A saviour has been found for Witham's Swiss Chalet in a dramatic eleventh-hour reprieve.
Wrecking balls were due to obliterate the Collingwood Road folly after owner Braintree Council decided it wanted to redevelop the site and nobody came forward to give the chalet a new home.
Saved - a new owner has been found for Witham's Swiss Chalet
But after the deadline for applications had passed and the council announced demolition was imminent,carpenter Robert Stedman saw the doomed building in the the Braintree and Witham Times and thought it would make an ideal summer house in the new extension to his garden in Curds Road, Earls Colne.
In line with the council's original offer, he will be given the building free of charge, provided he pays to move it - an operation he estimated would cost around £1,000.
Mr Stedman, 54, said: "I just thought it was a nice looking thing and fell in love with it a bit."
Originally an ornamental stable block, built in a Swiss style around 100 years ago for a now-demolished large house in Collingwood Road, the chalet has seen service over the years as a boys' club and barber's shop.
Published Wednesday October 16, 2002
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