Liskeard’s historic Liberal Club building is up for sale, marking the end of an era in the town.

The Barras Street property was built in 1913 and has been the Liberal Party’s political headquarters in South East Cornwall for the last century, as well as the home of the Liberal Social Club which closed recently.

Today several of the property’s board of directors are elderly and ‘there is not enough money in the pot to do the work on the building that needs to be done,’ said chairman of the Lib Dems in South East Cornwall Derris Watson.

The party will not be seeking a new headquarters in the immediate future, as it licks its wounds after a third-place defeat in the General Election

When Colin Breed was MP between 1997 and 2010, the many small rooms on the upper floors were needed by the party to run a constituency office.

Cllr Watson said even had Lib Dem candidate Phil Hutty won the election, the party would still have had to move premises.

A cabinet full of memorabilia relating to Liberal giant Isaac Foot has gone to Liskeard Museum.

As the party workers prepared to move out, Cllr Watson said: ‘This is a period of reflection and recuperation. We’re saving our money so that, as and when, we can rent offices again. And so that we can build ourselves up for the fightback.’

While it is a moment of ‘sea change’ for the party locally, Cllr Watson and party secretary Chris Hordley are optimistic.

They say the party has more new members joining than in a long time and there is a new generation of young Liberal Democrat representatives on Cornwall Council and parish councils.

The facade of the building is listed and so must remain unaltered; ‘Liberal Club’ it will stay in name, whatever happens to the interior.

The new owner of the building will also have to allow The Bookshop on the ground floor to remain in place.