Listed Buildings in Dewsbury - Part 5

 

A detail of Pioneer House

Continuing my investigation of the Listed Buildings of Dewsbury, having been impressed been the quality of the architecture of the various warehouses on Wellington Road and Wellington Street, I crossed over Dewsbury ring road to Dewsbury railway station to have a look at the blue plaques. 

 

Blue plaques at Dewsbury railway station

 

The expansion and prosperity of Dewsbury as a textile manufacturing town was due substantially to the development of a warehouse system to take advantage of the railway after it arrived in 1848. Although the sidings and good sheds have long since gone, the monumental scale of the packing and shipping warehouses developed for woollens, in particular shoddy and mungo, can be appreciated from this vantage point. 

 

No. 13 Wellington Road

Walking down Wellington Road past the nine bay elevation of No. 13, which forms part of the same four storey building that is built on a triangular plot that also fronts Bond Street, I came to Nos. 11 and 9, which are part of the listing for No. 26 Bond Street.

Nos. 9 and 11 Wellington Road

 

To the left is a three storey warehouse, which is part of the same building that has a frontage at No. 26 Bond Street. It still has its lifting beam beneath a Diocletian window, although the taking doors on the first and second floor have been replaced by windows. On the right is what seems to be a later infill building, which doesn’t possess any architectural features of much interest. 

 

No. 9 Wellington Road

 

Although I didn’t closely examine the stonework, from my photos I can see that there is considerable colour variation and in places there are concentrations of clay ironstone nodules, which suggest that this has been quarried locally and not brought in from further afield by rail.

 

A blue plaque at No. 9 Wellington Road

Before carrying on down to Wellington Road East, I took a few photos of the adjoining property at No. 19 Croft Street (1880) which has a cart entrance and, although I didn’t realise it at the time, is part of the same building that I had photographed at No. 24 Bond Street. 

 

No. 19 Croft Street

 

Taking note that its side elevations are actually built in brick, which may have been supplied from one of the brick pits marked on the 1855 Ordnance Survey map, I then had a quick look at No. 7 Wellington Road East, another warehouse on a triangular plot which was apparently built in two phases from 1858-1862, although I can’t see any join or variation in the masonry. 

 

No. 7 Wellington Road East

According to the official Historic England listing, Nos. 3 and 5 were built for James Howgate and Sons c.1880, but comments by the current listing adviser, Crispin Edwards, seem to indicate that it was actually built between 1858 and 1866. 

 

Nos, 3-5 Wellington Road East

 

Looking at my photos, there is a subtle difference in the colour of the sandstones used for Nos. 3-5 and No. 7, which suggests that they may come from different quarry source, but I had seen a lot of variation so far in my investigation of Dewsbury’s historic architecture and can only speculate about their provenance. 

 

The north-west end of the Co-Operative Building

 

The Baroque style north-west end of the Co-operative Building (1914), built with uniformly coloured sandstone ashlar in a Baroque style, was next on my list of buildings to photograph but I quickly moved along to the central section (1896), which was designed by Holtom and Fox – architects for Dewsbury Town Hall. 

 

The central part of the Co-Operative Building

 

It is the original southern end, Pioneer House (1880) by Holtom and Connon, which is the most impressive part of the building. Departmental shops were on the ground floor, a library, conversation rooms and offices on the first floor and the Industrial Hall, with 1500 seats, on the second floor. 

 

Pioneer Buildings

 

Designed in the Italian Renaissance style, it has a richly ornamented main entrance, incorporating fluted pilasters, festoons and roundels containing carved busts. Along the front elevation, there are various sculpted heads, floriated detailing and various geometrical motifs. 

 

Views of Pioneer Buildings

 

I again didn’t closely look at the sandstone used for the ashlar but, scanning through several photos, it is generally light brown in colour and is quite different to the buff sandstones that I had seen in many buildings and which I thought were possibly brought in from Huddersfield or Bradford. As I had discovered when researching Dewsbury Town Hall, Fox later used Thornhill Rock from Morley to build Morley Town Hall (1895) and it is quite possible that this sandstone has been used for the Co-Operative buildings. 

 

Pioneer Buildings

 

On the other side of Halifax Road is the former Salem Methodist Church (1863), which is now the Madni Masjid mosque and is in the process of being renovated. It is built in large blocks of sandstone ashlar and has a richly decorated pediment, with scrolled foliage and a central roundel. 

 

The Northgate elevation of the former Salem Methodist Church

 

When photographing its Northgate elevation, I was interested to see the Cloth Hall Mills (1874) which, although not listed, has a series of roundels with the heads of the Machell brothers, Robert and William – owners of this shoddy and mungo mill – and Benjamin Disraeli and someone who is named on the blue plaque only as Cobden, but is thought possibly to be Richard Cobden MP, although various statues do not show him with a beard.

 

Cloth Hall Mills