Summary
Townhouse and bank built about 1785 for Wakefield’s first purpose-built bank, Ingram and Kennet established in 1785. The home of Benjamin Kennet by 1795, the bank’s other partner, Captain Francis Ingram, occupied the larger townhouse next door at 67 and 69 Westgate.
Reasons for Designation
The former Bank and Banker’s House, 65 Westgate, for Ingram & Kennet Bank, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it has elegant late-C18 neoclassical styling with a frontage incorporating an ornamented canted bay;
* survival of interior features, such as the upper portion of the principal stair with its glazed lantern, indicates the formerly high status of the domestic accommodation.
Historic interest:
* as Wakefield’s first purpose-built bank and the way that the building’s dual design also provided high-quality domestic accommodation for its resident, Benjamin Kennet;
* as a physical manifestation in Wakefield of Captain Ingram’s wealth, made in part through privateering and his Liverpool-based trade in enslaved people
Group value:
* with the neighbouring 67 and 69 Westgate, which was built by Captain Ingram as his home;
* with other C18 and C19 buildings on upper Westgate, showing the evolution from domestic to commercial uses, and particularly with 57 and 59 Westgate, the bank built by the Wakefield and Barnsley Union Bank to replace 65 Westgate in 1878.
History
Westgate, one of medieval Wakefield’s four principal streets, became a popular residential district for the mercantile classes in the C17 and C18, with large townhouses built on the street frontage of long burgage plots that had been originally laid out in the medieval period. 65 Westgate occupies one of these burgage plots, the building’s origins being bound up with the neighbouring building (67 and 69 Westgate) that combined the next two plots to the west. These buildings were built by Captain Francis Ingram (1739-1815) as grand townhouses, 65 Westgate incorporating accommodation for Wakefield’s first purpose-built bank that was established by him in partnership with Benjamin Kennet in 1785.
Much of Captain Ingram’s wealth was made through his involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Ingram was one of the most prolific traders in enslaved people operating out of Liverpool in the late C18. Between 1772 and 1788 he was involved with 105 voyages transporting some 34,000 enslaved people from Africa mainly to Jamaica, of whom nearly 15% died during the long Atlantic crossing, being treated as cargo in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. He was also agent and part owner of the ‘Enterprise’, a successful privateering ship which captured six French vessels in 1779-1780. Ingram had taken possession of the property in Wakefield in 1785 following the deaths of his mother (Sarah in 1780) and sister (Elizabeth in 1785). His business partner, Benjamin Kennet had recently come into an inheritance himself, but had previously worked as a clerk for London bankers Fuller & Co.
It is thought that 65 Westgate was built around the 1780s and by 1795 was being lived in by Kennet; the larger property to the west, known as Bank House, was built around 1790 and occupied by Ingram. In the 1790s the Ingram and Kennet Bank became treasurers for the Wakefield Enclosure Commissioners and funded much of Wakefield’s expanding business community, also opening branches in Halifax and Barnsley before crashing into insolvency in 1807. By 1814 the bank had finally paid its creditors and had been sold (the business and properties) to Leatham, Trew and Co. who had established a banking business on Wood Street in Wakefield in 1809. The 1823 plan of Wakefield by John Walker shows the banking premises as ‘Wakefield Bank’ occupying 69 Westgate, the function of 65 Westgate not being indicated. Records suggest that 65 Westgate was again used as banking premises by the later 1820s, then by Messrs Wentworth, Chaloner and Rishworth, this banking business subsequently taken over by the Wakefield Banking Company established in 1832 which then became the Wakefield and Barnsley Union Bank in 1840. Census records indicate that bank managers at various times lived at 65 Westgate or to the rear in White Horse Yard: however, it may be that the manager’s accommodation was always the upper floors of number 65, but was accessed off the rear yard. In 1878 the Wakefield & Barnsley Union Bank moved to a new building at 57 and 59 Westgate. As the 1881 census records the occupant of 65 Westgate as being a clerk for the West Riding Bank (the successor to Leatham, Trew and Co.) it suggests that the freehold of the building had remained with the same company through most of the C19 but had been let to the Wakefield & Barnsley Union Bank. In 1888, 65 Westgate became a branch of the furniture dealers Hall and Armitage. This was sold (probably with the freehold) as a going concern to Edmund Dewhurst in 1927. Sales particulars of a subsequent sale of the freehold property in 1946 note a large ground floor showroom, with ten further showroom areas on upper floors in addition to a three-storey brick warehouse to the rear, all being sold for £7,250. Latterly the ground floor has been used as a nightclub, and the upper floors renovated in 2023 to form offices.
Details
Townhouse and bank built about 1785, converted to retail use in the late 1880s.
MATERIALS: brick, front elevation partially rendered, Welsh slate roof with replacement roofing to the service range.
PLAN: occupying a burgage plot, the townhouse extends back from the street frontage, two rooms deep with a central staircase linking its upper two floors, the street elevation extended to the east over a carriage arch through to the rear yard. Extending along the western side of the rear yard is the attached service range, contemporary with the street frontage building, this terminating to the south with an early C19 warehouse. The ground floor of the street frontage building has been knocked through into the service range, the first floor of the service range also appearing to have been reconfigured. The upper two floors of the frontage building, the original principal domestic part of the building is little altered retaining its central staircase and room divisions.
EXTERIOR Westgate elevation (north): this is of three storeys and three bays with a slightly stepped-back bay to the east incorporating a carriage arch. It has a plinth, first-floor sill band, and dentilated cornice, with a blocking course concealing the low-pitched hipped roof. The set-back bay over the carriage entrance is unrendered (but painted) brick. It has a basket arch for the carriage entrance and a blind window to both first and second floors. The three bays of the rest of the elevation are rendered and painted. To the centre, there is a two-storey canted bay, the first-floor windows being framed by Tuscan columns supporting a frieze with embossed ornamentation. The dentilated cornice above the frieze supports a stone balustrade with urn-shaped balusters enclosing a balcony for the second floor. Ground floor openings are round-arched, that to the front face of the canted bay being the door with fanlight, all with replaced joinery. Upper windows are sashes, those not part of the canted bay being set within architraves: those to the first floor having block corbels, those to the second floor being eared, the second-floor windows also being shorter.
White Horse Yard elevation: the rear of the street-frontage building extends south into White Horse Yard by two bays and is unornamented exposed red brick. Ground floor openings have been blocked but consist of a pair of round-arched windows with a round arched former entrance to the right (north). Above, window openings to this range and over the carriage arch have segmental-arched heads mainly containing multi-paned sashes, some being set flush in the openings, some being recessed. To the roof is a single, four-flued chimney stack and a hemispherical glazed lantern which lights the main staircase. Stepped back and extending to the south is the two-storey, five-bay service range which is considered to be contemporary with the street frontage building. This has altered and blocked ground-floor openings and first-floor windows similar to those of the rear of the street frontage building. Its roofing is replaced. Attached to the south side is a C20 flat-roofed link building that connects through to a run of C19 warehouses extending to the south.
INTERIOR: retains its original staircase set in a semi-circular stairwell linking first and second floors and top lit via the hemispherical skylight. The stairs are cantilevered and have a closed string with turned balusters supporting a moulded timber handrail. The upper two floors also retain other period features such as joinery and plasterwork, but fireplaces have been lost.
