Boston Preservation Trust is a registered charity set up in 1935 to save Grade I listed Fydell House when it was at threat of demotion to make way for a new road. Our charitable objectives are to save historical buildings and land in the Boston area and bring them back into meaningful use for the benefit of the public. While we own other buildings in Boston, Fydell House on South Square is the central focus of our efforts and the main one with a wider community use and benefit. Fydell House has 12 rooms available for hire for groups, meetings, activities, events, tours and talks and has a small volunteer-run café.
We have two part-time paid employees and our main activities are delivered working with our volunteers who support opening hours, office and admin, cafe one day a week, undertake cleaning, guided tours and maintain our RHS award-winning walled garden.
Over the last few years the Trust has been working on our future vision for Fydell House - one that welcomes a wider and more diverse audience through our front door, which shares its 320 -years of heritage and stories, and one that welcomes everyone in our community to enjoy the space and surroundings this exceptional Georgian house and walled garden has to offer.
We have just completed a lottery funded two-year development phase which has helped us develop our future capital plans and revision our business plan. Core to this vision is our focus on community, inclusivity and diversity to ensure Fydell House can continue to be a multi-faceted community building is at the core of our future operations and the heart of this project.
We identified our project’s needs go beyond the historic fabric: the building currently has very limited physical access and no welfare facilities and this significantly limits our ability to operate fully and to serve our community – whether they are regular users, visiting for the first time, delivering a workshop or attending an event or simply wishing to become a volunteer.
Fydell House’s future as an open space of learning, culture and community for the people of Boston is also about providing it the right environment and accessibility for our operations to build and grow and to meet the needs of our community. We want Fydell House to continue to be the bastion of community activities and a hub that can, and does, welcome all.