81 Village Road

Summary

Detached house in an vernacular style, 1910 by Messers Percy Tom Runton and William Ernest Barry, with Leonard Sharp.

Reasons for Designation

81 Village Green, an early-C20 detached house is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: the house is part of an early Garden Village movement planned estate, built in 1907 to improve the physical, moral, and social well being of the employees of Reckitt and Son
* Architectural interest: a smart early-C20 vernacular style Garden Village detached house;
* Intactness: the principal elevations are unaltered and the interior retains cast-iron fireplaces, the staircase, and six-panel timber doors that all give period character to the house;
* Group value: it benefits from strong group value with other Grade II listed houses within the wider designated Garden Village Development;
* Historic associations; the house has close associations with Sir James Reckitt the Quaker Industrialist and Philanthropist, and it was occupied by William Dent Priestman, inventor of the world's first commercially successful oil engine.

History

The 130-acre site of Garden Village was purchased in 1907. It was the northern part of the estate of Holderness House (the Jalland estate). It was developed between 1908 and 1910 to provide good housing for the work force of Reckitt and Sons Ltd, to designs by architects Messrs Percy Runton and William Barry, with Leonard Sharp. The garden village was inaugurated by Sir James Reckitt, Bart who in July 1908 stated that “The objects of the Garden Village are to provide a House and a good Garden, in fact a better house if possible, and a garden attached for the same rent, as is now paid for inferior houses with no garden at all”. The architects produced a uniformity of design, choosing the Vernacular cottage-style, with a number of features that were common to all of the buildings. The village was built in two phases, the first commenced in 1908 and was completed by 1910; the second phase commenced in 1923 to celebrate Sir James’ ninetieth birthday, and included twelve almshouses known as “The Sir James Reckitt Village Haven”. There were a total of approximately 600 houses, in twelve different styles and five grades, each reflecting the status or grade of the worker within the company. There is an average of twelve houses per acre, each with its own garden, that were intended to aid the physical and moral well being of the tenants and their families. Most of the streets were named after trees and were planted with the appropriate trees. Every garden was enclosed by a privet hedge, which was intended to be kept between 0.76 and 1.22m in height, and Tenfoots were created to the rear of the properties, to enable the delivery of manure to the gardens and coal to the houses.

No.81 Village Road was built in 1910 and is one of the larger five-bedroom houses. When the village was first laid out, the house was originally identified as No.1 Chestnut Crescent, but it was changed in April 1910 to No.1 Village Road, only to be changed once more in 1923 to No.81, when Village Road was re-numbered to take account of the new almshouses that had been built. Unlike most of the houses, it was not occupied by a Reckitt and Sons Limited worker; it was tenanted from 1910 to 1936 by William Dent Priestman, the founder of Priestman Brothers Limited and the inventor of the world’s first reliable oil engine. Like many other parts of Hull, Garden Village suffered bomb damage during the Second World War, but 81 Village Road fortunately escaped damage. The architectural quality of Reckitt’s community vision has been recognised, the complex forms the Garden Village Conservation Area (designated 1970) and is one of a number of houses here listed at Grade II.

Details

Detached house, vernacular style, 1910 by Messers Percy Tom Runton and William Ernest Barry, with Leonard Sharp.

MATERIALS: painted rough-cast rendered brick construction with fair-faced orange brick plinth, timber-framed casement windows with leaded glazing, gabled roofs with barge-boards and exposed soffits, clad with plain tiles and drained by cast-iron rainwater goods (some modern plastic replacements).

PLAN: The house has an ‘L’-plan with a porch filling most of the re-entrant angle.

EXTERIOR:
North-west (front) elevation: two-storey, three-bay frontage with projecting gabled north-east bay, occupied by a canted two-storey bay window beneath a flat leaded roof, with a mullioned seven casement window to the first-floor and a transom and mullion fourteen casement window to the ground-floor. The central bay is occupied by a porch that has a catslide roof with exposed painted rafter ends, and a three-light mullioned box dormer window to the first-floor. The ground-floor wall breaks forward beneath the first-floor room within the catslide roof and is entered by a plain three-panelled front door with a lead glazed upper panel, flanked on both sides by a small lead glazed window resting on thick tile cills. To the right of the door a painted cast-iron plaque is attached the wall reading: ‘WILLIAM DENT PRIESTMAN (1847-1936), INVENTOR OF THE WORLD’S FIRST COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL OIL ENGINE IN 1885, FOUNDER OF PRIESTMAN BROTHERS LTD, GRAB CRANE AND EXCAVATOR MAKERS IN 1870, LIVED HERE FROM 1910 TO 1936’. The porch is fronted by a pair of timber segmental arches supported by square posts with a lattice panel beneath the handrail, and the side elevation has a similar but narrower arch, flanked by a single casement window. The floor of the porch is laid with red bricks in a herring-bone pattern.

South-west (side) elevation: two-storey, projecting gable occupied by a canted two-storey bay window beneath a flat leaded roof, with a mullioned seven casement window to the first-floor and a transom and mullion fourteen casement window to the ground-floor. The southern side wall of the rear range, forms part of the south-west elevation and it breaks back slightly from the line of the gabled wall, and is occupied by a single plain doorway to the ground-floor.

North-east (side) elevation: two-storey, lacking in architectural detail, apart from a pair of single square casement leaded windows to either side of the centre point of the ground floor, and a transom and mullion four-casement stair window is set centrally above, lighting the stair landing within. A tall rough-cast chimney stack with an orange brick cornice rises through the roof, above an internal chimney breast at the northern end of the elevation.

South-east (rear) elevation: two-storey, with central bay flanked by a pair of gabled bays with late-C20 fenestration. The northern bay is wider and taller than the remaining bays, it has a five-light timber casement window to the first-floor and a three-light glazed folding French door to the ground-floor. A tall rough-cast chimney stack with an orange brick cornice rises from the ridge of the roof over the bay. The central bay has a pair of low timber casement windows at first-floor level, which light the toilet and bathroom respectively, and a single two-light casement window to the ground-floor. The southern gabled bay has a single three-light casement window to the first-floor, and an exposed orange rubbed brick round arch doorway to the ground-floor closed by a late-C20 three panelled timber door with an upper glazed roundel. The doorway is flanked by a single casement window. A tall rough-cast chimney stack with an orange brick cornice rises from the northern slope of the roof over the bay.

INTERIOR:
Ground floor: the front door leads directly into an entrance hall with two doorways in the south-western wall; the first into the former cloakroom and water closet, and the second into the drawing room, which has a moulded ceiling cornice and a canted bay window beneath a shallow arch in the southern wall The hall turns ninety degrees and has an ‘L’-plan, a door in the south-eastern wall leads into the former kitchen and a doorway in the north-western wall enters the dining room, which has a moulded ceiling cornice and a canted bay window beneath a shallow arch in the north-western wall, with a square single light window in the southern alcove to the right of the chimney breast in the north-east wall. The former kitchen is roughly square in plan with the former scullery leading off to one side. A projecting chimney breast in the north-west wall is flanked by a door into a walk-in cupboard in the northern alcove; the cupboard is lit by a single square light window in the north-east wall. A door in the south-west wall gives access to a further cupboard and is flanked by a modern open round arch doorway, which leads into the former scullery. An electrical servants' bell board is situated above the arch. A doorway in the south-western wall of the former scullery gives access to a small passageway that leads to the rear door, the former coal store and servant’s water closet.

First floor: a dogleg stair with half landing rises from the hall to a first-floor landing. The stair has widely spaced plain splat balusters and is lit by a four-light leaded glass mullion and transom window in the north-east wall. The first-floor landing gives access to the master bedroom and a secondary bedroom in the northern range. A round arched open doorway leads from the landing into an axial first-floor corridor, which gives access to a single bedroom over the porch, a principal southern bedroom, the former servant’s bedroom, a bathroom and a water closet. All of the bedrooms are plain decoratively apart from the master bedroom which has a plaster cornice. Each of the bedrooms has a built in cupboard, closed by either a single, or a pair of panelled doors. The master and secondary bedrooms in the northern range have cast-iron mantelpieces and grates with coloured tile panels, and Adams-style decoration. A taller cast-iron mantelpiece with a pulvinated fire hood, coved mantelshelf and a lower semi-circular shelf, is situated within the principal southern bedroom.

The majority of the doors throughout the house are six-panelled doors, with three narrow vertical panels above and below the lock rail. The remainder include some four-panelled cupboard doors, and framed ledged and braced doors in the service area.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

387831

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Anon, , Reckitt & Sons Limited and their Welfare Work, (1925)
Girouard, M, Directory of British Architects 1834-1914, (2012)
Church, Roy, Oxford dictionary of National Biography, (2004 - 2015)

Websites
The Garden Society, Kingston-upon-Hull, accessed 27 January 2015 from http://www.gardenvillagehull.co.uk
Garden Village, accessed 29th January 2015 from http://www.houlton1.karoo.net/GardenVillage.htm

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