41 Daisy Hill, Dewsbury including setted rear yard, Dewsbury, Kirklees

Summary

Shop and domestic accommodation, built around 1860.

Description

Shop and domestic accommodation, built after 1853 and by 1861, possibly by John Kirk and Sons, for William Fryer.

MATERIALS: buff sandstone and red brick walls, timber shopfront, slate roof.

EXTERIOR: the building takes the form of a three-storey, two-window mini-palazzo facing north onto Daisy Hill. It has rock-faced masonry and a deep, moulded and bracketed cornice. The windows have decorative shouldered architraves and bracketed sills. At the first floor the windows are also eared and have central lintel roundels, and at the second floor they have keystone-arched heads. Both floors have timber casement windows with leaded glass (of the upper lights only at the first floor), and heraldic designs in the upper lights. The ground floor has a timber shopfront with a modern window flanked by pilasters, and a dentilled cornice over an awning. The recessed doorway at the left has a modern door but a tiled floor and curved former flanking display window at the left, now (2022) without glass. The roof is slate with a stone gable coping and ridge chimney stacks.

The east wall is partly obscured by 2-6 Church Street but is of similar stonework with render repair where the former abutting building was removed. The wall is gabled with a short gable stack, and blind save for an arched second-floor stair window. The cornice returns for a short distance.

The west wall is partly obscured by the abutting number 43, but the visible second-floor wall is of brick and is blind, with a short cornice return and a wide stone gable chimney stack.

The south (rear) wall is of brick laid in English Garden Wall bond, with a stone low plinth, lintels and sills, moulded kneelers and gutter corbels. The roof is slate with stone gable copings. At the left are three stacked windows all with timber casements; the first-floor window has leaded glass and a heraldic upper light matching the front windows. At the right the door has an arched brick head, with a separate first-floor stair window above, and an arched brick head to the tall second-floor stair window. Both stair windows have decorative etched glass panes in timber glazing bars, and red margin lights, acid-etched with a botanical design.

INTERIOR: the cellar has stone walls and floor, stone steps and a stone table in the front chamber, with some original door architraves. The ground floor has a stone-flagged passage from the stair to the rear door. There are no features visible in the shop area, which has a suspended ceiling and a modern tiled floor.

The stairs are original with a ramped balustrade and turned balusters (boarded on the first flight), and a triangular built-in cupboard on the first-floor half landing. The first-floor stair window retains etched glass of two different designs in all its central panes. The second-floor stair window retains etched glass in its top four central panes with replacement panes in the lower two, and one of the margin lights is of clear glass.

The first-floor rooms have suspended ceilings and boarded walls, and no features of interest are visible except for a large wall-safe in the rear room, marked WITHY GROVE STORES MANCHESTER ESTABLISHED 1850 (this company still trades in Withy Grove, Manchester). The second-floor rooms retain fireplaces (enclosed in the rear room but displayed in the front room, with a moulded surround and mantelpiece, and an arched cast-iron grate.)

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the small rear yard is of stone setts with a blocked basement access.

History

Daisy Hill (which historically has formed part of Westgate) is one of the oldest streets in Dewsbury town centre, its narrow winding nature contrasting with the grid-like layout of the town's later-C19 streets. During the third quarter of the C19, it transitioned from a residential street to a mainly commercial street, and several buildings were rebuilt or refronted to provide large shopfronts. The new frontages often employed rock-faced sandstone masonry, as is found at number 41. Stylistically this building shares some details with works by the local architects John Kirk (1828-1886) and Sons, in particular dating from the 1870s. However, evidence suggests that the site was developed by 1861, and the facades appear to be original rather than a later improvement. This might therefore be an early example of their work.

The 1852 1:1056 Ordnance Survey (OS) town plan, and an anonymous 1853 plan of this part of the town, show the site of number 41 occupied by the entrance to a courtyard behind two properties facing east at the north end of Church Street, where it joins Westgate. These properties later became a public house called Fryer’s Vaults, owned by William Fryer. However by 1870 Malcolm Paterson’s plan of the area shows a building on the footprint of number 41, blocking this entrance.

The window of the likely building of number 41 is further narrowed by the apparent occupation of a building on this site in the 1861 census, between Fryer’s Vaults and a building occupied by a confectioner named Lees (who later censuses confirm occupied the property immediately to the north of number 41). Although in the late-C19 a single-storey shop stood in the north-west corner of the pub site, that could not have been residential and would not have been recorded in the census. A game dealer named Thomas Sykes is therefore thought to have occupied what is now number 41.

The location of number 41 across the rear access to Fryer’s Vaults suggests Fryer was probably the developer. This is supported by the occupation in the 1871 census of what is thought to have been number 41 (that is, the building between the pub and Mr Lees’ property) by Fryer’s 33-year-old widowed daughter, Emma Harrison. She had been married to the chief clerk of the county court, which stood nearby on what is now Wellington Street. Her occupation is given as a ladies’ outfitter. White’s 1870 directory lists her with the address of the ‘baby linen and Berlin wool repository, Westgate’, which is thought to have been number 41 Daisy Hill. As Emma was not the first occupier, and there are no features indicating that number 41 was built specifically for Sykes, number 41 is most likely to have been built speculatively, probably with the textile trade in mind.

In 1881, Thomas Tadman, a wine and cigar traveller, was the occupier, along with his wife, six children and a servant. (Emma Harrison had moved to the market place and was in her father’s trade, as a beer and wine dealer.) By 1891, Tadman had moved to North Park Street and the building was occupied by a scribbling foreman named John Redfearn (scribbling is an early stage in processing wool fibres for spinning), but the 1893 Goad fire insurance plan still notes the presence of a shop. The census of 1901 appears not to have any information for this building, but in 1911 tobacconist John Halstead (who was elsewhere in 1901) had moved in. At least two historic photographs show advertisements for Halstead’s Havana cigars on the gable end of the building. The building has remained in use as a shop and residence.

None of these occupiers is thought to have made major changes, although the heraldic leaded windows appear to date from the early-C20, and might be associated with Halstead. Fryer’s Vaults was demolished between the surveys for the 1956 and 1966 1:1,250 OS maps, and replaced by 2-6 Church Street; the render on the south wall of number 41 indicates where the pub and its former single-storey shop abutted. Probably in the late-C20, the corniced chimney stacks were truncated.

Reasons for Listing

Number 41 Daisy Hill, Dewsbury, a shop and domestic accommodation built around 1860, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a good example for its date of speculative commercial architecture on a small scale, with good detailing to the frontage and the interior;

* surviving well, in particular retaining a historic shopfront with a display case and tiled floor in the curved entrance splay, a little-altered cellar with stone floors and table and historic door architraves, an original stair with built-in cupboards and decorative stair windows, and a setted rear yard.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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