17 Wellington Road

Summary

A textile (wool) warehouse of 1855, with later alterations.

Reasons for Designation

17 Wellington Road, Dewsbury, constructed around 1855, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a very early example of a small-scale urban palazzo warehouse, a regionally-distinctive building type associated with Dewsbury's textile industry at the peak of its prosperity and success, and later adapted for commercial use;
* with a principal elevation and ornate entrance façade in Classical style, originally designed to impress and convey the status and quality of the goods and business contained within.

Historic interest:

* it reflects Dewsbury’s position as the national centre of the shoddy and mungo industry in the second half of the C19, the forerunner of modern-day recycling industries.

Group value:

* it has strong group value with neighbouring historic former warehouses and the railway station which all shared functional links with the textile industry.

History

17 Wellington Road stands within a block of land which had been acquired before 1848 by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), but not ultimately needed for railway purposes. The land bounded by Nelson Street, Wellington Road and Wellington Street was auctioned off in 12 lots in 1851. The 1852 Ordnance Survey (OS) 1:1,056 town plan (which was surveyed in 1850-1851) shows that these streets had been laid out by then, but not developed. The sales particulars for the auction suggest that since that survey, the west end of Back Nelson Street had also been defined.

The expansion and importance of Dewsbury as a textile town, and the wealth that was generated from the textile industry in the latter half of the C19, was due in no small part to the development of a warehouse system to take advantage of the railway after it arrived in 1848. Substantial, sometimes monumental, packing and shipping warehouses were developed for woollens, in particular shoddy and mungo, of which this area was the national centre.

17 Wellington Road is most likely to have been a building advertised for sale in the Leeds Intelligencer in April 1857, described as ‘fronting the railway station, situated in the Wellington Road, being three storeys high plus a basement, and having been erected within the last two years’. It was at that point occupied by Samuel Smith, a woollen and blanket manufacturer with works in Batley Carr. The 1857 advertisement indicates that number 17 was built around 1855 (rather than 1851 as suggested on the blue plaque on the building). Its fixtures included a hydraulic press (suggesting use for packing and shipping rather than just storage), and the imposing design and entrance intended to impress visitors indicates that this was a ‘Manchester’ warehouse where goods would be inspected and sold, with offices for clerks. The sale so soon after being built, and the possible joint occupancy, suggests that it was a speculative venture for rent by textile firms. This likely date makes this one of the earliest textile warehouse of its kind in Wellington Road, and in Dewsbury.

The building is shown on Malcolm Paterson’s plan of 1870, and the first Goad fire insurance plan of Dewsbury, published in 1887, marks the building as a woollen warehouse for ES Howgate and company, with grocery stores in the basement. The Goad map of 1893 shows the building as vacant, but in 1897 the Dewsbury Reporter newspaper moved here.

The Reporter might have been responsible for blocking the former loading entrances on Wellington Street, although the similarity of the stonework and weathering suggests this might have been done soon after construction. The basement windows have been blocked more recently. The Reporter bought the building outright in 1905 and still occupied it in 2008 when the paper celebrated its 150 year anniversary. That year, 34 of its windows were replaced to match the originals and 26 renovated. A modern stair has been inserted in the north entrance lobby, and a smaller doorway inserted at the entrance. The columns have also been enclosed and ceilings inserted below the beams. Around 2015 the majority of the windows were replaced in uPVC. The building is currently (2022) empty, but has been converted for office and residential use, with inserted partition walls and ceilings.

Details

A textile (wool) warehouse of 1855, with alterations.

MATERIALS: buff sandstone walls and slate roof.

PLAN: roughly triangular with a north entrance and curved west side, abutted at the south by 19 Wellington Road and 7 Wellington Street.

EXTERIOR: prominently sited in the Dewsbury Town Centre Conservation Area, at the junction of Wellington Road and Wellington Street, and opposite the railway station.

In a Classical style and of three storeys plus a basement. The stonework is regularly coursed and has a rock-faced plinth up to ground-floor sill, with tooled stonework above. The curved main entrance bay faces north and has a Doric door surround with columns, and entablature with triglyphs and metopes (with paterae), and guttae. Stacked above are an architraved first-floor window with consoled cornice, and a lugged-architraved second-floor window. There is a moulded first-floor sill band and a modillioned eaves cornice. The entrance has an inserted modern doorway with render emulating voussoirs and a keystone.

The east front is of ten bays, and similarly-detailed. The ground-floor openings are arched with rock-faced, quoined surrounds. Bay 1 (from the left) has a segmental-arched basement door. There are flat-headed basement window openings (formerly served by areas), now all blocked or louvred, in all other bays except bay 7, which has a blocked doorway with inserted window. Bay 4 has a similar blocked doorway with inserted window and basement window opening. Bay 5 has a timber sliding sash window matching the original design, with arched upper sash of seven panes, over a six-pane lower sash. All other windows are pvc sashes with flat heads and no glazing bars.

The west front is also of ten bays and similarly-detailed. Bays 5 and 10 have doorways (inserted at Bay 10). Bays 6, 8 and 9 have basement openings just visible above the pavement. Bay 7 has an altered former doorway now with inserted window, matching that of Bay 5 on the east front. Bay 6 has an original timber sliding sash window (without horns) with upper sash of seven panes and replaced bottom sash. The roof is hipped at the south end.

Sources

Books and journals
White, W, Directory of Leeds, etc (1866), 401-418
Harman, R, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England. Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (2017), 204
White, W, History, gazetteer and directory of West Riding of Yorkshire, with the city of York and the port of Hull, and a variety of other commercial, agricultural and statistical information (1837), 359
Kelly, ER, Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire Pt 1 (Places A-K) (1881), 290-301
White, W, Directory of Leeds, etc (1858), 540-552
White, W, Directory of Leeds, etc (1870), 459-481
Kelly, ER, Post Office Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire (1857), 188-190

Websites
History of the Dewsbury Reporter, accessed 22/05/2022 from https://web.archive.org/web/20160702082427/http://www.dewsburyreporter.co.uk/news/a-new-chapter-in-our-long-history-1-1346733
Goad fire insurance map of 1887 from the British Library website, accessed 22/05/2022 from https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/firemaps/england/yorkshire/largeimage147793.html

Other
Malcolm Paterson, ‘Plan of Dewsbury’, 1870, Dewsbury Library.
Advertisement for the sale of a building in Wellington Road, Leeds Intelligencer, 4 April 1857, p1

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