One of the great Surrey buildings will have another £200,000 of repair work after its owners said they were “morally obligated” to maintain the special 19th century site.

Pippbrook House is a Grade II* listed building, ‘a distinction’ English Heritage only bestows on about 5 percent of all listed properties.

The decision to increase the repair budget from £1.4 million to £1.6 million was made by Mole Valley District Council’s cabinet on Tuesday, June 17, so that parts of the building that were damaged by a historic leak in October 2023. can be fixed – and to make it easier to finish the roof repairs.

Councillor Nick Wright, cabinet member for leisure and community assets said the council had a ‘moral obligation” to repair the famous Dorking building.

He added: “It is very much a valued local asset We do need to find other creative ways of funding some of the work that needs to be done, but you can’t do that if you’ve got holes in your roof.

“We’re not denying that there are challenges there, there are significant challenges…but these works are necessary.”

In February 2023, the council originally approved a budget of £3.1 million for works required to fix Pippbrook House – with £1.6m coming from Mole Valley and the rest obtained through grants.

Unfortunately for the council, it was unable to bring in any external cash, limiting the overall scale of what could be achieved.

This caused the council to change course and in November 2023 £1.4 million was released to begin necessary work to weatherproof Pippbrook House.

The new work will also open up two rooms that cannot be used due to ceiling damage, the meeting heard, matching one of the council’s objectives of bringing Pippbrook back into use.

Pippbrook House was built between 1856 and 1858 and designed by the architect behind Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras station, George Gilbert Scott.

Cllr Gary Sevenoaks, who chairs the council’s scrutiny committee said questions needed to be asked as to why the council was unable to secure a grant for the remaining £1.5 million needed to fully repair the building.