Electricity Junction Box

Lincoln Square, Manchester, M2 5AS

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Decorative cast-iron electricity junction box of the early C20 by Hardy and Padmore. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1449639
Date first listed:: 30-May-2018
List Entry Name:: Electricity Junction Box
Statutory Address:: Lincoln Square, Manchester, M2 5AS

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1449639
Date first listed:: 30-May-2018
List Entry Name:: Electricity Junction Box
Location Description:: approximately 13m to the north-east of the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Square
Statutory Address 1:: Lincoln Square, Manchester, M2 5AS

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Lincoln Square, Manchester, M2 5AS

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Manchester (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SJ8370598142

Summary

Decorative cast-iron electricity junction box of the early C20 by Hardy and Padmore.

Reasons for Designation

The electricity junction box at Lincoln Square, in the civic heart of Manchester, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its well-detailed, customised design by a world-renowned company, surviving with relatively little alteration;

* as an increasingly rare example of the type.

Historic interest:

* illustrating the development of electricity into a mass-consumed utility, and the romance and respect which were accorded to its infrastructure in the early years of the twentieth century.

Group value:

* for its strong visual relationship with adjacent listed buildings and the surrounding conservation area.

History

Consumer electricity arrived in Manchester in 1893 and by 1920 the number of consumers was around 20,000. Distribution and supply infrastructure was needed to transfer current from where it was generated to its point of use. The junction box, or feeder pillar, was designed to control the electrical supply to a number of buildings in the surrounding area.

This junction box was produced in the early C20 at the Worcester foundry of Hardy and Padmore. Although electricity pillars are marked nearby on the 1:1250 Ordnance Survey map of 1948, there is not one marked in this location. This example is therefore thought to have been moved here, probably when Lincoln Square was created by clearance of some properties on the south side of Brazennose Street in the 1960s.

The Scotsmen Robert and John Hardy set up their foundry in Worcester in 1814. Richard Padmore joined the partnership in 1829. The foundry was an important English supplier of goods worldwide including lamp posts, tram wire supports and poles, bollards, thresholds and manhole covers. A number of their products are listed including several gas lamps. The company went into voluntary liquidation in 1967.

Details

Electricity junction box, early C20, manufactured by Hardy and Padmore Ltd for Manchester City Council.

MATERIALS: cast iron.

PLAN: rectangular.

DESCRIPTION: the longer sides of the box are parallel with Brazennose Street. It has a low pyramidal cap with castellated edges above a moulded cornice, supported at each corner by an inward-scrolled corbel. Each of the two longer sides is a door with a moulded surround, two decorative strap hinges at the right hand side, and a Jacobean-style geometric strapwork relief surrounding a detachable plaque featuring the crest of the City of Manchester. The two short sides are plain with moulded edges. The box is painted black, with the strapwork design picked out in gold and the city crest fully-coloured. This box does not feature the manufacturer’s name, but is an identical design to known Hardy and Padmore examples nearby.

Sources

Websites
Worcester People and Places , accessed 06/04/2017 from http://www.worcesterpeopleandplaces.org.uk/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=337&cntnt01returnid=93
Other
Frost, R. Electricity in Manchester: Commemorating a century of electricity supply in the city, 1893-1993 - Published 1993

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

The listed building is shown coloured blue on the attached map. Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’), structures attached to or within the curtilage of the listed building (save those coloured blue on the map) are not to be treated as part of the listed building for the purposes of the Act.