From 1950, the building took on a more mundane role in city life as an office base for Lancashire County Council, but the authority moved out in 2011.
Since then, plans to restore it to its former glory have come and gone – and now the latest of them, to create a 65-room ‘apart-hotel’, have been held up over a planning wrangle.
Preston City Council last week cut through the red tape in the hope of fast-tracking the scheme before the landmark is lost forever. And as Lancashire Post photographer Michelle Adamson found, refurbishment cannot come a moment too soon.