and regenerate the incredible building.
The council is currently running an open consultation to gather the views of residents on how the building could be used in the future. The guided tours saw residents taken around the entire building and grounds with many unaware just how big the space is.
The tours were peppered with a touch of the building’s history; the Kings Coffee House was the final creation of Richard Harding Watt and built in two halves opening in 1907 and 1908 respectively. The whole building was gifted to the town council (then the Urban District Council) in 1914 after the death of Harding Watt.
Each tour ended with some table discussions on how the building could best serve the Knutsford community with the output of discussions feeding into the council’s work developing a new plan for the space.
Town Clerk-cum-Tour Guide, Adam Keppel-Green said “The aim of the tours was to open the doors to a building we know not everyone has been able to fully explore before, showing the scale of the building and its multi-terraced outdoor space. We encourage all residents to complete the online survey to share their thoughts on how this magnificent space should be used in the future”.
So far almost 200 people have also responded to the open survey on the future of the building; the survey will be open for two more weeks and can be found at www.knutsfordtowncouncil.gov.uk/60ks.
The council is particularly keen to ensure the residents of the Longridge and Shaw Heath area feed into the consultation and are holding a further consultation event on Tuesday 10th May at 6pm in The Welcome which will feature a virtual guided tour of the building.