Summary

Offices, shops and warehouses, incorporating the Ramsden Estate Offices, 1869-1874, minor later alterations. To designs of W H Crossland; free Gothic style.

Description

Offices, shops and warehouses, incorporating the Ramsden Estate Offices, 1869-1874, minor later alterations. To designs of W H Crossland; free Gothic style.

MATERIALS: local sandstone construction with ashlar stonework to the principal elevations facing the street and rough coursed blocks facing the internal courtyard.

PLAN: linear ranges arranged around three sides of a rectangular courtyard narrower to the south, and with arched opening and access in the east side.

EXTERIOR: although the entire complex is built in a free Gothic style, each range is articulated differently, with some similarities but some changes in style and detailing.

Railway Street Elevation: four storeys and multiple bays beneath hipped roofs of slate, some conical. The roof line is varied with steep spires and ridges behind a corbelled-out traceried parapet. Tightly packed, large sash windows glazed with plate glass light the elevation, each storey alternating between square and arched heads. There are moulded strings, that to first floor carved with foliage, and several areas with elaborate wrought iron railings. Numbers one to seven form an approximately symmetrical block with two canted bays and, from south to north, four ranges of sashes, eight ranges of sashes, and three ranges of sashes. There is a corbelled-out balcony to the second floor. The elevation has several entrances through two-centred arched doorways closed with fine wrought-iron work. The entrance to the Ramsden Estate Offices is differentiated by a pair of arched openings divided by a colonette under one of the projecting bays, a balcony above it, and more lavish decoration especially in the carved impost band and hoodmoulds. The entrance to the south end is set in a gabled, buttressed portal, and paired entrances to the north end have fanlights pierced by quatrefoils. Windows are set in deep moulded reveals, segment-headed to the first floor, round-arched to the third floor. The first-floor ones in the bay windows have cusped heads, and the third-floor ones in the bay windows have pointed heads: Above the ground floor all windows have polished marble colonnettes with foliage capitals. Numbers nine and 11 break forward slightly and have third floor pinnacled and gabled tourelles corbelled out at the corners, and a central buttress rising through the ground to second floor. Windows are the same as elsewhere, but grouped irregularly with paired windows in the south part and triple windows in the north part. Each entrance has a finely executed ironwork grille to close off the entrance lobby from the street. The offices are also decorated externally with a series of armorial shields displaying the various marriage alliances of the Ramsden family.

Westgate Elevation: four storeys and five bays beneath hipped roofs of slate, some conical. The east bay breaks forward slightly and has pinnacled and gabled tourelles on elaborately carved corbels at third floor level, and a plain parapet corbelled out. The next three bays are gabled with cross-shaped arrow slits, separated by thin buttresses. The west bay has a similar tourelle, a traceried parapet and a full height, elaborate polygonal corner turret. There are arched shopfronts to the ground floor with moulded segmental arches with carved spandrels; shopfronts are mostly modern except for one inter-war brass shopfront. First-floor windows are segmental-headed, second-floor windows are flat-headed, and third floor windows are round-arched; all are sashes, and separated by polished marble colonnettes with foliate capitals, and hoodmoulds to the first and third floors. There are two window ranges to the east bay, three to the next three bays and two to the west bay. The prominent corner of Westgate Street and Railway Street incorporates a full-height turret and spire with cusped heads to the first-floor windows, an ornate carved stringcourse below, and below this, a row of traceried panels; alternating with the first-floor windows are polished stone columns with foliage capitals supporting lions rampant. The ground floor is elaborately treated with tall cusped windows and door, alternating with clustered colonnettes in contrasting polished stone, with carved foliate capitals and spandrels. The left return to Railway Street is similar to the west bay to Westgate, but with three window ranges to the upper floors, an arched entrance in a portal with flanking buttresses, a pair of small cusped windows above, some panelling and two ornately carved panels above. The right return to Station Street is similarly detailed to the rest of the elevation, but with five windows (3 and 2) and decorative roundels to each of the upper floors, the third-floor roundel in the form of a decorative datestone inscribed 1869..

Station Street Elevation: three storeys with basements and attics. There is a stringcourse at eaves level, a crenelated parapet, and the corners have corbelled crocketed pinnacles. The front elevation has nine bays with two-light plate sash windows in double chamfered surrounds. There are seven segment-headed windows on the ground floor, closely spaced to form a continuous arcade with three doors: one door is segment-headed and two are two-centred, all with overlights. The basement is lit by square-headed shouldered windows and secured with cast-iron railings with fleur-de-lys finials and modern pavement grates. To the south, and connected to the adjacent building, is a pointed arch with hoodmould and a crow-stepped parapet over a gateway with replacement gates.

Courtyard Elevations: all the ranges are plain with regular fenestration of two-pane plate-glass sash windows. The only variation is provided by changes in floor levels between the principal Railway Street/Westgate range and the Station Street range, and the treatment of the stair windows. The latter have stone mullions, most with bar or plate tracery above the lights, and are arranged to suit the internal lighting requirements rather than external symmetry.

INTERIOR:

Railway Street Range: the Ramsden Estate Offices comprise a suite of offices on the first floor with a ground-floor entrance hall and audit room with a Gothic decorative scheme. The main entrance opens into a tiled lobby with a flight of steps to the front doors with ironwork decoration. The large entrance hall is highly decorated, with a compartmented ceiling, tiled flooring, brattished wall panelling to dado height and an elaborately carved Gothic Revival fireplace. An elaborate screen divides the hall from the staircase, consisting of three pointed arches supported by clustered colonettes painted to resemble marble, with quatrefoils in roundels pierced into the spandrels. The first-floor is accessed via a semi-circular stone staircase, with an ornately scrolled wrought-iron balustrade and is lit by lancet windows. The latter have grisaille glass, mainly in a pattern of alternating roses and fleur-de-lis, with stained-glass margins. There is a curved stair down to the basement. The first-floor central lobby is divided from the staircase by a glazed partition, and has a coffered ceiling and original fireplace. A waiting room gives direct access to all the offices around it, which are from north to south: Surveyor’s Room, Agent’s Room, General Office and Cashier’s Office. The offices and waiting room all have decorative ribbed ceilings, double skirting boards, with panelled wainscoting to the agent’s room and cashier’s office. The cashier’s office is separated from the general office by a glazed timber, traceried screen, and both rooms have elaborate fireplaces; that of the cashier includes an 1869 datestone. A large strong room is accessed through a heavy iron door and has brick lined walls and fireproof brick vaulted floors and ceilings. It has an iron mezzanine floor and extensive metal shelving, timber cupboards, extra safes and heavy iron shutters to its windows.

The rest of the range comprises four storeys of offices, and a basement for storage and accommodation for porters. It has a simple and consistent decorative scheme that varies slightly from floor to floor and according to the hierarchy of the spaces. Original windows and doorways have a reeded moulding and tablets to the architraves; the doors are typically four-panelled, many replaced or covered. Most rooms have simple, substantial skirting, with a double skirting board used throughout the ground floor, and most rooms have either coved or reeded cornices. Some rooms particularly on the ground and first floors, also retain some tongue-and-groove wainscoting, and there are original stone fire-surrounds to many rooms, often painted over. The rooms are served by a series of communal cantilevered stone staircases with simple cast-iron scrollwork balustrades. Although some of the basement has been updated to provide a modern caretaker flat, it retains much of its original layout and original features and joinery including a fireplace in a porter’s room.

Westgate Range: the ground floor retail and commercial units have modern interiors, all with mezzanine levels. The upper floors have been converted to residential apartments.

Station Street Range: subdivided to form modern offices but it retains original features, including jack-vaulted ceilings, supported on cast-iron columns within the south range. Some rooms retain fireplaces, glazed partitions and high tongue-and-groove wainscoting. Within the east-west range there is an inserted modern staircase to the ground floor, but the original (though modified) staircase between the first and second floor is retained. Within the north-south range one room retains a half-glazed partition and column. The first and second floors are accessed from a separate staircase which leads directly up from the street. This stone staircase retains many of its original features and is constructed and decorated similarly to those in the rest of the Estate Buildings.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 11 July 2023 amend the address and text in the description

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’.

In 1868 the Ramsden Estate decided to build a new Estate Office on Railway Street and Westgate, relocating the Estate Office from the Ramsdens’ ancestral home, Longley Hall. Local architect W H Crossland designed and oversaw the construction of the new Estate Buildings. Masonry work was carried out by Benjamin Graham, decorative stone carving by Farmer and Brindley of London, and the ornamental ironwork by the Midland Iron Company of Coventry. Construction began in late 1868 or 1869 and the entire complex was completed in 1874. Although designed and built in one campaign, the Estate Buildings can be divided structurally and functionally into three parts. The Westgate range featured commercial and retail units to the ground floor with office accommodation above. The Railway Street range contained the Ramsden Estate Offices, and other offices to be let out separately. The north-east wing, facing Station Street, mostly contained warehouses for the woollen trade, combined with limited office accommodation.

William Henry Crossland (1835-1908) was Huddersfield-born and a former student of Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878). At this date, Crossland was already known as a competent architect and had built a number of Gothic Revival churches in the area, but he may have come to the Ramsdens’ attention as the architect of Rochdale Town Hall (1866-71, National Heritage List for England (NHLE): 1084275, Grade I). This was Crossland’s first major secular building project, and considered one of the finest municipal buildings in the north of England. During his career, the architect was given around 82 commissions and at least 32 of his buildings are listed with six at Grade II* and four at Grade I. Apart from Rochdale Town Hall, Crossland is best known for his nationally significant designs for the Holloway Sanatorium (1873-1885, NHLE: 1189632, Grade I) and Royal Holloway College (1879-1887, NHLE: 1028946, Grade I). He designed numerous buildings in Huddersfield town centre for the Ramsden Estate, including Waverley Chambers (1882, NHLE: 1415452, Grade II), Somerset Buildings (1883, NHLE: 1415451, Grade II). and Kirkgate Buildings (about 1883, NHLE: 1415453, Grade II).

Reasons for Listing

Estate Buildings, incorporating the Ramsden Estate Office, 1869-1874 is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* designed by the notable local architect William Henry Crossland who has numerous listed buildings to his name around the country, including several in the higher grades;
* it is an imposing building prominently situated on a key site where its high-quality design, massing and materials combine to successful aesthetic effect;
* its striking Gothic exterior displays strong architectural flair and craftsmanship, embellished with naturalistic carving, machicolation, traceried parapet and a varied roofline ornamented by gables and spirelets;
* internally the original plan form of all ranges remains legible, and there is good survival of original fixtures and fittings throughout, including the Ramsden estate office with its original decorative scheme and fittings including staircase, screen, wall panelling, decorative stained glass and intricately carved fireplaces;
* the building's considerable streetscape value is further enhanced by the presence of numerous adjacent listed commercial buildings of similar date and also built as part of the Ramsden Estate.

Historic interest:

* part of the large-scale and extensive Huddersfield New Town, considered a bold and cohesive town planning scheme spearheaded by George Loch, agent of the Ramsden Estate;
* for its association with the Ramsden family, which is clearly expressed in the extensive use of external heraldry and the lavish decorative estate office scheme.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26518998

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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