WH Smith, 44 High Street

Summary

A WH Smith of 1926 with ornate plasterwork and exterior leadwork to the first-floor former library, with later C20 and C21 alterations and extensions.

Reasons for Designation

WH Smith, 44 High Street, Weston-super-Mare is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* the lead panels to the first-floor frontage are a decorative scheme of artistic distinction and high quality craftsmanship;
* the interior plasterwork and plan of the first-floor former library is of good quality. It is of artistic note for its traditional themes and the comic flourish of the figure with book carved in the cornice;
* it is one of the few pre-war WH Smiths to survive with a substantial element of its original ‘house style’ from the 1920s era.

Historic Interest:
* the provision of lending libraries by WH Smith and other companies from the C19 and into the early C20 marks changing social needs and evolving attitudes to the democratisation of literature and education as a whole;
* this is a rare surviving example of a WH Smith branch that has evidence of a once common library service as conceived by Frank C Bayliss RIBA during the interwar years, which saw a social function sit comfortably within a commercial operation.

History

In 1792 Henry Walton Smith, and his wife Anna, established a small news vendor business in Little Grosvenor Street, London. From 1816 the business was a newsagents and stationers, trading under the name HW Smith run by Henry and Anna’s children, Henry Edward and William Henry. William was responsible for the greater part of the business and the name changed to WH Smith, latterly WH Smith and Sons, acting as a newsagents, booksellers, binders and wholesale stationers. It became recognised as the country’s foremost newsagent, and there are claims that it was the first national multiple retailer. In 1850 WH Smith began to include lending libraries and reading rooms in their buildings, either at the back of the shop or on the upper storeys. These closed in 1961 due to competition as the purchase of books became more affordable and the numbers of public libraries increased.

In the early 1900s WH Smith and Sons underwent significant expansion. A shopfitting department was created, headed by Frank C Bayliss RIBA, who was in post from 1905 until his death in 1938. Bayliss favoured neo-Tudor and neo-Elizabethan styles. Although the company undertook some new construction, they favoured converting established businesses. In both instances they created lavish shop fronts, sometimes including well-considered second-storey treatments.

A WH Smith bookstall was opened in Weston-Super-Mare in 1906. A shop was then opened on the High Street on 1 December 1926. It was built on the site of earlier commercial premises which had been in this location since the late C19. A lending library was established above the shop, and the façade of the building was decorated with lead panels carrying carvings of flora and fauna, and various seats of local government. Weston-Super-Mare itself is not represented, probably because the town’s coat of arms was not created until 1928. In the latter half of the C20 the shop expanded into the adjacent late-C19 commercial building. Both original shop fronts were replaced and internal partitions removed to create a large, single shop interior on the ground floor with storage areas to the rear. The lending library ceased operation and the staircase to the shop below was removed.

In 2017-19 a substantial refurbishment of the shop and its frontage took place including the underpinning of the shop front and the repair and restoration of the lead panels and other leadwork to the first floor. The three bow windows in the east wall of the former lending library were removed and in 2019 are stored in the adjacent room in 42.

Details

A shop of C19 origin, rebuilt in 1926 with a former lending library to the first floor by Frank C Bayliss for WH Smith & Son, with C20/C21 alterations.

MATERIALS: constructed of brick and other materials to areas rebuilt in the C21. The first-floor exterior is clad in panels of lead sheeting and there are lead rainwater goods.

PLAN: a single room to the first floor with a barrel-vaulted clerestorey. The original access from the floor below has been removed.

EXTERIOR: the first floor of No.44 (to the left) has three early-C20, 20-pane timber-frame bowed windows. These are encased in lead panels with decorative reliefs. The scheme consists of four vertical sections separating the windows, with symbols taken from the coats of arms of nearby locations. The left-hand section represents the City of Bath, with a carving of a bear, the city's shield and the motto ‘Floreat Bathon’. The section to the left of centre has a dragon, representing Somerset. That to the right of centre has a cherub, a banner, letter ‘t’s, a crown, and the mottos ‘Sigillum Burgi-De Taunton’ and ‘Defendamus’, all representing the county town of Taunton. The right-hand section represents Bristol and includes a unicorn and the motto ‘Virtue et industria’. Above the windows is a frieze, the centre of which carries the inscription:

‘COME AND TAKE CHOICE OF ALL MY LIBRARY / AND SO BEGUILE THY SORROW’.

This quote from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (Act 4, Scene 1) is carved in official font of WH Smith created in 1903 by Eric Gill. The frieze is further embellished with vines, Tudor roses and a hunting scene. A half-height second floor which is set back in the manner of a clerestorey has three, 12-pane timber-frame windows (with a similar arrangement on the east side). To either side are castellated lead hoppers with a relief carving of a lion’s head at the centre, linked by a horizontal decorative lead band at eaves level, beneath the pitched roof.

The ground-floor shopfronts extend to the neighbouring building (No.42) that was accommodated within WH Smith in the late C20. The shopfronts are of C21 date with elevations faced in stone, plate glass windows with modern frames and shop fascia.

INTERIOR: the features of note are to the first-floor former lending library, which is accessed from a rear door to the C20 flat-roofed extension to the shop. The east and west ends of the former library room are overhung by a small clerestorey level with three windows to each side below a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The north and south walls have decorative neo-Tudor plaster work at upper level, including a twisted rope detail that is continued around the clerestorey windows. The upper parts of the walls have a frieze with rustic scenes and there is further detailing to the ceiling. The flat ceiling above the location of the former stair has decorative plasterwork including a cornice with an end stop to the south corner depicting a man holding a leather-bound book. The former locations of three bow windows in the east wall are covered with boarding. Modern railings divide the floor area where the location of the former stair has a modern floor structure but no coverings and is open to the shop ceiling below. The other floor areas are covered in pine boards. There are no other fittings of note to the shop.

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Foyle, A, The Buildings of England: Somerset: North and Bristol, (2011), 713
Morrison, K, English Shops and Shopping An Architectural History, (2003), 200-204

Websites
History of WH Smith, accessed 2 May 2017 from http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/about_whsmith/history_of_whsmith/
A Spotter's Guide to W. H. Smith's, accessed 2 May 2017 from https://buildingourpast.com/2017/03/23/a-spotters-guide-to-w-h-smiths/

Other
Archive held in Special Collections at The University of Reading

End of official list entry

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