Shelter on Queen's Promenade, Blackpool, Bispham, Blackpool

Summary

Cast-iron promenade shelter of 1903, relocated around 1924 and refurbished in the early C21, by Walter MacFarlane and Co of the Saracen Foundry, Glasgow.

Description

Promenade shelter of 1903, relocated around 1924, by Walter MacFarlane and Co of the Saracen foundry, Glasgow.

MATERIALS: cast-iron columns, brackets, dormers and gutters with wooden screens, and lead-covered roofs. Steel bench castings.

DESCRIPTION: of almost-square plan, with slim columns at the corners, linked by screens at each end, and with an axial screen aligned north-south. The round columns have foliate capitals and each has three foliate brackets in open arabesque pattern, supporting the diagonal timbers of the roof soffit. The emphatically-ribbed swept roof has a blind round dormer on each side, and a depressed-ogee cap (in 2021, missing its finial). Ogee gutters above a timber cornice discharge via the columns (some of the guttering and cornice is missing to the south and west sides). The wooden screens have tongue-and-groove lower panels and (now unglazed) upper glazing panels (partially boarded in plywood). The axial screen has concave tongue-and-groove, accommodating a curved bench on both sides. The ends have straight benches.

Many components are identical to, or very closely match, designs in a MacFarlanes catalogue of approximately 1890, including: dormers (type 39 on p644); columns (type 130, p572) and brackets (type 53, p549). The bench castings match type 11, p402.

History

In May 1903 renowned Glasgow iron-founders Walter MacFarlane and Co (MacFarlanes) were commissioned by Blackpool Corporation to supply ten shelters for the ‘new promenade’, thought to mean the south shore where the promenade had recently been extended southwards from Station Road to Balmoral Road. Almost square in plan, they had swept roofs, supported by classical columns and foliate brackets. Four were reported to be completed by the end of September, which probably means four pairs, as they were placed in pairs flanking steps down to the beach, and some committee minutes refer to a pair as one shelter. The 1911 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey (OS) map (surveyed 1909) shows eleven pairs of shelters between south and central piers, seven of which are later and accounted for below. This suggests that the other four pairs are from this original order, sited opposite Rawcliffe Street, Shaw Road, Alexandra Road and Crystal Road. The other two shelters are thought to have been sited, unpaired, at the north shore (see below), along with four shelters of a different design by the Lion foundry (now listed as NHLE 1475121, 1476005, 1476006 and 1476007).

In 1904 ten more MacFarlanes shelters for the promenade were commissioned to be supplied and fitted by Radford and Greaves of Derby. These ten shelters were in place by the end of September 1904. Another four were included in an additional tender of November 1904. These fourteen shelters were sited in pairs opposite Woodfield Road, Wellington Road, Waterloo Avenue (now Barton Avenue), Trafalgar Road, Foxhall Square; and Yorkshire Street and Waterloo Road.

The 1912 1:2,500 OS map (surveyed in 1909) also shows shelters on the middle walk at the north shore; this walk, along with the lower walk, was created when the north-shore sea defences were built between 1895 and 1899. Blackpool was very proud of the three parallel promenades thus created, which featured on postcards. Two of the shelters were square in plan, and it is thought that these were the ‘missing’ two from the 1903 MacFarlanes order, that is the two of the ten which do not appear at south shore on the 1911 map. One stood opposite the north end of Carlton Terrace (where the former toll house for the private Claremont estate had previously stood), and the other was opposite the gateway to the Imperial hotel. The one near Carlton Terrace is probably the shelter which the Highways Committee instructed the borough surveyor to move further north from ‘opposite Carlton Terrace’, in October 1903; if it was part of the 1903 order then it must have only recently been installed before being moved. It is thought that this shelter is one of these two originally installed on the middle walk.

Relocation history
Between 1923 and 1925 the middle walk colonnade was built. Committee minutes record that in May 1924 ‘the two shelters’ were to be removed from the middle walk, which is thought to refer to the two square MacFarlanes shelters. This shelter and NHLE 1362392 were not in their present location in 1909, and the square shelters on middle walk were no longer there by 1931, when the survey of the middle walk area took place for the 1936 1:2,500 OS map. This shelter might appear in its present location on the 1936 1:2,500 OS map, which in this location was surveyed in 1930. although it is depicted differently from NHLE 1362392 on that map and on the 1947 map (surveyed 1938). It is thought most likely that the mapping discrepancy is not conclusive, and that it was relocated here from middle walk around 1924.

This shelter and NHLE 1362392 were listed in 1983, along with the surviving south-shore shelters (listed in pairs as NHLE 1072012, 1072013 and 1205804, and subsequently relocated).

Later alterations
This shelter has benches with accurate reproduction castings by Trumetals Foundry Limited, which operated from 1951 until around 1999. The design matches a design in a MacFarlane catalogue of around 1890. Brackets and finials also match designs in the catalogue although most brackets are reportedly recastings taken from an original around 2005. It no longer has the palmette terminals which originally adorned the eaves and corners, accentuating the effect of the swept roof. The glazing screen also has woodwork with modern routered detailing, and all glazing is absent. This shelter has also lost its finial, since it was first listed.

Walter MacFarlane and Company
Walter MacFarlane and Company were one of the most prolific suppliers of architectural ironwork in the world, operating from 1851 to 1967 out of ‘Saracen Foundry’ (in three successive locations). In 1875 the foundry covered 80 acres and employed over 1,400 people. Over 80 cast-iron listed structures in England are attributed to them, including telephone kiosks, sewage ventilator shafts, lamp posts, drinking fountains, urinals and bandstands. More listed examples of their work are known but unattributed, and the true number is probably several hundred.

Reasons for Listing

The shelter to the west of Queen’s Promenade in Blackpool, between Sandhurst Avenue and Montpelier Avenue, a promenade shelter of 1903, relocated around 1924, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* an increasingly-rare survival of a good-quality Edwardian street shelter, particularly redolent of the seaside, and retaining many of its original design features (some in accurate replica).

Group value:

* as one of a chain of ten listed shelters of three similar types and dates, between Wolverton Avenue and Norkeed Road.

External Links

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