A GRADE II-listed Victorian shopping arcade is set to get new glazed sliding, folding doors.

The owner of the Victoria Cross Gallery in Wantage Market Place has submitted a planning application to add the new, modern feature.

The glass doors would replace the existing concertina security grille and steel barriers which have been used to shut the gallery after closing time for years.

The Victoria Cross Gallery was formerly Wantage’s Corn Exchange.

It was renamed by Wantage Town Council in 1900 after Lord Wantage donated a series of paintings of Victoria Cross recipients to the town and councillors agreed to hang them in the exchange buildings.

The portraits, by Louis William Desanges, included one of Lord Wantage who had earned his Victoria Cross in the Crimean War as a young Captain in the Scots Guards.

The paintings were removed from the gallery in the 1940s but the name stuck.

The gallery buildings are now owned by a Mrs Helen Sopher, who has submitted the sliding door plans to Vale of White Horse District Council via her agents Benedicts of Witney.

Members of public can see the proposals online at whitehorsedc.gov.uk using reference number P16/V2329/LB.

The Vale is aiming to give Mrs Sopher a decision by March 21.

As well as being a listed building, the gallery is also in the Wantage Town Centre Conservation Area which the council will have to consider when deciding whether the new glass doors would be appropriate.