Electricity Junction Box in Castlefield canal basin, Manchester

North bank of Castlefield canal basin, adj to NW face of Bridgewater Viaduct, Manchester, M3 4LY

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Overview

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

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1475255
Date first listed:: 29-Sep-2021
List Entry Name:: Electricity Junction Box in Castlefield canal basin, Manchester
Statutory Address:: North bank of Castlefield canal basin, adj to NW face of Bridgewater Viaduct, Manchester, M3 4LY

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1475255
Date first listed:: 29-Sep-2021
List Entry Name:: Electricity Junction Box in Castlefield canal basin, Manchester
Location Description:
Statutory Address 1:: North bank of Castlefield canal basin, adj to NW face of Bridgewater Viaduct, Manchester, M3 4LY

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:: North bank of Castlefield canal basin, adj to NW face of Bridgewater Viaduct, Manchester, M3 4LY

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:: SJ8333097513

Summary

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

Reasons for Designation

The electricity junction box on the north bank of the Castlefield canal basin in Manchester, next to the north-west face of the Bridgewater viaduct, a decorative cast-iron feeder pillar of early C20 date, 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 survival of a relic from the first age of electricity.

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 C20.

Group value: *     standing within 100m of two others of the same type and with a good visual relationship with the listed former Congregational chapel.

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 example was produced probably around the turn of the C20 at the Worcester foundry of Hardy and Padmore.

Feeder pillars like these are first shown (marked as small open rectangles noted as El P, for electricity post or pillar) on the 1:1,250 Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1948, in small numbers (around 50 in the city centre), mostly on major streets. The nearest to this location were on the north-east corner of the junction of Deansgate with Peter Street, and outside number 15, Whitworth Street West. The latest map showing the pillars is the 1:2,500 OS map of 1965. However, no example is marked in this location on the maps that show the pillars. This example is therefore thought to have been moved here, probably in the late-1980s when the majority of the Castlefield Basin public realm works were carried out.

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, and other Manchester examples of feeder pillars on Library Walk and in Lincoln Square. The company went into voluntary liquidation in 1967.

Details

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

MATERIALS: cast iron.

DESCRIPTION: standing in the Castlefield Conservation Area, close to the listed former Congregational chapel and to two other examples of this type, on Castle Street and on the south bank of the basin.

The longer sides of the box face north-east and south-west. 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 east side is largely obscured by the viaduct against which the box stands. The box is painted, black.

Sources

Books and journals
Frost, R, Electricity in Manchester: Commemorating a century of electricity supply in the city, 1893-1993, (1993)
Websites
Information on Hardy & Padmore from Grace's Guide to British Industrial History, accessed 19/03/21 from https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Hardy_and_Padmore
Information on Hardy & Padmore from local history website, accessed 19/03/21 from https://www.worcesterpeopleandplaces.org.uk/news/383/144/Hardy-and-Padmore-the-Worcester-Foundary.html

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 s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) structures attached to or within the curtilage of the listed building but not coloured blue on the map, are not to be treated as part of the listed building for the purposes of the Act. However, any works to these structures which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require Listed Building Consent (LBC) and this is a matter for the Local Planning Authority (LPA) to determine.