13 Cheapside

Summary

A wool-stapler’s warehouse of the first quarter of the C19, converted as offices.

Reasons for Designation

13 Cheapside, a wool-stapler’s warehouse of the first quarter of the C19, converted as offices, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* its external architectural features denote its former function, including central loading doors to each floor;
* it retains much of its historic structural fabric, most notably in its roof with hewn purlins and trusses and surviving hoist gear, and its earlier sandstone walling to the rear.

Historic interest:

* it represents Wakefield’s continued importance as a centre of the wool trade in the C18 and C19.

Group value:

* it has a strong visual, functional and contextual relationship with the adjacent Grade II-listed early-C19 warehouses at 9, 11, 15-17 and 19 Cheapside.

History

Wakefield was established during the medieval period at a strategic trade position on the river Calder, which led to the development of Wakefield as the capital of Yorkshire's cloth trade by the C14. Westgate was one of four principal streets with long and narrow burgage plots that remain visible through modern land divisions. These historic plots were owned by craftsmen and traders and had commercial properties facing the street and workshops to the rear. Sandstone walling at the base of the rear façade of 13 Cheapside probably originally defined the burgage plot boundaries in this area.

The warehouse at 13 Cheapside was built by the time John Walker’s map of 1823 was surveyed, and appears to incorporate earlier fabric in its rear wall. Cheapside was laid out off Westgate in 1802 and is characterised by ranges of wool-staplers’ warehouses, constructed to serve Wakefield’s prospering wool trade. The surrounding group of warehouses is one of the best surviving of its kind in England.

The fenestration suggests that number 13 was altered in the late C19, probably for other commercial use. By 1881, these warehouses on the south side of Cheapside were not inhabited, but Cheapside hosted only one wool-stapler’s business and one draper’s, and the warehouses might have been occupied by other businesses listed in trade directories, such as wine merchants, carriage makers, painters and plumbers. In the later C20, number 13 was renovated and it remains (2024) in office use.

Details

A wool-stapler’s warehouse of the first quarter of the C19, converted as offices.

MATERIALS: hand-made brick with some sandstone walling, concrete tile roof.

PLAN: a three-storey block facing onto Cheapside with a rear façade to Carter Street.

EXTERIOR: the entrance faces Cheapside. The building is of five bays, in red brick (painted to first-floor sill level) laid to English Garden Wall bond of four stretcher courses to each header course. All the openings have segmental-arched brick heads, and the windows all have stone sills; the outer openings are wider than those flanking the loading bay. The central full-height loading bay retains loading doors. To either side are stacked windows. At the ground floor, these are modern replacement sliding sashes, with sidelights to the outer ones. The windows above are all small-pane casements of approximately the same size; the outer ones have brick infill to the jambs of the opening. There is a vertical brick joint with number 11 to the left, but no clear one with number 15 to the right.

The rear façade is largely of brown brick in English Garden Wall bond of four stretcher courses to each header course, and blind at the second and first floor levels. The ground floor and basement have interspersed bands of squared sandstone rubble and the same brick as above, except at the extreme right where sandstone is found to the basement only (which has a rendered plinth across the facade). Small modern casements have been inserted in the basement (with brick arch heads) and first-floor openings (with timber lintels). There are vertical mortar joints with number 15 at the left (which is slightly taller and oversails at the eaves), and at the right, number 11, which is lower. The eaves have been raised adjacent to number 11. There is an external air-conditioning unit* at ground-floor level.

INTERIOR: this is largely modernised but retains the structural fabric, including hewn purlins and king-post roof trusses, two of which have retained hoist gear suspended between them.

* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the external air-conditioning unit to the rear façade is not of special architectural or historic interest. However, any works 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 and this is a matter for the local planning authority to determine.

Sources

Books and journals
Harman, R, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England. Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South, (2017), 709
Kelly, ER, Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire Pt 2 (Places L-Y), (1881), 1413

Other
Walker, John, Map of the Town of Wakefield (1823)

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