AN historic landmark familiar to thousands of motorists who use the M5 has been designated as a "building at risk" by English Heritage.

The Panorama in Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn, was created in the 18th Century as a place from which to admire the Capability Brown-designed landscape at Croome Court against the backdrop of the Malvern Hills.

It was later separated from the estate by the coming of the motorway, which cut through the parkland.

Now The Panorama has been designated as "category A" in West Midlands English Heritage's fifth Register of Buildings at Risk published on Wednesday.

The list is an annual run-down of historical buildings in the UK which the organisation believes are in danger of crumbling to dust.

Category A means The Panorama is in the upper third of buildings on the list, deemed to be at "immediate risk of further rapid deterioration or loss of fabric".

The Panorama and Croome Court, the ancestral home of the Earls of Coventry, are managed by land agents Carter Jones on behalf of owners the St Monica Trust. Pip Webster, for the agents, said she believed that the National Trust, which owns and is restoring Croome Landscape Park, may be interested in acquiring the building.

She said The Panorama had suffered from vandalism, despite being surrounded by a security fence, and from the fact that there was no obvious use for it.

"It would be a very difficult building to develop sympathetically," she said.

The Panorama is one of three buildings in Worcestershire and Herefordshire on the English Heritage list. The others are The Palm House at Whitbourne Hall, in Whitbourne, which is a new addition to the register, and the Summer House, at Homme House in Much Marcle.

Ben Shipstone, for the National Trust, said that although it was interested in the future of The Panorama, at the moment it was concentrating on restoring the landscape park.