Summary
A textile (wool) warehouse of 1872 with later alterations.
Reasons for Designation
3 Wellington Street, Dewsbury, constructed in 1872, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it is a good 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 in Classical style originally designed to impress and convey the status and quality of the goods and business contained within;
* retaining some interior features of interest, in particular its roof-mounted hoist mechanism.
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
3 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 while the building to the west (23 and 25 Wellington Road) had been developed, this building had not. The building was constructed in 1872 and incorporates a datestone to the front. It is believed to have been designed by the local architects firm of John Kirk and Sons, and the building’s detailing has similarities with other Dewsbury buildings designed by them.
The first Goad fire insurance map of Dewsbury, published in 1887, marks the building (then numbered 1 Wellington Street) as a wool and hair warehouse occupied by Bielefield (sic) Bros. Bielefeld Bros were listed as commission agents in an 1881 trade directory, with one of only two addresses in Wellington Street. Bielefeld Bros and Wertheim had been listed as wool and hair importers in a directory of 1870, with an address in Wellington Road. As this predates the likely construction of this building, and the name Bielefeld doesn’t tie in with the JW monogram on the building, this building might have been built for another firm, although it is possible that the Wertheim connection links to the monogram. A report of a fire in the Wellington Street warehouse of Bielsfeld (sic) Bros confirms that they were here by 1878. The 1887 Goad map also shows that by then there was some interconnection with 23 and 25 Wellington Road, and Bielefelds might have also occupied that building.
The Goad map of 1893 still shows the interconnection, but this building is marked as vacant. By the Goad map of 1958, the interconnecting doors had been blocked and this building had become 3 Wellington Street). It was still used as a warehouse but no longer for textiles, with a bakery on the first floor. The building was converted to office use late in the C20, with limited alteration including an inserted modern staircase and lift in the south-west corner, and an inserted south-east entrance. The bottom sashes of the front windows are routered replacements, to the original design.
Details
A textile (wool) warehouse of 1872, probably by John Kirk and Sons, possibly for Bielefeld and Wertheim, with alterations.
MATERIALS: buff sandstone walls, slate roof with lead central flat.
PLAN: irregularly pentagonal, facing east with a cranked south wall, and abutted to the west by 23 and 25 Wellington Road and to the north by 5 Wellington Street.
EXTERIOR: standing in the Dewsbury Town Centre Conservation Area at the south end of a block of smaller warehouses. The building is of five storeys, in a Classical palazzo style.
To Wellington Street is a five-bay ashlar frontage with a rusticated ground floor (in 2022, painted). The ground and first floors each have a bracketed cornice; that to the ground floor forming a first-floor sill band, and with horizontal labels between the brackets. Each of the three floors above has a sill band and cornice, with horizontal niches below the sills, and moulded window architraves flanked by vertical niches. The main entrance has a shouldered, flat head and a replacement door. To the left are two replacement windows, and a wide modern entrance. All other windows are two-over-two timber sashes. Four first-floor windows have shouldered, flat heads; at the right is a half-height window with foliate-shouldered architrave, surmounted by foliate carving and a cartouche with the monogram J W and the date 1872 in relief. The roof is hipped to all sides.
The north wall is obscured at the ground and first floor by number 5. Above this, the wall is of coursed stone, with four windows to each floor, linked by ashlar sill and lintel bands. The eaves cornice returns along this façade.
To Back Nelson Street the eaves cornice also returns. The six-bay façade is cranked between bays 2 and 3 (from the left). Windows are linked by ashlar sill and lintel bands. Bay 4 has former loading doorways, with a hoist jib. All the openings on both side walls have replacement uPVC windows.
INTERIOR: the original roof structure, and structural cast-iron columns and timber beams remain (boxed-in in places), and the hoist mechanism is also retained in the roof structure. Modern partitions and finishes have been added, but the brickwork of the outer walls is largely exposed.
