Conway Buildings, Leicester, City of Leicester

Summary

Offices built in 1878 to the designs of Stockdale Harrison.

Description

Offices built in 1878 to the designs of Stockdale Harrison.

MATERIALS: red brick laid in English bond with stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof.

PLAN: the building is situated in a terrace facing east onto Grey Friars. It has an approximately square plan with an internal courtyard which is lined with C20 extensions.

EXTERIOR: the building is in the Gothic Revival style. The main range facing onto Grey Friars has three storeys and a part basement and is seven bays wide. It has a steeply pitched roof with corbelled out decorative stacks and pierced ridge tiles. On the ground floor the outer bays contain a plank door with decorative iron straps set in a moulded surround with a quatrefoil in the tympanum, all under a brick arch with a stone hoodmould resting on carved leaf capitals. In the centre bay the panelled double doors are under an overlight with a grille, all set in a flat, moulded stone architrave. To either side are paired timber sash windows with arched heads set in stone surrounds with a central mullion and a moulded tiled panel above. A decorative moulded brick string course with acanthus leaves and lions’ faces at each end runs just above lintel level. The first floor is lit by single lancet windows in the end bays and paired lancets in the other bays. These are set in moulded stone surrounds with transoms, capitals to the central piers and a continuous string course. The outer pairs are under moulded tile panels and the central pair is under a stone panel inscribed CONWAY BUILDINGS. The second floor has the same arrangement of single and paired windows except they are timber sashes with trefoil heads and have a continuous stone lintel/string course. The central and outer pairs are set under brick arches with tiled panels and stone hoodmoulds, all framed by gables corbelled out from the first floor. The central gable is flanked by crocketed stone pinnacles. There are stone plaques in the panels, the central one being inscribed 1878. The moulded brick cornice has acanthus decoration.

The whitewashed yard fronts in the internal courtyard retain mainly wooden mullion and transom windows and have elaborate sill bands and a dentil cornice. An ornamental wooden lucam remains where there was formerly a hoist on the west range. The other three ranges have incremental C20 extensions.

INTERIOR: this has been remodelled and retains few historic fixtures or fittings except for some original joinery and the dogleg stone staircases at either end of the building. These have an open string with shaped tread ends, and a moulded handrail supported by fine cast and wrought iron balustrades in a scrolled and acanthus leaf design. Some six-panel doors remain which have moulded rails giving the impression of Tudor square panelling. The unusual doorcases have cambered upper sections and chamfered jambs which rise into shouldered arches with roundels.

History

Leicester is one of the oldest settlements in England and its origins can be traced back at least to the Iron Age. There is significant remaining evidence of the Roman settlement particularly on the east bank of the River Soar where the bath house and palaestra at Jewry Wall represent the only standing remains of Ratae Corieltauvorum and one of the largest standing pieces of Roman civilian building in the country. However, there is little known of the settlement between the Roman departure and the medieval period.

In the Middle Ages, Leicester became an increasingly important urban centre. William the Conqueror ordered the construction of the first motte and bailey castle in the late C11. This was later rebuilt in stone and the great hall survives containing one of the finest medieval interiors in the country. The city became closely associated with Simon De Montfort who became the Lord of the Town in 1281, and one of the city’s two universities is named after him. The town also became closely linked to the royal family through the earldoms of Leicester and Lancaster, which were joined under one person, Robert Beaumont, in the late C14. This led to further expansion and prosperity in the late-middle and early-modern periods.

The town also became a focus for religious devotion, with an area next to the Castle known as the Newarke being the location for a collegiate church as well as other religious centres. After his death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the body of King Richard III was brought to the town and buried in the church of the Greyfriars, a Franciscan abbey which tradition has it had been founded by De Montfort in the late C13. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey died at Leicester Abbey in 1530 on his way to face trial in London and was buried there. Other major individuals to be associated with the city include Robert Dudley, who was made Earl of Leicester by Elizabeth I.

The church of Greyfriars was destroyed in 1538, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The site was sold and a manor house built with an associated estate. Both the monastic buildings and the location of Richard’s tomb were lost by the late C17. The manor belonged to Alderman Robert Herrick and remained in the family until the early C18 when it was sold to Thomas Pares. The former Greyfriars precinct was then divided with a new thoroughfare, called New Street laid north to south across it. The street plan more generally continues to resemble that of the medieval borough, although street names have changed, with the boundaries of the precinct on the whole respected.

Throughout the early C18 the two parts of the estate were gradually parcelled and sold for development. It was in the Georgian period that the wider Greyfriars estate was developed, primarily as residences for the professional and polite classes. Many of the remaining buildings date to that period and are domestic in both scale and character. Industry did encroach at the fringes and commercial activities and industry such as hosiery appear on the 1888 map of the area. Latterly the area became the legal centre for Leicester and many of the buildings were converted into offices. The manor house was demolished in 1872 although its garden remained unencumbered of development, as did that of 17 Friar Lane. Both became car parks in the C20.

Leicester itself became an industrial centre following the construction of the Grand Union Canal, which linked the town to London and Birmingham at the end of the C18. By 1800 the population had reached over 17,000 and continued to grow throughout the C19. The first railway arrived in the 1830s and Leicester was linked to the mainline network by the 1840s, which allowed for significant industrial expansion. The major industries were textiles, hosiery and footwear. The size of Leicester increased dramatically at this time and many surviving medieval and early-modern buildings in the Greyfriars area were either replaced or refaced in brick. The C19 also saw the construction of several large schools in the area.

Although the city faced significant economic and social challenges in the C20 it remains a vibrant urban centre and is now known as one of the most culturally diverse cities in Britain. The Greyfriars area has been the focus of international attention and economic investment since the remarkable discovery of the remains of Richard III under a council car park in 2012 and his re-burial in the Cathedral in 2015. Resultant extensive research and archaeological investigation led to the Scheduling of the former monastic site in December 2017 (Schedule entry 1442955) and the renaming of the Guildhall/Cathedral Conservation Area to Greyfriars.

The Conway Buildings were built in 1878 to the designs of Stockdale Harrison (1846-1914), a well-known Leicester architect active in the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods. He was articled to James Bird of Leicester and then moved to London where he became the assistant of George Somers Clarke. In 1869 Stockdale Harrison was made a Freeman and Apprentice of Leicester and he set up in private practice, initially in Hotel Street and then at 7 St Martins. In 1882 he became an Associate of the RIBA; in 1890 he became a Fellow of the RIBA; and he was the President of the Leicestershire and Rutland Society of Architects from 1890 to1892. Stockdale Harrison initially designed in the Gothic Revival style which he continued to use for churches. By the 1880s he developed his own version of the Vernacular Revival style, designing houses (such as the lodge at Spinney Hill Park, 1888, and Hastings House, Stoughton Drive South, Leicester, 1902), and shops and offices as well as the Abbey Pumping Station (listed at Grade II). His last work was St Guthlac's Church in South Knighton, Leicester (1912). Stockdale Harrison has more than five listed buildings to his name. Two of his sons joined the practice and from 1904 it was known as Stockdale Harrison and Sons.

The Conway Buildings were built for WW Clarkson & Co, brick and tile merchants who supplied the brickwork and terracotta to advertise the quality of their materials. By 1968 the building was the property of Leicester City Council who used it as part of a complex of offices which occupied the site of 1-3, 5 and 7 Grey Friars. It currently has internal access to 5 Grey Friars to the south. The building has been extended and altered to accommodate its office use and the internal courtyard has been reduced in size throughout the C20 as infill extensions have been added. The building is currently unoccupied (2019).

Reasons for Listing

The Conway Buildings, offices built in 1878 to the designs of Stockdale Harrison, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a good example of late C19 Gothic style commercial buildings by a significant local architect with a well-proportioned and handsome composition punctuated by paired pointed arch windows of a different design on each floor;

* the fine brickwork and use of elaborate terracotta detailing, provided by the patrons who were brick and tile merchants, advertises the quality of their materials and adds a distinctive aesthetic and textural richness to the façade;

* the original internal configuration has unfortunately been obscured by the later alterations, and although many of the fixtures and fittings have been similarly lost, the impressive staircases and enough of the unusual joinery survives to illustrate the building’s original decorative treatment.

Historic interest:

* it is located within a significant historic townscape, developed along the eastern edge of the precinct to the C13 Franciscan friary known as Greyfriars and making a notable contribution to its rich architectural character and historic evolution.

Group value:

* it is surrounded by many designated assets with which it has strong group value, especially the scheduled Greyfriars to the west; and to the north and south respectively, 4 St Martin’s (a former bank built in 1874 to the designs of Edward Burgess) and the former Barradale Offices (a former architects’ office built 1878-1880 to the designs of Isaac Barradale), both Grade II listed commercial buildings by prominent local architects.

External Links

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