Summary
Former woollen warehouse and shops, early to mid C19, now shops and offices.
Reasons for Designation
The former woollen warehouse and shops, early to mid C19, 3-7 Station Street is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural Interest:
* a good example of a mid-C19 commercial premises designed in a restrained neoclassical style with careful architectural detailing, including a fluted frieze above the ground-floor entrance and arcaded windows to the fourth floor.
Historic interest:
* one of the town’s mid-C19, purpose-built warehouses, constructed as part of the Ramsden Estate’s planned New Town development, and potentially incorporating earlier fabric.
Group value:
* it has group value with other nearby listed buildings designed in neoclassical style that also form part of the New Town development.
History
Huddersfield New Town was a planned development laid out on a grid pattern that took advantage of the arrival of the Leeds-Manchester Railway (1849) and the construction of JP Pritchett’s grand station building. Over the subsequent thirty years previously open land was developed into a bold, cohesive town planning scheme.
The development was spearheaded by George Loch, agent of the Ramsden Estate. The Ramsden family owned the manor of Huddersfield from 1599 to 1920 and were responsible for much of the town’s historic development.
The buildings of the New Town included warehouses, offices, retail and hospitality all of which were designed with similar ashlar-faced neoclassical or Italianate street frontages. The Ramsden Estate inspected all proposals for new buildings on their land to ensure quality development. Buildings were designed mainly by local architects but overseen by London architect, William Tite, who was retained from 1851 to inspect designs, and maintain the Ramsden Estate’s high architectural standards.
The single land ownership allowed an example of town planning to be created that was almost without precedent in terms of scale and ambition. The development of New Town is illustrative of the Victorian era tensions between a landed estate and a town corporation. The corporation resisted Ramsden’s attempts to incorporate a town hall into the New Town scheme and eventually, following secret negotiations, purchased the estate for £1.3m, earning Huddersfield the moniker ‘the town that bought itself’.
The date of construction of 3-7 Station Street is uncertain; however, the dashed outline of a building is shown on the 1850 Ramsden Estate Plan which may represent the present building. The fabric of the west elevation indicates that the building developed in at least three phases. It is also possible that the present building incorporates fabric from the early-C19 buildings which occupied the site.
Details
Former woollen warehouse and shops, early to mid C19, now shops and offices.
MATERIALS: ashlar-sandstone façade and coursed hammer-dressed stone to side and rear elevations. Stone-slate roof coverings.
PLAN: the building forms the return elevation along Station Street of the larger complex of Estate Buildings which includes 20-26 Westgate (National Heritage List for England (NHLE entry: 1224850) to the south, and 1-11 Railway Street (NHLE entry: 1231474) to the west.
EXTERIOR: the building is of four storeys plus basement, and of seven bays. The eastern elevation has a moulded eaves cornice and a moulded cornice over the ground floor. A string course runs above the second floor. The seven bays have two-over-two sash windows; those on third floor are round-arched, with sunk aprons and moulded lintels. The ground floor has modern shops, separated by a double-leaf door with four moulded panels with an overlight and fluted frieze above that leads to a passageway.
The rear elevation comprises five bays with a distinct straight joint separating the building into two halves, with a different style of window and stonework to the top floor. The elevation also features a modern fire escape.
INTERIOR: the upper floors are accessed by a stone staircase rising from between the shops, with a timber dog-leg staircase in the south-west corner of the building communicating between the upper floors. The building is divided by a spine wall, running east to west, corresponding to the straight joint in the rear elevation. The building retains a suite of historic, if not original windows, plank-and-batten and panelled doors, and to the third floor, picture rails and tongue-and-groove partitions. The first- and second-floor ceilings feature large pine bridging beams with chamfers, run-out stops and merchants’ marks indicating a Baltic origin, whilst the third floor is open to the roof, with exposed softwood roof trusses.
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 11 July 2023 to amend the name and address
