A crumbling Palladian mansion outside Edinburgh, described as one of the most significant pieces of architecture of 18th-century Scotland, has the dubious honour of making the shortlist for the most endangered heritage sites in Europe.
Mavisbank, built in 1726 and designed by William Adam in collaboration with his client Sir John Clerk, was the first villa built in Scotland in the fashionable Italianate Palladian style. It fell into ruin in the 20th century, and was further damaged by fire in 1973. A trust plans to restore the building and estate as a community asset, but the cost would be enormous, and the surviving buildings are in danger of collapse.
As well as the mansion, other endangered sites include a swing bridge in France, collapsing castles in Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands, a convent in Spain, a 19th-century coastal fortress in Estonia, a 1930s airport in Finland, a 1960s government block in Norway with murals by Pablo Picasso, and the entire, polluted cruise liner-choked lagoon of Venice.
Some of the sites are still in use, including the busy airport on a site now proposed for housing, and the Colbert Bridge near Dieppe in France, built in 1889 and still crossed by more than 12,000 vehicles a day, but threatened with being replaced by a modern structure.
The oldest structures are the archaeological site of Ererouyk in Armenia, and in south-east Turkey, the remains of a 12,000-year-old settlement, Hasankeyf, which was continuously occupied and rebuilt into medieval times. The striking setting of Hasankeyf on the banks of the Tigris may now lead to its destruction by flooding with the construction of a hydroelectric dam.
One of the buildings, the Palace of Justice in Brussels, stands in a prominent position in one of the busiest city centres in Europe but has been shored up for the last 30 years to prevent the total collapse of its portico. In the 19th century, the Palace of Justice was the largest modern building in Europe, using pioneering iron-frame techniques, but much of it is now so derelict that office space has had to be rented nearby for the lawyers.
The list of 14 sites, with nominations from local heritage bodies, will be narrowed down to the seven most endangered sites in Europe, to be announced next year by the Europe-wide conservation organisation, Europa Nostra.
