Wapping School, Bradford
Derelict school to be demolished in Bradford:
Photo: Telegraph and Argus
Although grade II listed, this 1877 building is in ruin and will be demolished to make way for a new college. At this stage it is understandable that the building is beyond salvage, and having become a node for antisocial behaviour, will be cleared. The developer (LIFE Church) has made attempts to salvage some of the stone work and one of the gable ends of the building, but in reality the essence of the Victorian School will be gone.
The building should have never been allowed to fall into this state, and we need to look for innovative solutions for the reuse of our more nuanced Victorian heritage assets. Schools, mills, churches, and pubs are all problematic in re-purposing, yet there are heritage champions out there that need to be facilitated by local authorities to invest and develop such buildings.
The massing promises to reflect the existing building, but this will only result in a pastiche development. This development being an educational facility I imagine a process of value engineering will negate any attempts to be sensitive with building materials. There is no way around it – this is another beautiful Victorian school lost to history.
Fountain Inn, Heaton
Application to demolish a long term vacant pub in Bradford:
Image from Telegraph and Argus.
April was a busy month in Bradford for conservation officers, this being the first of many threatened buildings to have an application to demolish levied against it.
The building is unremarkable, but the setting is an unspoilt Victorian townscape, with stone setts on the ground and narrow coursing of stone masonry on elevations (Greenmore rock perhaps?)
The pub alone can not be saved on grounds of heritage significance, but it will be to the detriment of the sense of place in this Bradfordian suburb when a cavity remains after this building falls.
Not many places like this remain. One fewer in the next few months.
Buildings in central Sheffield
Plans to demolish buildings on Upper Allen Street:
Sweet cluster of buildings to be needlessly demolished and replaced by flats. Do the develops not understand that the very market to which they appeal likes old quirky urban high streets.
Go and buy a copy of Jane Jacob’s book The Life and Death of Great American Cities. Lesson 1; small building plots, rhythmic high streets, buildings of diverse ages….
I adore these buildings, which would never pass by building regs these days. And that is what makes them geometrically interesting, inimitable, and human.
Sir Georges Arms, Wombwell
Demolition of pub in Barnsley:
A unique elevation combining two architectural styles, divided by an undulating course. This pub is also exceeding tall for the area and presents something of a landmark to be lost when this application is inevitably approved.
I’m sure local interest in pubs will have its renaissance, but not quite before all the pubs have been demolished.
Incidentally, there is a Wetherspoons operating just up the road…the word uncercut comes to mind.
Former Miners’ Welfare Institute, Methley
Plan to demolish care home and former ball room in Methley:
https://publicaccess.leeds.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=P2OU60JBGYA00
A domineering mock Tudor civic building from the turn of the 20th century, this building represents an interesting departure from the red brick materiality of the coal field mining villages.
Steeped in history, the building was most recently used as an extra care facility. The council now wanting to raise receipts for assets such as this closed the facility and sold off the land to a private extra care facility provider.
Whether or not the building is suitable for extra care provision is not for me so say, but I know that when I reach the autumn of my life, I’d rather live in a beautiful historic building than a utilitarian ‘facility’.
Why can we not use redundant historic buildings as homes for the elderly? What better way to live out your hard earned old age, than to be the custodian of a piece of history.
Cottage in Thornhill Lees
Demolition of a cottage near Dewsbury:
Such an elegant cottage in the heart of the of the Heavy Woollen District. When school children draw a house, this is what they think of.
An impressive 4 to 1 replacement ratio is planned for this site. Quite a bold application, and would naturally the loss of this very handsome building that is unmistakably English and even identifiable as West Yorkshire stock such is this window into the pre-globalised world. The patina that darkens up the elevation is perfection, as are the weathered harris’ of each stone roof tile.
Somehow Victorian stone cottages meet a grass lawn in way architects have yet to reproduce. Lets hope we keep a few dotted around. Make the right decision Kirklees, please.
Shoulder of Mutton, Morley
Pub in Morley to be Demolished:
6 houses with 15 parking spaces to be built out in Morley, which continues to be a thriving housing market for the new middle class of West Yorkshire.
Formally serving the people of Bruntcliffe, any notion of a village life has slowly dissipated with motorways and industrial parks replacing the colliery and the mills.
A quick glance at the building footprint, and 4 dwellings could easily be accommodated here, with 2 more in the curtilage.
What further astounds is the roaring trade the Toby Carvery is doing down the road. I think that says more than I ever could about suburban Yorkshire life in the 21st century.
Wagon and Horses Inn, Leeds Road, Huddersfield
Formally Ricky’s Bar, formally Wagon and Horses Inn, to be demolished to make way for a car showroom forecourt:
So sad to see this pub go, which I believe was snapped up at auction following the bankruptcy of the eponymous Ricky. Particularly tragic is the loss would be to create a car sales forecourt, of which there are already so many on Leeds Road, making this corridor more so an exposed and dull place.
This would represent further erosion of the street front of Leeds Road which has slowly disappeared over the last century to be replaced by miscellaneous uses found on the fringes of towns that require cheap and ease of vehicular access.
In spite of there now being a premier league football team playing home games a stones throw away, I imagine arguments about viability would still militate against the retention of this building. I hope Kirklees can somehow block this application, but I somehow doubt it.
We demolish public houses next to football stadiums. That is the modern state of land use planning.
Crown Street Car Park, Leeds
Application to demolish a number of Victorian Buildings along a back lane in Leeds City Centre:
What concerns me about this application is not the loss of the buildings – albeit reprehensible to destroy the Victorian urban grain – rather it is the opportunity cost of developing this site and not creating much needed city centre green space that dismays me.
This could have been a beautiful setting for some breathing space in Leeds, with the backdrop of a railway viaduct, the disordered roofscape of Kirkgate, and the Corn Exchange.
The Victorians would have ensured this space was civic. How they did that seems to be a lost art.
Clocktower, Lockwood, Huddersfield
Application to demolish the clocktower at the former Mount Pleasant School:
The school was redeveloped following the demolition of the Victorian school building (the powers that be unable to differentiate between shoddy facilities and dilapidated interior, and an important robust vernacular building).
Yet Kirklees have slyly slipped this application in a few days before Christmas. No one will notice that right? Yes, absolutely we will notice.
The tower was initially thought to be saved after a hard fought campaign. However the building was rejected from listing status due to the incomplete nature of the site, however historic England recommended a local listing. I doubt such a mechanism actually exists in Lockwood.
The Demolition Register 