31-37, BROAD STREET

Reasons for Designation

* This bye-law terrace of four houses was architect-designed to a bespoke plan in variance to the majority of such houses which were constructed by builders to a standard repetitive and unimaginative plan * The ingenious use of plot, layout and plan form produces houses with better proportioned and illuminated rooms and varied profile and massing * A deliberately `rural' Arts and Crafts appearance is achieved through the use of shallow canted bay windows with small-pane leaded lights and steeply pitched slate roofs, which together with the use of common bricks, give a subtleness of textural detailing * Edgar Wood was a progressive architect of considerable national and international renown during his own lifetime, was a founder member of the Northern Art Workers' Guild, and latterly a pioneer of Modern architecture * Woods' socialist ideals resulted in the spreading of bespoke design down from upper-end housing to terrace level * There is a good survival of interior fixtures and fittings of special interest, including the staircases with splat balusters, showing the merging of vernacular folk art and more `genteel' Queen Anne motifs.

Details

1483/0/10003 BROAD STREET 11-FEB-08 Rhodes 31-37

II Bye-law terrace of four houses. 1899. Edgar Wood. Common brick, red engineering brick dressings, slate roofs. PLAN: Symmetrical plan with two inner houses flanked by two L-shaped outer houses with projecting gables to front and sides. Flush rear elevation with no outshots. Inner houses have mirror-image plans, as do the two outer houses, except that No.31 has two cellar rooms rather than one. EXTERIOR: The two outer houses have doorways in the narrow side walls of the side gables. Both have flat wooden porch roofs with shaped wooden side brackets, with a decorative metal lamp bracket below to No.31. No.31 has a replacement wooden door and No.37 has a new uPVC door. Above each porch is a shallow segmental-arched overlight with engineering brick head, that to No.31 blocked. Each projecting front gable has a shallow, battered canted bay window, with steeply pitched roof with small slate tiles. Both windows have uPVC frames. The two inner houses each have a shallow, battered canted bay window abutting the inner side walls of the front gables. Steeply-pitched roofs with small slate tiles and original small-pane leaded lights. In the centre of the terrace are paired doorways sharing a flat wooden porch with three pierced brackets. Original half glazed half panelled doors, both with windows to the inside sharing a stone sill and with small-pane leaded lights. Above the porch each house has a shallow segmental overlight with small-pane glazing and engineering brick head. Between ground and first floors is a slightly projecting dentil string course of engineering brick headers and stretchers. On the first floor both gables have a wide window with common brick soldier lintel (that to No.37 obscured). Both windows have uPVC frames. The inner houses each have a three-light window over the bay window and a two-light window over the doorway. Original wooden window frames which project slightly beyond the wall face. Small-pane leaded glazing (the two-light window at No.33 has lost the leaded glazing to one light). Two brick stacks midway up pitched roof, with two further stacks to rear of ridge. INTERIOR: Each house has a hall, large front parlour, large rear room, narrow rear room (original scullery), four first-floor rooms, and cellar. In addition the two outer houses have small entrance lobbies. All houses retain their original staircases with closed strings, shaped wooden splat balusters (those to the two outer houses differing in shape from the two inner houses), wooden handrail and acorn finials to the newel posts. Three of the houses retain a pierced wooden screen over the cellar door in the shape of three heart-shaped flowers. Entrance lobbies of outer houses have decorative tile floors and inner screens with central doorways, narrow sidelights and semi-circular overlights, with small-pane leaded glazing and stylised flowers to the side lights. No.37 has original door with glazing to the upper part with leaded small panes and curved stylised flowers. Other original fixtures and fittings of particular note in the four houses include original two-panelled doors, originally painted to give the appearance of burr walnut, though some now painted over. Two houses (No.31 and No.35) have the original parlour mantelpieces, that to No.35 painted to appear like burr walnut with ebony mantel and daffodil tiles to either side of grate. Some houses also have cast-iron bedroom mantelpieces. Original built-in cupboards and drawers next to the chimneybreasts both down stairs and upstairs in some of the houses, that to rear ground-floor room in No.35 retains its burr walnut appearance, but painted over elsewhere. Cornices and picture rails in the front parlours and some picture rails elsewhere. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: The front gardens are encompassed by a low brick wall of varying height with a coping of red curved engineering bricks and large sandstone blocks for the gate pintels and latches. Wooden gate to No.37 and replacement metal gates to other houses, with gate piers to No.31. At the back of the rear yards each house had a combined wash house, coal shed and toilet block, built with single-pitch roofs against the tall rear boundary wall (No.31 no longer has its outhouses and the rear wall has been rebuilt). The outer yards are accessed by side gates and the central yards by two rear gates set at an angle to form an indent in the tall boundary wall. HISTORY: 31-37 Broad Street is a terrace of four working-class houses designed in 1899 by the renowned progressive architect Edgar Wood, advocate of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and founder member of the Northern Art Workers' Guild in 1896. His later buildings had Art Nouveau and Expressionist motifs, culminating in the early C20 with his radical use of flat concrete roofs and strong geometrical patterning, marking him out as a pioneer of Modern architecture. Woods socialist ideals led to him designing a small number of working-class terraces in the late C19 of which Broad Street is one.

SOURCES Middleton Conservation Area Appraisal Committee Historic Building Record Sheet (Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, grey literature) David Morris, The Buildings of Edgar Wood in Middleton Town Centre (Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council leaflet, undated) John H G Archer, `Wood, Edgar (1860-1935)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sep 2004; online edn, Oct 2007 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/61675 http://www.manchesterhistory.net/edgarwood.html

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION Nos.31-37 Broad Street are designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * This bye-law terrace of four houses was architect-designed to a bespoke plan in variance to the majority of such houses which were constructed by builders to a standard repetitive and unimaginative plan * The ingenious use of plot, layout and plan form produces houses with better proportioned and illuminated rooms and varied profile and massing * A deliberately `rural' Arts and Crafts appearance is achieved through the use of shallow canted bay windows with small-pane leaded lights and steeply pitched slate roofs, which together with the use of common bricks, give a subtleness of textural detailing * Edgar Wood was a progressive architect of considerable national and international renown during his own lifetime, was a founder member of the Northern Art Workers' Guild, and latterly a pioneer of Modern architecture * Woods' socialist ideals resulted in the spreading of bespoke design down from upper-end housing to terrace level * There is a good survival of interior fixtures and fittings of special interest, including the staircases with splat balusters, showing the merging of vernacular folk art and more `genteel' Queen Anne motifs.

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