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| An ornate scrolled bracket on the former HSBC bank |
The British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge that I had prepared for Morley was quite varied, with a milepost and St. Peter’s church after I had alighted from the No. 51 bus on Victoria Street, then doubledecker houses on Chapel Hill, several tombs around the ruined Church of St. Mary in the Wood, a former woollen mill on Commercial Street and the Central Methodist Church.
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| Victorian buildings on Queen Street |
With the Nonconformist chapels being the highlight of my visit to date, I made my way back down Queen Street and passed several substantial later Victorian buildings that are quite impressive but, nonetheless, are not considered to be worthy of a Grade II listing.
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| The former Barclays Bank and Figure Fitness Centre |
Arriving at Morley Town Hall, the first of the four buildings on my list to photograph is described in the Historic England listing - last amended on 28th November 1986 - as the Barclays Bank and Figure Fitness Centre but, as with so many other bank buildings across the UK, the move to online banking has made this use redundant.
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| Pediments on the Albion Street elevation |
It doesn’t look like a bank building and was actually built c.1898 as a shop for the Morley Industrial Co-operative Society, which was founded in 1866 and had its first branch opened in 1869 on the corner of Albion Street and Commercial Street.
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| The former HSBC Bank Chambers |
Immediately adjacent to it is the former premises of the HSBC Bank Chambers, which Historic England (HE) dates as late C19 and goes on to describe its most interesting feature, the entrance, as “arched doorway with Gibbs surround and carved bracketed jambs, pulvinated frieze, swan-neck pediment under taller triangular pediment.
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| A detail of the entrance |
Another late C19 bank building, which is still operating as the National Westminster Bank is attached to its north side. HE considers that it has similar elements of design to the National Westminster Bank in Brighouse, designed by C. S. Nelson of Leeds in 1895 for the London and Yorkshire Bank Ltd. and that this is of similar date and by the same architect.
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| The National Westminster Bank |
All three of these buildings are presumably built in the local Thornhill Rock and exhibit fine ashlar masonry that would be expected in a high status property and the National Westminster Bank has a plinth made of polished dark grey granite, which looks like the Rubislaw variety from Aberdeen.
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| Granite on the plinth of the National Westminster Bank |
Looking at the 1894 and 1908 Ordnance Survey maps, the east side of Queen Street and most of the north side of Albion Street seem to have been part of a phase of redevelopment that took place at the same time of the building of the town hall (1892-1895). Although two large woollen mills still operated to the west of it, the area now seems to be considered as a centre of commerce and all of the buildings above are listed for group value to reflect this.
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| The 1894 and 1908 OS maps of central Morley |
To the north-east of the town hall, on the corner of Queen Street and Wellington Street is the Grade II Listed former Lloyds Bank (1891)., which is also scheduled for group value. Again it is built with fine ashlar masonry in a Neoclassical style, with a rusticated ground floor, alternating segmental and triangular pediments to the first floor windows and a doorway, which HE describes as “doorway with keyed arch, imposts and fluted Doric pilasters surmounted by fluted brackets, entablature and open triangular pediment”.
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| The former Lloyds bank |