24-28 Whitefriargate, Kingston upon Hull, City of Kingston upon Hull

Summary

Five former houses and shops of 1826-1828 by Charles Mountain Junior, with mid-late C20 and early-C21 alterations.

Description

Five former houses and shops of 1826-1828 by Charles Mountain Junior, with mid-late C20 and early-C21 alterations. Classical style.

(Formerly Listed as: Nos. 24-28 (Consecutive) Friary Chambers) (Formerly Listed as: WHITEFRIARGATE (South side) No.24) (Formerly Listed as: WHITEFRIARGATE (South side) No.25) (Formerly Listed as: WHITEFRIARGATE (South side) No.26) (Formerly Listed as: WHITEFRIARGATE (South side) No.27) (Formerly Listed as: WHITEFRIARGATE (South side) No.28)

MATERIALS: brick, painted ashlar, slate roof.

PLAN: a rectangular east-west building range with north-south and east-west aligned extensions to the rear.

EXTERIOR: The four-storey brick building has painted ashlar dressings and a hipped roof, with four ridge stacks and a pair of side wall stacks to each side. The front (north) elevation has a ground floor comprising five C20 shopfront bays divided into four shops. To the left, (east) of number 24, there is a C19 private entrance porch with granite pilasters and ashlar Ionic capitals supporting acanthus decorated brackets and a wooden cornice. The Friary Chambers entrance has a fielded panel two-leaf doors with gold lettering painted above it: FRIARY CHAMBERS. Above is a leaded porch overlight, containing a late-C20 central board with the arms of Trinity House. The upper storeys are divided into five bays by full height pilasters rising from the ground floor, through the moulded second-floor cornice, to the attic storey. The first floor has four large segmental-headed windows, with three-light casements, apart from the fourth bay (to the west), which retains a pair of moulded window surrounds with moulded cornice and six-over-six sashes. The second floor has a range of eight windows; the three central bays have pairs of windows and the outer bays have single windows, all with moulded window surrounds and six-over-six sashes. The third floor (attic storey) above has plain window surrounds with small six-pane sashes, a moulded cornice, and a small lead-coped parapet.

INTERIOR: the upper floors are now flats, and accessed from the Friary Chambers entrance staircase. A range of features are said to be concealed behind C21 additions, with some cornicing, skirting, ceiling roses, fireplaces and door and window architraves exposed.

History

This building is located on the south side of Whitefriargate on land owned by Hull Trinity House, a religious guild (established 1369) which became a mariners’ guild in the mid-C15 and whose estate covers the majority of the former site of the Whitefriars (a Carmelite friary, founded in 1122 in Syria and established in Hull by around 1289). Hull Trinity House was originally a tenant of the Carmelites whose estate extended east from Trinity House Lane and north to south from Whitefriargate to Posterngate. With the dissolution of the monastery in 1536, it transferred through several hands until Alderman Thomas Ferries transferred what remained (known as the Ferries Estate) to Hull Trinity House mariners’ guild in 1621, before his death in 1631. Hull Trinity House began to let out land on building leases, starting with the corner of Trinity House Lane and Whitefriargate, and there was an on-going renewal of buildings in the estate with properties selected for redevelopment when their income would show the greatest improvement in financial returns.

Numbers 24 to 28 were built between 1826 and 1828 as purpose-built shops and houses, and they were part of the long-term development of Whitefriargate in the C18 and C19 when Hull Trinity House began developing major construction schemes for blocks of houses on the south side of Whitefriargate. They were designed by Charles Mountain Junior (1773-1839), architect, surveyor and son of Charles Mountain I (around 1743-1805), who designed a range of buildings in Hull including Hull New Theatre, Trinity Almshouses and the Master Mariners’ Hospital before he retired from practice in 1834. In May 1826 Trinity House advertised a contract for the building of five dwelling houses and shops extending, in front, 114ft in length. The building materials contained in the former shops and dwelling houses were put up for sale. By February 1828 the buildings were complete and a newspaper advert describes them as “those five newly-erected elegant messuages and dwelling houses, with the spacious and convenient shops attached…respectively numbered 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28.” Each shop-front was 33ft and 6 inches in depth, and arranged as front and back shops, with dwelling-houses above accessed by a private entrance door from Whitefriargate. The houses were fitted up with every convenience and arranged with the intention that the principal rooms on the first-floor could be let as Lodgings. The shops became business premises for upholstery and furniture makers, such as Samuel Brown, and solicitors.

By the late-C19 the ground-floors of numbers 24 and 26 were amalgamated for Marris, Willows and Smith (silk mercers and drapers), with two separate neighbouring shops west and offices for solicitors and accountants above. A late 1880s drawing by Frederick Schultz Smith suggests the former C19 shopfronts were ornamented with finials. By 1911 Marris, Willows and Smith Limited had expanded their premises across numbers 24 to 28 Whitefriargate. By the mid-C20 the ground-floor had been subdivided into five shops once more, and to four by the late-C20 (following the amalgamation of numbers 25 and 26). All the shop frontages were replaced in the late-C20, including the pilaster ground-floor shop divisions, and minor alterations have been made to the Friary Chambers entrance. Around 2013 the upper floors were converted from offices into self-contained flats.

Reasons for Listing

24-28 Whitefriargate, of 1826-1828, by Charles Mountain Junior, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a group of early-C19 purpose-built shops and houses designed with a unified appearance, one of a series of such buildings built for Hull Trinity House;
* the building forms part of a group of carefully planned historic urban buildings which visually enhance and impart character to the streetscape of Whitefriargate.

Historic interest:

* Charles Mountain Junior was a well-regarded architect who designed a number of buildings in Hull in the early C19, including the listed Hull New Theatre (originally assembly rooms), and the Trinity Almshouses and Master Mariners' Hospital;
* as one of the key buildings on the south side of Whitefriargate where the majority of the buildings were constructed in the late C18 and early C19 to provide Trinity House with a rental income from their Whitefriargate estate in addition to their shipping revenues.

External Links

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