Former Knight and Lee Department Store

Summary

Former department store, built in two phases between 1955 and 1959, designed by Cotton, Ballard and Blow for John Lewis Partnership.

Reasons for Designation

The former Knight and Lee department store, Southsea, Portsmouth, of 1956-1959, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural history:

* a well-articulated and cohesive example of 1950s commercial design, with good-quality architectural detailing across three distinct, harmonious street elevations;

* it makes good use of materials, with the glazed long elevation contrasting well with the brick returns which are successfully unified by concrete surrounds and framing;

* while alteration to a commercial building is to be expected, the Knight and Lee building retains a good proportion of its notable and characteristic mid-C20 features and finishes.

Historic interest:

* started in the mid-1950s, it is a good example of commercial rebuilding in Britain's city centres in the post-war period.

History

In 1887 Jesse Knight and Edward Herbert Soden Lee purchased Fredrick Wink’s silk mercer and ladies outfitter located near Palmerston Road. Knight and Lee later bought a fishmongers on the corner of Stanley Lane and Palmerston Road. Between 1908 and 1910 they built a new shop for their business with the shop over two floors and staff accommodation above. Knight and Lee both passed away in the 1920s. John Lewis Partnership acquired the business in 1934; the original name of the store was retained.

In an air raid in 1940, the Knight and Lee building was partially damaged. One year later the whole store was destroyed during heavy bombing that devastated much of the commercial centre of Portsmouth. The business was relocated to Palmerston Arcade, operating on a far smaller scale. It continued in that area into the 1950s, with departments spread across several shops. Towards the end of 1955 a site was acquired on the corner of Palmerston Road and Clarendon Road to house the new Knight and Lee premises. Cotton, Ballard and Blow designed the new store for John Lewis Partnership. The northern half of the store was completed first and opened in September 1956. The rest of the building was completed and the whole store officially opened in March 1959, with the design incorporating air-conditioning and thermostatically controlled heating. All the departments were located under one roof, except for menswear which remained in a separate shop. Throughout the late C20 there were various reshuffles of departments within the store. In 1971 some of the shop workrooms moved to another location off site. In July 2019 Knight and Lee ceased trading and the store closed. In 2020 and early 2021 work was undertaken to the building’s interior, including the removal of most internal partitions, the escalator and some of the internal lift mechanisms.

Cotton, Ballard and Blow were the architectural practice behind Jack Cotton (1903-1964) a Birmingham-born entrepreneur and property developer. After the Second World War he became a dominant figure in commercial property development in England. The firm’s work included Grosvenor House, Birmingham, an office development built between 1953 and 1955 (listed Grade II) and Campden Hill Tower in Notting Hill, London built between 1957 and 1961.

Details

Former department store, built in two phases between 1955 and 1959, designed by Cotton, Ballard and Blow for John Lewis Partnership.

MATERIALS: a concrete and steel construction. At ground-floor level are plate-glass windows set within a solid concrete frame. The first and second floors incorporate windows with metal-framed panes and reflective glass. The side elevations and stair towers are clad with brick laid in stretcher bond.

PLAN: the former department store has a wide L-shaped footprint, orientated roughly north and south. The open-plan former shopping area is located on the west side of the site, with public entrances arranged around the three street elevations, and the former offices, storage and staff areas are located to the east.

EXTERIOR: a three-storey building with basement, topped by a flat roof with three street frontages. The long front elevation faces onto a pedestrianised Palmerston Road and curves round to the north-west and south-west. There are stair towers to the north-west and south, and two shorter elevations along Clarendon and Stanley Road. There are several public entrances; one at the north-west corner, two within the Palmerston Road elevation, and one next to the south-west corner. At ground-floor level there are a series of shop windows set within stone tile-clad surrounds that run the full length of the long elevation and rap around the curved corners and along Clarendon Road. At this level there is signage, including lettering reading 'KNIGHT & LEE' at the north-west corner and along the Palmerston Road elevation, as well as further signage reading 'A BRANCH OF THE JOHN LEWIS PARTNERSHIP' at the south-west corner. A continuous cantilevered concrete canopy runs above the shop windows; the only break is where the canopy is raised above the north-west corner entrance. There is further signage attached to this canopy at the south-west corner. Where the shop windows stop along Stanley Road, the rest of that elevation is brick faced and there are two further entrances, one originally for staff and the other for customer collections. On the first and second floors along Palmerston Road, and at the corners, are two rows of 17 window bays consisting of metal-framed panes and reflective glass set back within a concrete grid. The first-floor mullions are slightly tapered out to the transom above. The stair towers both project above the roofs of the main elevations, are lit by a column of windows in a concrete frame and faced in brick with projecting headers set in a diamond pattern. The north-west stair tower is curved, while the south tower has a flat profile. The upper floors of the brick elevations along Stanley and Clarendon Road contain a regularly spaced grid of small rectangular windows with projecting concrete surrounds. The brick-faced rear elevations face onto the sides of the adjacent commercial buildings on Clarendon Road, and on this side of the building there are some four-storey components, including a rear stairway. There are further service doors in this area and an irregular arrangement of rectangular windows, some within projecting concrete surrounds similar to those on the side elevations. The building is topped by a flat roof; some structural elements of various dates rise above the main roof level including plant rooms for the lifts, services, roof lanterns and the tops of the stairwells.

INTERIOR: the largely open shop floors take up the majority of the footprint on all three levels, with the formerly subdivided staff and service areas to the east. The public entrances retain a variety of finishes and fittings. The north-west entrance opens into a stairwell with terrazzo flooring and a cantilevered spiral staircase with a triangular well; the stair banister is metal with a hardwood handrail. The northern entrance on Palmerston Road retains a decorative geometric mosaic covering the floor and part of the vestibule wall; the southern entrance on this road retains terrazzo flooring and original metal vents. The southern entrance on Clarendon Road has another cantilevered dogleg open-well staircase with terrazzo floor; the stair has a metal banister and hardwood handrails which taper down to the floor at the newel post. Most of the entrance doors are multi-pane doors with simple handles; the southern entrance retains an internal pair of timber-frame doors with ornate handles. There are variety of downlights and security lights in the stairwells, some of which may be original. The stairwells are accessed at the upper levels by pairs of timber-framed fire doors; some retain their security shutters. There is an internal timber-framed window in the north-west stairwell. The shop floors are supported by plain square columns. On the north-west side of the building is a large central, top-lit open stair which rises through all three former shop floors. It has angled soffits to the treads, open risers, black terrazzo bands to the treads, and a metal banister topped by hardwood handrails with tapered ends at the bottom of the staircase. At the centre of the building is a public lift shaft, with wood-lined architraves which may be surviving original detailing. At first-floor level, near the centre of the southern part of the building, is the floor aperture and balustrading for the former escalator. There are also vestiges of original electrical switches and exposed pipes at various locations throughout the building. The former staff area on the east side of the building is in general a more utilitarian space, with two plain concrete staircases with metal banisters, and further lift shaft which may be original. A pair of ground-floor rubber doors lead through to the loading bay in the north-east corner.

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, Nikolaus, O’Brien, Charles, Bailey, Bruce, Lloyd, David W, The Buildings of England: Hampshire (South), (2018), 524

Websites
John Lewis Memory Store: Knight and Lee, accessed 3 March 2021 from https://johnlewismemorystore.org.uk/content/category/branch_finder/branches_i-n/knight_and_lee

Other
Pre-Construct Archaeology, Heritage Statement for Knight and Lee, (August 2019, updated April 2020)
Talis Chartered Building Consultants, Knight and Lee, Southsea: Schedule of Photographs (18 June 2021)

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry