Historic Preston pub The Old Dog Inn moves step closer to reopening as repairs approved

The work needed to bring one of Preston’s oldest pubs back to life has been given the go-ahead.

The Old Dog Inn, on Church Street, closed its doors eight years ago- and part of the rear of the Grade II-listed building has since collapsed.

Urgent repairs were completed earlier this year following an order from Preston City Council to prevent further deterioration of the protected premises.

An application was then submitted seeking permission to carry out a more substantial restoration of the decaying three-storey structure, which has now been approved by the authority’s planning officers.

Previous plans for the historic hostelry - which dates back to the early 19th century - revolved around creating a restaurant on the ground floor and bedsits on the two upper levels. That blueprint was withdrawn in 2023 and documents accompanying the now green-lit remediation work - brought forward by Python Construction Limited - revealed an intention for the building to be “retained as a public house”, allowing for “its optimum viable use”.

The latest repairs will involve a refurbishment of the property’s street-facing frontage, the demolition and reinstatement of part of the existing rear portion of the property and the installation of a new roof following an internal collapse.

Planning chiefs concluded that while there would be “some harm to the significance of The Old Dog” as a result of the necessary rebuilding of the rear gable and outriggers, there were benefits to the plans that carried “significant weight”.

“[These] include securing the long-term viable use of a prominent, Grade II-listed building, facilitating investment in the city centre and reusing and restoring a vacant heritage asset within a sustainable city-centre location,” a report outlining the reasons for granting planning permission and listed building consent for the restoration project noted.

The applicant has three years within which to make a start on the work. The Lancashire Post previously approached the agent for the scheme for further details about the ambition to reopen the pub.

New windows had also been proposed as part of the revamp, but town hall planners expressed concern about the harm to the listed building that could result from the removal of some of the existing ones.

Their report highlighted a “highly significant ‘Ipswich’ window” on the ground floor, which is thought to date from a remodelling of the building that took place in 1898. Its replacement was not considered to have been “justified” in the proposal.

To that end, a condition was attached to the planning approval requiring that the Ipswich window, five sash windows across the ground and first floors and the main front door of the premises are all retained and refurbished, “unless it can be demonstrated that [they are] beyond repair”.

An inn is first thought to have stood on the Old Dog plot as long ago as 1715, before being rebuilt in the early 1800s. The current frontage is believed to date back to the very end of the 19th century.