A VICTORIAN building in Newbrough is one of just four which have been re-listed by the Government to celebrate their role in the history of the Women’s Institute.

The Mechanics Institute, which housed the village’s WI for more half a century, was awarded Grade II listed status in 1985.

But now it is among four buildings to be relisted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to mark the WI’s national centenary.

It has been named alongside the Fox Inn at Charlton, West Sussex, which hosted the first ever WI meeting in November 1915; and Denman College in Marcham, Oxfordshire, which was bought by the WI in 1947 and used as a training centre.

Also on the National Heritage List for England is Balcombe Place in Sussex, the home of the WI’s first chairman, Lady Gertrude Denman.

Dorothy Sowerby, chairman of Newbrough WI and county vice chairman, said: “This is a lovely surprise. For our building here in Newbrough to be named among the most significant buildings in the history of the national WI, is quite an honour.”

The Newbrough Reading Room and Mutual Improvement Society, later known as the Mechanics Institute, was established in 1849, and moved into the new building, next door to to the town hall, in 1854.

Almost a century later, in 1948, it was gifted to Newbrough WI, along with the sum of £100 for decorating and renovation work.

The building has panels inscribed with ‘Women’s Institute’ between the ground and first floor windows.

Newbrough WI, which moved into the town hall at the turn of the Millennium because of disabled access issues celebrated its own 90th anniversary in 2013.

Since then, the Mechanics Institute has been used by a youth club and as office space. It will be forever remembered for WI activities, including talks on ‘how to truss a fowl’, with Newbrough’s legendary founder, Leslia Newall, at the heart of it.