Queens Court Business Centre and attached railings to front, Central, Barnsley

Summary

Former hotel, attached shop and house (Eldon Street) built in late the 1860s for James Fox to designs by Wade and Turner. Shops and billiard room, cellarage and stores (Regent Street) built in 1872 for James Fox to designs by Turner. Narrow infill block between the hotel and Regent Street building built in late 1872. Single-storey range built on south side of rear yard (Regent Street South) in 1873, heightened to two storeys in 1874. Extra storey added to Regent Street block in early to mid-C20; attic storey added to the Regent Street block and former store/warehouse range to its rear in late C20 or early C21.

Description

Former hotel and attached railings to front, shops and house. Late 1860s for James Fox to designs by Wade and Turner with 1870s, early to mid-C20, and late-C20 to early-C21 alterations and additions.

MATERIALS: the original building and later additions are built in stone with slate roofs. Modern attic stories on Regent Street and Regent Street South are covered in zinc sheets.

PLAN: the former hotel (late 1860s) stands at the junction of Regent Street and Eldon Street and has a curved outer corner. The elevation on Regent Street is attached to a narrow two-bay infill block (late 1872) and an L-shaped building (1872) beyond (originally with cellars linked to the hotel, ground-floor shops and a first-floor billiard room with a rear store/warehouse range on the west side of the hotel yard), all now offices. The yard is enclosed by an 1873-1874 infill block fronting Regent Street South with a covered archway to the yard at the west end.

DESCRIPTION: The building is designed in a classical style and the main elevations are constructed in ashlar stone.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys with an attic and a basement and has seven bays to Regent Street, three rounded corner bays at the junction of Regent Street and Eldon Street, and three bays on Eldon Street. The Regent Street elevation abuts the three-storey, two-bay infill block and the three-storey, three-bay shop and former billiard room building. The Eldon Street elevation courses through to the lower, three-storey, two-bay shop and house (which was part of the original design).

MAIN BUILDING: each end of the former hotel's seven Regent Street bays and the three Eldon Street bays are marked by pilasters, which also separate the three rounded-corner bays from the two street elevations. The pilasters have differing capitals on each floor, the first-floor pilasters being particularly decorative with fielded panelling and roundels and acanthus leaf capitals. Above is a heavy dentilled eaves cornice with carved heads on paired console brackets and a tall, panelled and balustraded parapet, which is continuous from the outer bay of the Eldon Street elevation to the outer bay of the Regent Street elevation. The eaves cornice to Regent Street South is simpler with paired console brackets and there is no parapet. There are tall decorative stone stacks with wide, moulded cornices.

The Regent Street elevation is symmetrical with the central bay containing the main entrance marked by similar pilasters. The round-arched enriched entrance has three steps up to double doors with fielded panels and glazed lights above and a round-headed overlight with moulded archivolt and a giant keystone with a carved head of Queen Victoria. Large flanking console brackets support a heavy dentilled cornice. On the ground floor, there are three bays to each side of the entrance with round-headed windows with continuous moulded hood moulds and giant keystones with carved heads in cartouches. Bay two has a second doorway beneath a semi-circular window. It has two steps up to double doors with fielded panels and glazed lights above and a rectangular overlight. The other windows all have two-pane horned sashes as do the first- and second-floor windows. The first-floor windows are square-headed with a decorative sill band. The central window over the main entrance is enriched with garlanded lions-head console brackets supporting a segmental pediment and a balustrade with urns. The other first-floor windows have architraves and enriched heads, the windows in bays two and six with garlanded lions-head console brackets supporting heavy enriched cornices. The second-floor windows are also square-headed with a sill band, architraves and enriched giant keystones. The central window has a round-arched tympanum enriched with two cornucopias. The windows in bays two and six have cornices with round-headed pediments. Set back behind the parapet are three round-headed dormer windows with finials. In front of the narrow basement areas of the hotel on Regent Street are decorative cast-iron railings set on chamfered stone kerbs. The railings are continued in front of the area of the two-bay infill block.

The three rounded-corner bays have similar windows as the windows on each floor of the Regent Street elevation, the first-floor central window also with a heavy enriched cornice supported on garlanded lions-head console brackets, and the second-floor central window also with a cornice with a round-headed pediment. There appear to be three blocked basement windows with a chamfered stone kerb in front.

The three Eldon Street bays have similar first-and second-floor windows with enrichment to the central windows. The ground floor is surmounted by a dentilled cornice on enriched console brackets topped with carved eagles. It has three round-headed openings, the arches springing from slender cast-iron fluted columns with acanthus leaf capitals. Above are slender continuous hood moulds with lion heads. The round-headed openings contain a doorway in the first bay and two windows.

REGENT STREET ADDITIONS: abutting the right-hand corner of the building are five additional bays formed by the two-bay infill block and the three-bay shop block. On the ground floor, bays one and two have paired round-headed windows with a continuous arched hood mould with carved head stops on the ground floor. The third bay projects slightly and contains a doorway (originally to access the first-floor billiard room) with double doors with fielded panels and glazed lights above. It has a doorcase of Tuscan pilasters and a deep entablature. Above the entablature is a semi-circular overlight with an arched hood mould. To the right is a round-headed, triple-light window and beyond a round-headed two-light window and outer doorway. They have cast-iron fluted colonettes with foliated capitals standing on a moulded plinth, and rusticated voussoirs. The doorway has double doors with fielded panels and glazed lights, a rectangular overlight with a semi-circular overlight above. The round-headed first-floor windows follow a similar pattern. They have triangular broken pediments and giant keystones. The windows all have two-pane horned sashes, except for the triple-light and two-light ground-floor windows, which have single panes with semi-circular overlights. The later second floor has square-headed windows and the late-C20/early-C21 recessed attic storey has round-headed windows.

The rear former warehouse building faces onto Regent Street South. It is constructed of coursed, shaped stones with horizontal tooling and a moulded stone eaves cornice. The front elevation is of three bays and two storeys raised over a basement. It now has a modern attic storey faced in zinc sheeting. The raised ground floor has a large, round-headed warehouse doorway, now partially infilled and converted to a window. To the left is an inserted doorway (replacing a cellar window and a raised ground-floor window; both stone lintels remain). To the right is a barred basement window and a square-headed, ground-floor window. The first floor has three square-headed windows.

ELDON STREET SHOP AND HOUSE AND REGENT STREET SOUTH EXTENSION: to the left of the hotel is the two-bay, three-storey shop and house (part of the original building. The ground floor has a timber shopfront with panelled pilasters with moulded console brackets supporting a panelled fascia. The left-hand doorway has panelled double doors and a semi-circular overlight. The window has a panelled stallriser and a slender central mullion; the rectangular transom windows are presently blind. The first and second floors each have two segmental-arched windows with moulded giant keystones, slightly projecting sills and two-pane horned sash frames.

The side elevation facing onto Regent Street South has irregularly placed windows of differing sizes and a doorway to the left. The doorway and majority of the windows have segmental-arched heads with moulded giant keystones. The window to the right of the present doorway has been converted from a doorway. Between the shop and house and the warehouse is a two-storey block with windows, a doorway, and a covered archway all with segmental-arched heads and giant keystones. The square-headed basement windows have been infilled.

INTERIOR: the building has been refurbished in the early C21 with the exception of the cellars.

The main entrance from Regent Street opens into a small lobby with geometric floor of veined grey and black marble, panelled mahogany side walls and a mahogany circular revolving inner door. The ceiling has an enriched cornice and ceiling rose. The entrance and stair hall beyond has an enriched cornice and rose. On the right-hand side, the openings are framed by fluted Ionic pilasters and entablature. To the rear is the open-well main staircase with a shaped curtail step, carved mahogany newel post with acorn finial, swept mahogany handrail, turned wooden balusters and decorative tread ends.

The former main reception rooms on the ground and first floors have differing enriched cornices and ceiling roses and moulded window architraves, with panelling to the reveals and soffits of some of the sash windows. The large round-ended room in the north-east, outer corner of the ground floor has a trabeated ceiling with panelled beams with slender central, cast-iron columns, enriched cornices and a large oval ceiling rose. A similar room on the first floor has an enriched cornice and circular ceiling rose. A long first-floor room overlooking Regent Street South has a coved and corniced ceiling with two decorative, circular ventilation grilles.

The extensive stone-flagged cellars retain fixtures and fittings including stone-topped storage benches and shelves, brick storage bins and wine racks, a large fireplace faced in glazed tiles and a bricked-up brick fireplace with a stone lintel.

History

The Queen’s Hotel was built for James Fox, a local wine and spirits merchant, to designs by the Barnsley architects’ practice of Wade and Turner. Building plans and elevations were approved on 9 April 1867, but the hotel may have been built slightly later as it varies in detail with the main block, being three rather than four storeys, though more elaborately detailed. The carved keystone heads were by the sculptor Benjamin Payler. The hotel was built in a prominent corner location to appeal to travellers from Barnsley’s two close-by stations, the Exchange Station (opened in 1850) and the Court House Station (opened 1873), and also incorporated shops for the local population. An attached shop forming part of the Eldon Street elevation was built, but a three-storey, five-bay range on Regent Street depicted on the plans was not constructed. Ground and first-floor plans show the hotel with various public rooms and an open-well staircase to the centre rear. The Eldon Street shop had a single house room to the rear on the ground floor with front and rear rooms on the floors above.

In 1872 Turner produced plans and elevations of new stores and shops on Regent Street for James Fox standing in the location of the unbuilt range. The block plan and elevation drawing shows that the corner hotel building had been built by this time. The Regent Street plans, which were for a separate L-shaped building with a hipped roof, were approved by the town council on 19 March 1872. The building had cellars linked below ground to the hotel and ground-floor shops with a staircase at the south end up to a first-floor billiard room. At the rear, instead of stables, there was a large store or warehouse on two floors. The front elevation had a doorway at the left-hand end with two round-headed tripartite openings on the ground floor both comprising two windows and a door. On the first floor, there was a single window and two tripartite windows, all with pedimented frames. An ornate iron gate is shown to the gap between this building and the hotel to its left.

In September 1872, a plan to infill the gap between the two buildings with a narrow two-storey, two-bay block was approved. Subsequently in August 1873 plans were approved for a single-storey block to the rear of the shop and house on Eldon Street with public rooms, cellars and urinals. In January 1874 a first floor was added to this extension containing an office and a public room, with an archway at the left-hand end into the rear yard. An 1874 advertisement stated that the hotel (opposite both the railway stations) offered first-class accommodation for private families and commercial gentlemen, with hot joints offered daily in the restaurant. The hotel and associated buildings are all shown arranged around a small yard on the 1:500 town map published in 1888.

In the early to mid-C20, a third storey was added to the Regent Street infill block and shop building, with the upper floors used as offices. An additional attic storey was also added in the late C20 or early C21.

The building ceased to operate as a hotel in 2004 when it was converted to office accommodation. It is presently (2022) partially used by Barnsley College.

Reasons for Listing

Queens Court Business Centre and attached railings to front is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a well-designed classical building built of ashlar stone and enlivened by high-quality detailing including pilasters with enriched capitals, window heads and eaves cornice, carved eagles, lions’ heads, an elaborate main entrance with a carved keystone head of Queen Victoria and other keystone heads by the sculptor Benjamin Payler;
* the corner building makes a positive and engaging contribution to the historic buildings on both Eldon Street and Regent Street, and together with the listed former Court House (later Court House Station) frames the view up the latter road which culminates in the Grade II* War Memorial and aligned tower of the listed Town Hall behind;
* the interior retains good-quality key features, including the mahogany circular revolving door to the panelled and marble-floored main entrance lobby, the main staircase, fluted Ionic pilasters and entablature framing openings off the entrance hall, enriched cornices and ceiling roses, and also original storage benches, shelves and bins in the stone-flagged cellars.

Historic interest:

* Wade and Turner were a respected Barnsley architects’ practice who designed a number of significant local buildings which are now listed, including the Premises of the National Union of Mine Workers, the Public Baths, and the Oaks Colliery Disaster Memorial.

External Links

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