FORMER MASONIC HALL

MASONIC HALL, 74, CHURCH STREET

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

A late-C19 Masonic Lodge incorporating parts of an earlier house. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1210331
Date first listed:: 13-Mar-1995
List Entry Name:: FORMER MASONIC HALL
Statutory Address:: MASONIC HALL, 74, CHURCH STREET

User submitted image — Uploaded by Steve Turner This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2001-04-16
Reference:: IOE01/03879/14
Rights:: © Mr Charles Satterly. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1210331
Date first listed:: 13-Mar-1995
Date of most recent amendment:: 31-Oct-2013
List Entry Name:: FORMER MASONIC HALL
Statutory Address 1:: MASONIC HALL, 74, CHURCH STREET

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: MASONIC HALL, 74, CHURCH STREET

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Lancashire
District:: Lancaster (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SD4756361875

Summary

A late-C19 Masonic Lodge incorporating parts of an earlier house.

Reasons for Designation

The former Masonic Hall, a late-C19 building incorporating parts of an earlier house, is listed for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: this is an example of the work of the well-respected Lancaster architectural practice of Paley & Austin reusing elements of an earlier building to create a new Masonic Hall * Historic interest: this Masonic Hall is typical of the buildings erected to serve small lodges across the country in C19.

History

The Masonic Hall was erected by the 13 Craft Lodges and the Royal Chapter of Lancaster, who purchased the old Queens Head, a building with late-C17 origins, in 1884, converted it to a design by the Lancaster architects Paley & Austin, and held their first meeting in the refurbished building in May 1885. When refurbished the new structure contained a ground-floor library and first-floor temple but retained the older rear elevation and an adjoining outshot to the north. Cellars beneath the main part of the building are also thought to be C18.

In about 1914 the outshot to the rear of the hall was largely demolished to make way for construction of a new dining hall. In 1958 the adjacent two buildings to the east, now 72 Church Street, were demolished and replaced by a large two-storey plus cellar concrete-framed and stone clad extension to the Masonic Hall that contained a new temple at first floor level, a bar and cloakrooms at ground floor level, and a store and kitchen to the cellar. In 2011 and 2012, these later additions (not included in the listing) were converted to student accommodation and separated from the Masonic Lodge. At the same time the Masters Throne, associated panelling and loose furniture were transferred to a new Masonic Lodge at Rowley Court, Scotforth, Lancaster.

Details

A former Masonic Hall of 1885 by Paley & Austin but incorporating the rear parts of a late C17 building. The former Masonic Hall has a squared sandstone front elevation with ashlar dressings and a coursed rubble rear elevation.

Exterior: the Masonic Hall has a pitched roof and is of two and three storeys with a basement. The front elevation has been executed in a restrained Jacobean style. It has a deep plinth, a sill band on the first floor and a band with a parapet above the first floor windows. The doorway is to the right. The first floor is symmetrical with a central canted oriel window beneath a gable that is flanked on each side by a window. All these windows have a stone mullion and two transoms, all chamfered. The oriel has a panelled dado and is carried on a heavy corbel which springs from a shallow buttress. On the ground floor to the left of this buttress is a pair of two-light windows while to the right is the doorway with a battlemented lintel and a two-light window on its right. The rear gable wall has, at different levels, three two-light windows with chamfered mullions.

Interior: The Masonic Hall has been extensively modernised but retains a fireplace of probable Victorian date on the ground floor. There is a late C17 dogleg staircase rising from the basement to the upper floor, with closed strings, rectangular newels, turned balusters and a moulded handrail. There is a blocked mullion window on the staircase between ground and first floor and two others in a WC. The front first floor room contained the former temple and possesses a well-executed decorated plaster ceiling in blue and white with circular plaster wall plaques in relief containing paintings of masonic insignia. On the rear wall there is the temple's decorative timber entrance door having knockers to both the temple and landing and immediately above this there is an organist's balcony beneath a decorated arch that is now blocked to the rear. Upper rooms contain some early timber beams.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 383117
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cross, F, Time Honoured Lancaster, (1891), 473

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

The listed building is shown coloured blue on the attached map. Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’), structures attached to or within the curtilage of the listed building (save those coloured blue on the map) are not to be treated as part of the listed building for the purposes of the Act.