Summary
Retail and offices, 1852, by William Wallen, later occupied by Rushworth’s, the town’s foremost department store, now commercial and hospitality.
Reasons for Designation
The former retail and office building, 1852, by William Wallen (later occupied by Rushworth’s) is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* 1-9 John William Street is a high quality example of a mid-C19 purpose-built commercial building designed in an elegant neoclassical style.
Historic interest:
* it was constructed as part of the Ramsden Estate’s New Town development, and designed by architect William Wallen.
Group value:
* it has strong group value with the adjacent 11-15 and 17-37 John William Street (both Grade II listed) and with other nearby listed buildings designed in the neoclassical style within the New Town.
History
Huddersfield New Town was a planned development laid out on a grid pattern that took advantage of the arrival of the Leeds-Manchester Railway (1849) and the construction of JP Pritchett’s grand station building. Over the subsequent thirty years previously open land was developed into a bold, cohesive town planning scheme.
The development was spearheaded by George Loch, agent of the Ramsden Estate. The Ramsden family owned the manor of Huddersfield from 1599 to 1920 and were responsible for much of the town’s historic development.
The buildings of the New Town included warehouses, offices, retail and hospitality all of which were designed with similar ashlar-faced neoclassical or Italianate frontages. The Ramsden Estate inspected all proposals for new buildings on their land to ensure quality development. Buildings were designed mainly by local architects but overseen by London architect, William Tite, who was retained from 1851 to inspect designs, and maintain the Ramsden Estate’s high architectural standards.
The single land ownership allowed an example of town planning to be created that was almost without precedent in terms of scale and ambition. The development of New Town is illustrative of the Victorian era tensions between a landed estate and a town corporation. The corporation resisted Ramsden’s attempts to incorporate a town hall into the New Town scheme and eventually, following secret negotiations, purchased the estate for £1.3m, earning Huddersfield the moniker ‘the town that bought itself’.
John William Street is the principal artery through the New Town named after Sir John William Ramsden, 5th Baronet. Its three storey classical terraces were built between 1851 to 1858 with shops below and offices and warehouses above. 1-9 John William Street was built in 1852 and has been attributed to the architect William Wallen.
In 1867 the site housed the local branch of the United Kingdom Electric Telegraph Company and was the local telephone exchange until 1914. The building is better known as ‘Rushworth’s Corner’; in the 1880s Aquilla Rushworth established a toy shop within the building. By 1900 it was known as Rushworth’s Bazaar and during the C20 developed into the town’s foremost department store until closure in the late 1960s.
Details
Retail and offices, 1852, by William Wallen, later occupied by Rushworth’s, the town’s foremost department store, now commercial and hospitality.
MATERIALS: sandstone ashlar frontage with slate roof.
PLAN: the building occupies a prominent corner location with elevations to both John William Street and Westgate.
EXTERIOR: 1-9 John William Street is of three-storeys with horizontally rusticated quoin strips and a rounded corner.
The John Williams Street elevation has six bays, with the ground floor comprising modern shopfronts. On the first floor the windows contain one-over-one sashes with aprons, moulded and shouldered surrounds and full entablatures. The second-floor windows also contain one-over-one sashes with moulded surrounds and cornices; plain aprons rest upon the entablatures of the windows below. Above is a deeply projecting modillion eaves cornice and plain parapet. The corner bay contains a single bay of windows similar to the John William Street elevation, but of a tripartite arrangement.
The Westgate elevation is similarly styled to the John William Street elevation, but the two left bays are more generously spaced, and the second and third bay are separated by a horizontal rusticated pilaster.
