2-6 (even) Nelson Street and 1 and 1a Wellington Street

Summary

A textile (wool) warehouse including offices and shops of 1873, converted to apartments late in the C20.

Reasons for Designation

2-6 (even) Nelson Street and 1 and 1a Wellington Street, Dewsbury, constructed in 1873, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a good example of an 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 principal elevations in Venetian Gothic style originally designed to impress and convey the status and quality of the goods and business contained within;
* it is an early example of a warehouse building incorporating retail space as part of the design, and retaining some interior features of interest.

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

2-6 (even) Nelson Street and 1 and 1a Wellington Street 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.

Malcolm Paterson’s plan of 1870 shows that although the building to the west had been built (27 and 29 Wellington Road and 8-16 (even) Nelson Street), this building had not. This supports the datestone on this building of 1873. Completion of the east end of this block in 1873 (as well as the building to the north, now 3 Wellington Street, in 1872) also ties in with the request made in that year by architects John Kirk and Sons, for tenders for forming, paving and draining a street linking Wellington Road with Wellington Street. This is more likely to refer to Back Nelson Street than to Nelson Street itself (although Wellington Street remained unpaved in 1874, when the town council discussed its drainage and repair).

The building is identical externally to the adjoining building to the west and presumed to be by the same architect (possibly RT Johnson). The first Goad fire insurance map of Dewsbury, published in 1887, marks the building as shops with offices (called Nelson Chambers) over, and a shoddy warehouse in the north-east corner. This was probably occupied by E Butterworth and Co, who advertised wool and mungo auctions from 1 Wellington Street in 1884 (although they were not in an 1881 trade directory). However, the monogram over the corner entrance suggests that the building was not built for Butterworth’s, and it was probably a speculative venture. The 1887 Goad map also shows that by then there was some interconnection with the adjacent building to the west.

By the Goad map of 1958, the whole of this building was occupied by a stationer’s and a mending business. The upper floors were converted to residential use later in the C20 with limited alteration, and the ground-floor shop windows and doors were all replaced.

Details

A textile (wool) warehouse including offices and shops of 1873, possibly by RT Johnson, converted to apartments late in the C20.

MATERIALS: buff sandstone walls, slate roof.

PLAN: roughly trapezoidal, with a cranked southern frontage, and abutted at the west by 27 and 29 Wellington Road and 8-16 (even) Nelson Street.

EXTERIOR: standing in the Dewsbury Town Centre Conservation Area to the south of a block of smaller warehouses. The building is of four storeys, in a free Venetian Gothic style. The upper floors have original vertical-sliding sashes (with horns) to all openings.

To Nelson Street is a symmetrical, five-bay frontage, cranking away beyond bays (from the left) 2 and 3. The ground floor is ashlar (with replacement shopfronts and entrances), the upper floors rock-faced. The eaves have moulded stone corbels in the manner of a Lombardy frieze, and each upper floor has continuous sill and lintel bands. Bays 1, 3, and 5 have stacked, three-light windows; arcaded on the top floor, Venetian with shouldered heads on the second floor, and lancets below a low two-centred arch on the first floor. Bays 2 and 4 have stacked single-light stair windows. Various tympana have incised decoration.

The corner to the junction of Nelson Street and Wellington Street is splayed, with quoined angles, and blind above the entrance. This has a replacement doorway with a fanlight with a shouldered lintel. This is surmounted by a blind gabled arch rising to the first floor and supported on twisted colonnettes. The cusped, pointed tympanum is inscribed with the monogram J M. Above are a blind second-floor window, and quatrefoil third-floor datestone with 1873 in relief. The façade rises above the eaves and has a stepped cap.

To Wellington Street the frontage is of four bays with the same details as the Nelson Street facade, with a pinnacled, gableted pilaster-buttress at the right, matching those on the Nelson Street façade of the attached building to the west (27 and 29 Wellington Road and 8-16 (even) Nelson Street).

The three-bay facade to Back Nelson Street is plain with stone sills and lintels to openings. A vertical joint with a change in coursing and a slight inward step indicate where the building is abutted by that to the west.

Sources

Books and journals
Harman, R, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England. Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (2017), 204
Kelly, ER, Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire Pt 1 (Places A-K) (1881), 295

Websites
Goad fire insurance map of 1887, from British Library website, accessed 22/05/2022 from https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/firemaps/england/yorkshire/largeimage147793.html goad 1887

Other
Newspaper advertisement for tenders for laying a street, The Reporter, 19 July 1873, p4
Newspaper report of town council discussions re paving Wellington Street, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 5 February 1874, p4
Newspaper advertisement for Butterworths at 1 Wellington Street, The Reporter, 19 July 1884, p4

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