Standidge Buildings, Kingston upon Hull, City of Kingston upon Hull

Summary

Warehouses and offices, built 1884 for Matthew Whitfield, wholesale grocer. Converted into a mineral water works, c1900.

Description

Warehouses and offices, built 1884 for Matthew Whitfield, wholesale grocer. Interior restored in 1889 after a fire. Converted into a mineral water works, c1900.

MATERIALS: red brick, terracotta detailing, stone bands, voussoirs and keystones, and Welsh slate roofs.

PLAN: The buildings are grouped around a sub-rectangular-plan courtyard on the S side of Chapel Lane, with a carriageway entrance passing through the office and warehouse range on the N side. Rectangular-plan warehouses are situated in the W and E sides of the courtyard, and an L-plan warehouse / bottling house to the S.

OFFICE AND WAREHOUSE

EXTERIOR: the four-bay, three-storey main (north) elevation has recessed bays with a brick plinth pierced by grilles, set between projecting pilasters with brick and stone string courses that form window sills for the first and second floors. The pilasters have moulded brick capitals to the first floor, with decorative terracotta ventilation bricks piercing the architrave; the capitals sit beneath a moulded brick and stone cornice band that spans the full width of the building. The pilasters continue to rise to the full height of the building, terminating in elaborately moulded terracotta capitals with floral panel architraves. A pair of fluted corbels, support a decorative terracotta cornice and frieze. The ground floor has deeply recessed, three-light office windows either side of a central splayed carriageway entrance. The windows have timber frames, painted stone sills, segmental arched brick lintels, moulded stone keystones and springing, and a projecting drip mould that terminates on fluted capitals. The first-floor windows are of a similar design; however, the windows are larger, the keystones are fluted and the drip moulds of the central pair rest on a frieze band with foliate panels. A slightly off-centre timber framed pulley block projects from the central panel. The second floor is lit by four smaller windows that lack drip moulds. A date stone above the entrance, comprising a shield on a background of acanthus leafs reads – MW 1884. A cast-iron beam above the carriage entrance is embellished with a panel decorated with small scroll motifs and reads - STANDIDGE BUILDINGS. The ceiling above the entrance is clad in timber boards and the flanking side walls each have a doorway and windows that light the offices to either side.

Within the courtyard, the three-storey, three-bay rear, south elevation is built of plain brick with a dentil cornice. The first and second floors have multi-pane casement windows within segmental brick arches flanking central timber taking-in doors. The doors have chamfered and stopped timber beam lintels and stone sills with a timber pulley beam and a pivoting iron davit for moving goods at second-floor level. The ground floor has a pair of four-light casement windows with iron-grilles below to either side of the carriageway entrance that has stepped brick splays. The gable walls are blind and brick chimney stacks rise within the gabled slate roof. It is drained by cast-iron roof gutters that discharge into a mixture of cast-iron and plastic down pipes. A low, two-storey stair and toilet turret with half-hipped slate roof is built against the left-hand side of the rear elevation, and a similar, but larger, three-storey turret is built against the right-hand end. Both turrets have a double door in the south elevation and a number of small windows.

INTERIOR: the ground floor is occupied to either side of the carriageway entrance by suites of offices; those to the east are small rooms that retain their original plan form, whereas that to the west has been opened up into a single open-plan office space. A winder stair with Yorkstone treads and risers, a plain wrought-iron balustrade and a barley-twist newel post, rises to the first floor from the passageway serving the east offices. The first-floor storeroom is a large open space that spans the full length and width of the building; it has a large doorway cut in the west wall permitting access from the adjacent property (not of special interest). Two cast-iron columns with integral column-heads and union plates are situated on a central alignment in the room. The columns have large timber cushion pads supporting a chamfered and stopped longitudinal beam exposed in the ceiling, carrying the timber floor joists of the floor above. The second-floor store room is also a large open space spanning the full width of the building and is open to the roof. The roof is timber lined and supported by queen-post trusses with tie-beams supported by metal gussets embedded in the walls. A timber mezzanine gallery is set within with the frames of the queen post roof and is accessed by a plain, open timber dog-leg stair. The brick walls are white-washed and each gable wall has an exposed chimney flue.

EAST AND WEST WAREHOUSES

EXTERIOR: the three-storey, six-bay east warehouse is built of red brick and the hipped slate roof projects over the east and west elevations, supported on stepped brick eaves courses. The roof has dark grey ridge tiles, and is drained by cast-iron gutters and down pipes. The west elevation faces into the courtyard and is partially obscured by and built up against by the south warehouse. It has nine multi-pane timber casement windows, flanking two sets of taking-in doors, two of which have been blocked, and a pedestrian doorway. On the ground floor the left-hand taking-in doors each have three-light glazed upper panels, and the ground-floor windows are barred. The six-bay rear, east elevation, is pierced by five multi-pane timber casement windows beneath segmental arches to the first floor and six to the second floor. All openings to the ground floor apart from one door have been blocked, giving the appearance of a blind arcade. The door gives access to a passageway screened by a brick wall. The north and south gable walls are blind and the south gable is screened by an adjacent property.

The three-storey, five-bay west warehouse has two blind bays at the southern end, giving the appearance of a three-bay structure. The east elevation faces into the courtyard and is partially obscured and built up against by the south warehouse. The first and second-floors have multi-pane casement windows to either side of sliding timber taking-in doors. The doors have chamfered and stopped timber beam lintels and stone sills, and a steel pulley beam and a pivoting iron davit for moving goods. The ground floor has a recessed blocked doorway at the left-hand end that is partially obscured by the south warehouse / bottling house. At the right-hand end is a tall and narrow, recessed, arched pedestrian doorway with a tall fan-light. The central taking-in door and the adjacent window position to the left have been blocked and the former window position to the right is occupied by a double timber door, beneath a boarded over panel. The wall is strengthened by eight circular tie-bar plates. The northern corner is attached to an L-plan section of a former brick boundary wall with stone coping, which is attached to the west stair and toilet turret. The rear west elevation is blind and is built up against the listed Grade II St Mary’s Court, a former soup kitchen and parish room of the Church of St. Mary. The south gable wall has a blocked window which is partially built up against by the listed Grade II rectory of the Church of St. Mary. The north gable is obscured by the former Salvation Army Men’s’ Home. The gabled slate roof has dark grey ridge tiles, and is drained by cast-iron gutters supported by a dentil eaves course and by plastic down pipes.

INTERIOR: the interiors of both warehouses are very similar in construction with a concrete ground floor and a central row of cast-iron columns cast by Wright and Son, Hull, which have integral column-heads and flanged union plates. The columns support large timber cushion pads carrying chamfered and stopped longitudinal beams supporting the timber floors above. A timber winder stair with a solid plank balustrade and cast-iron tread plates is situated towards the northern end of each building and rises one floor at a time. The first and second-floors of the E warehouse are largely undivided and the second-floor is open to the king-post roof. All floors within the west warehouse have been subdivided by secondary partition walls and the second-floor has an exposed queen post roof. Secondary door openings have been knocked through the north gable wall into the adjacent property (not of special interest).

SOUTH WAREHOUSE / BOTTLING HOUSE:

EXTERIOR: the ground floor of the two-storey, north elevation faces into the courtyard; it has a slightly off-centre secondary rolling door and blocked window and taking-in door positions. A secondary double door is situated at the left-hand end, while the right-hand end is occupied by a recessed two-panel glazed timber door with fan-light, and a recessed, multi-pane, timber casement window. The first floor has three multi-pane casement windows with stone sills, a pair of semi-glazed taking-in doors, with a chamfered beam and steel hoist rails above, and an adjacent blocked taking-in door position. A dentil eaves course supports a cast-iron gutter that drains the L-plan gabled and half-hipped slate roof, with a truncated and capped brick chimney stack at the eastern end. The south gable is predominantly built up against and obscured by adjacent buildings; a low two-storey attached range with a gabled slate roof is situated against its south-west corner, and the south elevation is blind. The remaining rear re-entrant angle elevations were not accessible.

INTERIOR: the ground-floor interior is accessed directly from the courtyard by a sliding door; it is a large L-plan open space with cambered concrete floors with four secondary rolled steel joist (RSJ) posts supporting transverse RSJ beams, carrying the timber joists of the floor above. The walls are white-washed and the east wall has modern breeze block patching. The south wall has a line-shaft bearing box set high at its centre and a doorway in the south-west corner, which allows access into an attached small rectangular plan range. The interior of the attached range has white-washed masonry wall surfaces, with single rooms to the ground and first floors. The first floor is accessed by a plain timber stair with no risers that is set against the west wall, and has an exposed principal rafter roof. The first floor of the main range is accessed from the courtyard by an external doorway, at the west end of the north elevation; an enclosed plain timber stair with no risers or balustrade opens to the L-plan first floor. The walls all have white-washed surfaces. A room has been formed by an internal brick and plank partition wall at the eastern end of the east-west range. The partition wall supports the ends of two trusses of the roof of the north-south range. The roof is exposed over both ranges, the east-west range had a gabled principal rafter roof carried on a single principal rafter truss; however the truss has been cut and truncated, leaving what amounts to a common rafter roof. The north-south range has a hipped principal rafter roof with wrought-iron king posts and braces.

COURTYARD: the sub-rectangular plan courtyard is accessed from Chapel Lane by the carriageway entrance, beneath the north office and warehouse range. It has a poured blue-grey concrete surface that has been moulded to give the appearance of stone sets and falls to a number of decorative cast-iron drain gullies. The surface immediately in front of the carriageway entrance has broken up and exposes the plain concrete floor beneath.

History

Standidge Buildings were built as a speculative development on part of the site of Dossor’s Brewery in 1884, for Matthew Whitfield, a wholesale grocer who had offices in Bishop Lane. The buildings were probably named after Sir Samuel Standidge (1725 – 1801), who had held the offices of both the Mayor of Hull and the Sheriff of Hull. The building was restored in November 1889 after it suffered a fire which destroyed much of the interior woodwork. The depiction of the property on the 1891 1:500 and 1893 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey maps, suggest that the complex once extended S as far as Bishop Lane, but by the 1910 map edition the extent had been reduced to the present plan. In 1893, it was occupied by Harker and Co, importers of mats and bags, and Revell and Co, bookbinders. Around the turn of C20, the property was obtained by James Hindle and Co Ltd, wine and spirit merchants, ale and stout bottlers, and aerated water & cordial manufacturer, whose trademark was the Wilberforce memorial.

In 1924 the company had become the agents for the sparkling fruit drink Vimto. The 1925 Goad fire insurance map indicates that the complex consisted of a courtyard enclosed by a store, a bottling house, a bottle washing room with a store over, and an office block with a central cart entrance and an empties store above. During the 1920s, the company’s fortunes declined and on Tuesday 19 November 1929, an announcement was placed in the Hull Daily Times indicating that the business had been bought by another aerated water manufacturer: Robinson and Speight Ltd of 15-18 Blackfriargate, Hull. The production and bottling of aerated water came to a close in 1935, when the owners opened a modern bottling plant at their works in Blackfriargate. The buildings were sold at auction on Thursday 28 November and were subsequently occupied by a number of businesses including, Messrs Peter Cassidy, Ltd, lifting equipment, and Messrs Gasschalk and Austin, solicitors. The pulley beam attached to the main elevation of building functioned as a business sign for Messrs Peter Cassidy, Ltd, who eventually transferred their business to Leeds in 1961. Standidge Buildings are currently (2017) occupied by a lighting supplier.

Reasons for Listing

Standidge Buildings, built 1884, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest
* Distinctiveness: the building is a good example of a small-scale, late-C19, urban courtyard warehouse complex, built in brick with a good-quality terracotta office frontage;
* Completeness: a little-altered integrated courtyard warehouse complex that remains largely intact;
* Design: the plan form and appearance reflects the specific function the complex was intended to fulfil.

Historic Interest
* Association with the Temperance Movement: built as a wholesale grocers warehouse for the storage of and distribution of goods within the City of Hull, its conversion into a mineral water bottling works reflected the substantial late-C19 and early-C20 demand for aerated waters, particularly by the Temperance Movement in this strongly Nonconformist city.

External Links

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