THE question of whether an empty cottage on the road up to West Malvern should be demolished was occupying Malvern's district council 100 years ago, as reports in the Gazette show.

The building, Alma Cottage, was situated near the Redan Inn and owned by a Miss Agnes Summers.

"The sanitary inspector described the house as unfit for human habitation, but the owner in a letter stated that it was not her intention to again let the cottage but to utilise it as a store. Under the circumstances she asked the council not to demolish the house.

"The visiting committee have backed up the inspectors report, the house has been cleared of its rather large number of inhabitants, and the question the council took such a long time to consider, and upon which they expended so much eloquence, is whether it shall be allowed to stand, or whether it shall be demolished.

"Against the latter alternative, the owner urges its usefulness as a store house for garden produce; for it certain members of the council argue that the dwelling is an eyesore to the district, a menace to public heath and altogether a most undesirable cumberer of the ground."

"It certainly seems - and here I am speaking from a purely detached point of views - a hardship on the owner to compel her to pull down a somewhat substantial stone building, especially as she urges that a store room is required, that she is prepared to make the house convenient for that purpose, and that in course of time a new house will probably be built upon the site."

In the end the council decided to adjourn the matter to the following month's meeting, to debate it all over again.