Summary
A railway hotel of 1849-1850 with extensions of around 1850 and 1938, by William Wallen for the Ramsden Estate, with later alterations.
Reasons for Designation
The George Hotel, Huddersfield, a railway hotel of 1849-1850 by William Wallen, with extensions of around 1850 and 1938, and later alterations, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a good example of a railway hotel dating from the ‘heroic’ period of railway expansion (1841-1850), with grand architecture in an Italianate style incorporating high-quality decorative detailing;
* it retains much of its early plan form and C19 decorative joinery and plasterwork, as well as good quality 1930s alterations in the lobby and former dining room; the decorative detailing demonstrating a hierarchy of status throughout the building.
Historic interest:
* for its role as the site of the foundation of the sport of Rugby League in 1895, and retaining the Commercial Room (the most likely location for the meeting of the northern clubs) with very little-altered historic character;
* it is one of Huddersfield’s mid-C19 purpose-built commercial premises constructed as part of the Ramsden Estate’s New Town development, an example of town planning almost without precedent in terms of scale and ambition at the time;
* its plan form illustrates the transition between coaching inns and commercial hotels.
Group value:
* it has strong group value with numerous highly graded listed buildings that face onto St George’s Square, which were constructed following the arrival of the Leeds-Manchester Railway and as part of the New Town development, including the Grade I railway station and Grade II* Britannia Buildings opposite the George Hotel.
History
The George Hotel was constructed from 1849 to 1850 to designs by William Wallen of London and Huddersfield, assisted by Charles Child of Todmorden and Halifax. The contractor was Joseph Kaye, who also built the neighbouring railway station, and his winning quote is said to have been selected as it proposed using stone left over from the station's construction.
The hotel was commissioned by Sir John William Ramsden, 5th Bart, as a replacement for the George Inn, which the Ramsden family had built to the north of the market place in 1726, and then rebuilt in 1787 (the George Inn’s facade was re-erected on St Peter's Street in 1852 as the frontage of a warehouse and showrooms, NHLE 1275295). The Ramsdens were Lords of the Manor of Huddersfield from the C16 and owned the town and most of the surrounding land.
The opening of Huddersfield railway station in 1847 acted as a catalyst for a new planned development by the Ramsden Estate to the north of the town's earlier centre of economic activity, which was focussed around Westgate, Kirkgate and the Cloth Hall. The single land ownership allowed an example of town planning to be created that was almost without precedent in terms of scale and ambition. The development of 'New Town' was led by George Loch, agent of the Ramsden Estate, and was laid out on a grid pattern. The plans involved the creation of John William Street, running northwards to link the market place with a new square known as St George's Square in front of the station. The George Hotel was the first part of the development to be completed, and overlooked the new square.
The development of New Town is illustrative of late-C19 tensions between landed estates and new layers of local government. Over the next thirty years previously open land was developed into a bold and cohesive town planning scheme, but the corporation disagreed with the estate’s proposals for a new town hall and blocked its development. Eventually, after secret negotiations, the corporation bought the family's freehold Huddersfield estate for £1.3m in 1920, earning Huddersfield the nickname of ‘the town that bought itself’.
Shortly after the main range of the George Hotel was built, a three-storey east wing was added facing John William Street. The 1874 plans drawn for a proposed north-west wing show that the east wing contained a large dining room on the ground floor, billiards room on the first floor, and bedrooms above, with the upper floors accessed by a staircase at the north end.
In 1874 a two-storey north-west wing was added as a service range, containing a kitchen and laundry. As a result, the original kitchen, which was located at the west end of the front range's ground floor, became redundant. It later became part of a meeting and restaurant space known as the Charter Suite. The 1874 plans also proposed a new first-floor bow window to a coffee room occupying this end of the first floor of the original building. A historic photograph shows the hotel prior to the building of the 1874 wing and shows an entrance facing the railway station, although no early plans show such an entrance, suggesting it was blocked-up early in the building’s history. Plans of 1889 also appear to propose this bow window, this time at both ground and first-floor level, to serve a ground-floor billiard room and first-floor dining room. This suggests that the bow window was not implemented in 1874, and actually dates from after 1889 – it appears to be extant on a drawing dated April 1891. By 1889 the first floor of the east wing was subdivided into three large rooms accessed by an external first-floor corridor.
The glazed entrance canopy was added in 1926. In the late 1930s the lobby in the main range was opened out, and the basement and ground floor of the north-east wing remodelled, together with the replacement in brick of its former timber first-floor external corridor, and alterations to the attic accommodation. The 1930s alterations also included the creation of a ballroom in the former courtyard, extending into a totally-rebuilt north-west wing which extended northwards right to John William Street.
In 1963 the north-west wing's laundry and staff accommodation were further altered and converted into larger guest bedrooms, and an extra storey was added. The three large rooms on the first floor of the north-east wing were also converted in 1963 to provide further bedrooms.
More recently, most bedrooms throughout were divided to create en-suite bathrooms and the service stair was replaced with a lift. The north-west rooms from the second floor up were converted to a fire escape stair.
The building was listed at Grade II* in 1977. It is currently (2022) closed and under repair.
A particularly important aspect of the George Hotel's history is a meeting held in the building in 1895, which is recorded on a blue plaque that now adorns the exterior. From 1871 the sport of rugby was governed by the Rugby Football Union (RFU), but from the 1890s there was growing discord between northern and southern clubs. Southern clubs, which largely comprised middle-class teams, wanted the sport to retain its amateur status, but northern clubs, which largely comprised working-class teams, sought compensation for work missed whilst playing games, on tour, and due to injuries sustained on the field (‘broken time’ payments). The RFU forbade broken time payments and on Thursday 29 August 1895, 22 leading rugby union clubs from Yorkshire and Lancashire met at the George Hotel to discuss their dispute with the RFU. The ground-floor rooms later known as the Charter Suite have been suggested as the location for the meeting. However, the plans of 1889-1891 propose these rooms as public areas including a billiard room and restaurant, and an unlikely venue for such a meeting. This is more likely to have been held in the hotel’s premier meeting space, the Commercial Room, on the first floor of the main range overlooking the square. 21 of the clubs (all but Dewsbury) voted to secede from the Rugby Football Union and set up their own Northern Rugby Football Union. By the time the first games of the new code were played in early September 1895 Runcorn had also joined the new union, and Dewsbury joined in 1898. The union became the Rugby Football League in 1922 and is commonly known as Rugby League.
William Wallen (1803-1888) trained in the office of his architect father John, and by 1849 was based in Huddersfield. He designed several churches in the area in the same period as the George Hotel, including St Luke, Milnsbridge in (NHLE 1313530) and St Paul’s, Shepley (NHLE 1313293). He was admitted to York’s Bootham Hospital for lunatics in 1853 and spent the rest of his life there.
Details
A railway hotel of 1849-1850 with extensions of around 1850 and 1938, by William Wallen for the Ramsden Estate, with alterations of the C19 and C20.
MATERIALS: buff sandstone, painted brick, slate mansard roof.
PLAN: right-angled triangle around a roofed courtyard, with south-facing double-pile main range, narrow north wing at the east end, and single-depth north-west wing* on the hypotenuse (the north-west wing is not of special interest and is excluded from the listing).
EXTERIOR: prominently sited at the centre of the Huddersfield Town Centre Conservation Area, overlooking St George’s Square in front of the railway station and also fronting onto John William Street.
The main range faces south and is of four storeys plus an attic in the mansard, with unseen basement, and ashlar stacks. The eaves cornice is deeply moulded with console-shaped triglyphs, between which are paterae alternating with nail-head panels. The ground floor is rusticated, with ashlar above and to the plinth. Moulded strings run above the ground and first floors. The angles have moulded alternating quoins. The centre breaks forward slightly (flanked by short blind bays) with seven stacks of sashes with glazing bars: those on the ground floor with vermiculated quoins and keys; those on the first floor with moulded and lugged surrounds, sills on brackets, full entablatures, triangular pediments to bays 2 and 6, and segmental pediment on console-shaped scrolls to bay 4; those on the second floor with moulded and lugged surrounds and sills on brackets, and those on the third floor with moulded and lugged surrounds. The attic dormers have casements and segmental pediments.
The east façade to John William Street is of three bays of similar appearance with two ridge stacks, with a three-storey-plus-mansard extension to the right. The central first-floor window of the main range has a stone balcony on five deep moulded consoles, with moulded handrail, panelled newels, balustrade composed of intersecting stone circles, and roundel with St George in relief. The extension has an eaves cornice and is of five bays, of which the outer two are recessed, with rusticated quoins where the centre breaks forward. The outer bays have windows in plain surrounds and the inner ones have three arched windows linked by a moulded impost on the ground floor; paired outer and single central segment-headed sashes with glazing bars in moulded and lugged surrounds with keystones on the first floor, and three windows with moulded and lugged surrounds on the second floor. At the right is the single-storey flat-roofed east return of the north-west service wing*, which is excluded from the listing.
The west façade of the main range is of three bays and one to the north slightly set back, and similar to the front façade but with plain surrounds to the ground-floor windows and long scrolled consoles supporting the sills of the first-floor windows. The north bay has a bow window to the ground and first floors with a moulded cornice and parapet, and three windows like the others but without entablature at first floor, and one ground-floor window.
Angled away at the left is a four-storey, twelve-bay north-west service wing*, with a prominent circular chimney* in the angle connecting this wing to the main building. The north-west wing and chimney are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing.
The rear elevation of the main range has arched stair windows with imposts and keystones, and plain surrounds to other windows. The rear courtyard-facing elevation of the north-east range matches that of the main range, but is obscured at first floor by the painted-brick corridor.
INTERIOR: the main range retains much of its original layout and decorative scheme, most notably on the first floor which has higher ceilings, double-height skirting, moulded dado rails, deeply moulded cornicing, double-filleted door-and-window architraves with panelled jambs and reveals (some concealed beneath later coverings), and some original six-panelled doors. The former Commercial Room has a decorative plaster ceiling, elaborate cornice and two pedimented doorcases. The upper floors have progressively simpler detailing (reflecting their status) which also survives well.
The ground-floor former Charter Suite retains much of its 1870s or 1880s interior and a storeroom outside the suite also retains small areas of the 1850 plaster cornice and wall decoration of a former corridor. The 1930s lobby survives well, with scagliola columns, decorative skirtings and cornice in Art Deco-influenced Classical style, a timber fire surround and a curved display cabinet at the foot of the stairs, and doors leading to the ballroom. The open-well main staircase has decorative cast-iron balusters and timber handrail. Its lower flight is enclosed and so without a balustrade; the handrail of the return flight to the first floor rises in a curve from the nose of the bottom step, in Art Deco style. Over the lower flight is a relief of St George. The basement retains vaulted ceilings and stone flag floors and a bricked-up stone fireplace.
The ground-floor dining room of the north-east wing retains its 1930s decorative scheme which matches that of the lobby, including Art Deco glazed doors. The ballroom* is located to the rear of the main range but runs in to form part of the north-west wing. The ballroom* has lost its sprung dance floor and is not of special interest. The hotel's upper floors retain original joinery and some cornicing above false ceilings, along with some original plasterwork in corridors. The attic retains original roof trusses, supplemented by later steel.
The north-west wing*, which includes the west end of the ballroom*, is not of special interest and is excluded from the listing.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: there are cast-iron railings with vase finials to the kerb of the stone-flagged area at the west end of the south front, and the south end of the west front.
* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the north-west wing, including the associated chimney, east return onto John William Street, and ballroom, are not of special architectural or historic interest. However, any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require LBC and this is a matter for the LPA to determine.
