Summary
Former warehouse, mid-C19, now offices.
Reasons for Designation
15 Station Street, including gates to the south, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it is good example of a mid-C19 purpose-built commercial building designed in a restrained neoclassical style.
Historic interest:
* it is one of Huddersfield’s mid-C19 purpose-built commercial premises constructed as part of the Ramsden Estate’s planned New Town development.
Group value:
* it has group value with other nearby listed buildings designed in neoclassical style that also form part of the New Town development.
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 street 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’.
15 Station Street was constructed in the mid C19 as a warehouse for the woollen trade. By 1887 the site was occupied by several woollen companies, namely J Turner and Sons and Middlemost Brothers. Formerly a casino, the building is now (2022) used as offices.
Details
Former warehouse, mid C19, now offices.
MATERIALS: ashlar-sandstone façade, coursed hammer-dressed sandstone to side elevation, and slate roof coverings.
PLAN: the building is L-shaped with the principal elevation facing east onto Station Street. The rear wing is attached to 13-15 Railway Street (National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry: 1277428).
EXTERIOR: the building is four storeys above a basement and of six bays. It has a moulded eaves cornice, and continuous sill bands. Above the ground floor is a full entablature supported by Ionic pilasters. There is a mixture of modern and historic one-over-one sashes to the ground floor and multi-paned casements with a central-opening light on the floors above. The two northern-most windows on the third floor are blind. The entrance door has six moulded panels and a rectangular fanlight in a moulded wooden frame. To the south is a round-arched carriage entrance, with vermiculated keystone, moulded imposts and spur stones (now removed).
Attached to the south, and between this building and number 13, is a set of cast-iron gates with fleur-de-lys finials.
INTERIOR: a modern staircase has been installed on the north side of the entrance.
