Former Bentall's Department Store, Kingston upon Thames, London

Summary

Department store, 1932-5 by Maurice Everett Webb, rebuilt behind facade 1990-2

Description

Department store, 1932-5 by Maurice Everett Webb, rebuilt behind facade 1990-2

MATERIALS: Pale brown brick and Portland stone.

EXTERIOR: 31-bay façade wrapping around the corner of Wood Street and Clarence Street and totalling nearly 115 metres in length. English Baroque style, derived from Wren's extensions to Hampton Court but of three storeys to Wren's four. Ground floor forms a continuous stone basement with arched doorways in the end and centre bays and square openings containing Classically-detailed bronze-framed shop fronts (partly renewed in 1992) between. Elongated piano nobile with very tall rectangular metal-framed windows (renewed in 1992) in moulded stone surrounds, their heads rising into a broad stone band terminating in a cornice. Attic storey has circular windows with moulded keystone surrounds with further cornice and stone-coped parapet above.

Eleven bays to Wood Street are arranged 1-7-3-7-1 (single return bay at northern end is a modern facsimile). Three-bay centrepiece is entirely of stone, treated as a temple front with paired Corinthian half-columns and pilasters and a triangular pediment containing a heraldic cartouche. Three arched openings at ground level with elongated keystones breaking through cornice above; the two outer openings each contain two pairs of glazed bronze-framed doors. Curving bronze brackets in spandrels above, supporting hourglass-shaped lanterns with uplighters and globe lamps. Square windows and balustraded parapet with piers topped by four tall flagpoles. Outer bays at north and south ends also have arched ground-floor openings, with carved keystones bearing the Bentall's insignia; first-floor windows above have projecting cornices on consoles. Barrel shaped bronze post-box set into wall next to south doorway. Alternating stone quoins to outer corners, with urns on parapet above.

Seven-bay elevation to Clarence Street has arched openings at both ends but is otherwise identical to flanking wings of Wood Street front. Corner section forms a five-bay quadrant, slightly recessed. At street level, a canopy projects over a series of shop windows separated by bronze half-columns, the original non-reflective concave glass now lost. Square attic windows with shouldered surrounds, those in outer bays framed by relief carvings by Eric Gill showing figures amid foliage, that in the centre replaced by a solid stone panel with the Bentall's crest in high relief. Parapet (restored in 1992) bears the company name in inset stone lettering, and supports four further flagpoles.

Modern shopping centre exteriors to either side of retained facade are not of special interest.

INTERIORS: Only surviving 1930s interior is semi-circular Wood Street entrance lobby, reconstructed in original location in 1992 using a mixture of new and old materials. Egyptianesque columns of Travertine with gilded capitals supporting illuminated glazed architrave. Renewed ceiling with illuminated sunburst above doorway. Behind the colonnade, a series of bronze-framed kiosks; between them, stained-glass roundels with the arms of Kingston upon Thames and the counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Essex and Sussex. Other interiors date from 1990s rebuilding and are not of special interest.

HISTORY In 1867 the retailer Frank Bentall opened a small drapery shop in Kingston upon Thames. The venture was markedly successful, and later geographical expansion saw the firm open branches in several other towns across southern England. Around 1930 the then proprietor, Leonard Bentall, employed the architects Sir Aston Webb and Son (by that time headed by Sir Aston's eldest son Maurice) to design a vast new department store on the original Kingston site, occupying more than a hectare at the corner of Clarence Street and Wood Street.

The work, carried out by a large team of contractors led by John Mowlem & Co., proceeded in two main phases, allowing the store to transfer its operations gradually to the new building as its old premises were demolished. The first phase, comprising the Wood Street façade and the main shop floors behind, was completed by the end of 1932, while work on the Clarence Street section (including a quadrant corner block with sculptures by Eric Gill) was undertaken in 1934-5. A third phase, which would have seen the Clarence Street façade extended across a series of existing buildings, more than doubling its length, was not carried out. The new Bentall's was a steel-framed structure with an open-plan interior on five floors, with a central escalator hall rising through the full height of the building. Other features included a 750-seat restaurant, a 'mannequin theatre' for fashion shows and (across Wood Street to the north-west) a multi-storey car park. Webb also built a large furniture depository for the store, some distance away in Hardman Road.

In 1990-2 the entire Bentall's site was redeveloped with the exception of Webb's façade which was retained as part of the frontage to a new indoor shopping complex known as the Bentall Centre; the semicircular Wood Street entrance lobby was reconstructed in its original location. The depository building survives and is Grade II listed.

Maurice Everett Webb (1880-1939) was the elder son of Sir Aston Webb, one of the leading architects of the late C19 and early C20. Maurice began his career as an assistant to his father and afterwards led the family firm, which continued to be known as Sir Aston Webb and Son. Early in his career he designed a number of war memorials, including that at the Royal Exchange in the City of London. His later works, many of which are Grade II listed, include university buildings (e.g. at Pembroke College and Wesley House in Cambridge), schools (e.g the Memorial Reading Room at Malvern College, Worcestershire), commercial premises (e.g. the Commercial Union Assurance building on Cornhill in London) and Government buildings (e.g. the Guildhall in Kingston upon Thames; the Governor's House at Nicosia in Cyprus). He also continued a number of his father's projects, including Birmingham University, Imperial College and the restoration of St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, London. He served as president of the Architectural Association and vice-president of the RIBA.

SOURCES
'Bentall's Store, Kingston-on-Thames', Building (December 1932), 542-9.
'Bentall's, Kingston-upon-Thames', Architect's Journal (1 February 1933), 178-9.
'Bentall's New Store, Kingston-on-Thames', Builder (20 September 1935), 499-51.
Obituary for Maurice Webb, Builder (17 November 1939), 711.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 11/04/2018

History

Kingston upon Thames, historically in Surrey, was an important market town, port and river crossing from the early medieval period, while there is evidence of Saxon settlement and of activity dating from the prehistoric period and of Roman occupation. It is close to the important historic royal estates at Hampton Court, Bushy Park, Richmond and Richmond Park. The old core of the town, around All Saints Church (C14 and C15, on an earlier site) and Market Place, with its recognisably medieval street pattern, is ‘the best preserved of its type in outer London’ (Pevsner and Cherry, London: South, 1983 p. 307). Kingston thrived first as an agricultural and market town and on its historic industries of malting, brewing and tanning, salmon fishing and timber exporting, before expanding rapidly as a suburb after the arrival of the railway in the 1860s. In the later C19 it become a centre of local government, and in the early C20 became an important shopping and commercial centre. Its rich diversity of buildings and structures from all periods reflect the multi-facetted development of the town.

Reasons for Listing

The former Bentall's department store is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the 115 metre-long façade, a restrained exercise in the English Baroque by an important architectural firm, is impressive and substantially complete, and - complemented by the surviving elements of the Wood Street entrance lobby - is of sufficient interest to offset the loss of the building behind;
* Artistic interest: the curved corner element incorporates reliefs by the major sculptor Eric Gill;
* Historic interest: a very unusual instance of a department store on a truly metropolitan scale built in an outer-urban location.

External Links

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