Spinners' Hall

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 05/06/2018

SD7109 NW
797-1/13/198

BOLTON
ST GEORGE'S ROAD (South side)
No 77. Spinners' Hall

(Formerly listed as Spinners' Hall, ST GEORGE'S ROAD)

GV
II
Former trades union hall complex, now converted to domestic apartments and commercial use. Originally built 1880 by JJ Bradshaw for the Junior Reform Club, but subsequently refronted and greatly extended 1910-1912 for the Bolton Operative Cotton Spinners’ Association to the design of Potts and Hennings, architects.

MATERIALS: red brick with stone dressings.

EXTERIOR: Edwardian Baroque in style with a principal elevation of ten bays to St George’s Road. This is loosely symmetrical, divided into three sets of three bays with an extra bay to the left (east).

The central three bays has a large, central round-arched entrance which is flanked by panelled pilasters that support scrolled brackets to a balustraded first-floor balconette above. This balconette fronts a two-light window set in a pedimented surround. The flanking first-floor windows are tripartite, set in stone architraves with carved embellishment above, the ground floor windows being more simply treated two-light cross-mullioned windows. Rising above the central bay is a square tower with angle pilasters and a round arch to each face. Above, stepped blocking courses rise to a dome. The tower is flanked by a balustraded parapet.
  
The flanking three-bay sections break slightly forward from the central three bays and are defined by giant brick pilasters that rise to curved pediments enclosing stone cartouches set within panels, the three bays being further defined by engaged stone columns that rise from first floor level. The eastern section has stilted–arched ground floor windows and tall, round-arched first-floor windows. The western section is of three storeys (the tall first-floor being subdivided) with architraved and pedimented ground floor windows, with more simply treated windows above.

The single bay to the east has a ground-floor entrance with a stone surround incorporating a projecting round-arched pediment supported on large brackets. Above is a tall, round-arched window flanked by pilasters.

The secondary, western elevation facing Duke Street is loosely symmetrical and of five bays, the outer bays being blind. The central three bays are flanked by chimneys that rise from corbels in the form of keystoned round arches. The central bay is defined by giant pilasters that frame a large, round-arched window set beneath a pediment, the pilasters rising above to terminate as pinnacles to the roof parapet. Below, at ground floor level are twined round arches, that to the left being an entrance, to the right a window. The bays flanking the central bay have simply treated windows to three storeys.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

HISTORY: the Spinners Hall was originally built for the Junior Reform Club in 1880 to the design of the architect Jonas James Bradshaw (1837-1912). It was purchased in 1886 by the Bolton Operative Cotton Spinners’ Association, then the wealthiest society of its kind in the country. Used as their headquarters with its facilities also used by four other trades unions, the building was greatly expanded in 1910-1912 to the design of Potts and Hennings to include three separate assembly halls along with offices and other facilities. This enlargement, costing £30,000, created one of the region’s finest trades union buildings.

The building was widely used for public meetings, not just for Trades Union business. On Saturday 5th July 1913 it was targeted in a bomb attack when a lit package containing gunpowder and other explosives was pushed through the letter box: falling on to the tiled floor, the fuse was extinguished before it could set off an explosion. The incident was reported in the newspaper “The Sufragette”, published by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The WSPU had been formed by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. From 1905 its members, known as suffragettes, used forms of direct action in their campaigns; these began as acts of civil disobedience and escalated to include criminal damage, arson and bomb attacks on empty buildings. The incident at the Spinners’ Hall was typical of a suffragette bomb attack, and its reporting in The Suffragette suggests that the WSPU claimed responsibility.

This list entry was amended in 2018 as part of the centenary commemorations of the 1918 Representation of the People Act.

Listing NGR: SD7148009523

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

476252

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Williams, Mike, Cotton Mills in Greater Manchester, (1992), 31

Other
Explosives at Bolton in The Suffragette, Friday 11 July 1913

End of official list entry

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