Historic England has taken a step closer to building dozens of homes on the site of the famous Flaxmill Maltings site in Shrewsbury after it kicked off the hunt for a contractor to carry out preparatory work on the former industrial site.

Flaxmill Maltings was built in 1797 at the peak of the industrial revolution and is the world’s first iron-frame building. After a century workingh as a flax mill, the buildings were converted into a maltings in 1897.