Walking from Cornbrook toward Stretford along Chester Road – which is one half of my Tram Trip to Altrincham
There is a cluster of former industrial buildings around Empress Street.
First up is the Empress Brewery.
The Empress Brewing Company was established by Charles Dawes in c. 1880, although the company was sold to William Henry Fulford in 1884, who had recently sold the Monarch Brewery in Salford. Fulford was based at the Empress Brewery on Clarence Street in Manchester, but had relocated to new premises on 383 Chester Road. These had been built in 1889 and operated initially as the Old Trafford Brewing Company, but the name had changed to the Empress Brewery Company by 1895. The company acquired a number of breweries and associated licenced house during the early 20th century, however, in 1929 it was taken over by Peter Walker and Son. The brewery closed in 1955.
The building was converted into offices in 1992 as part of the development of the Empress Business Centre, which saw new office and business units built to form a courtyard.
Including the Queens Arms on Honey Street Red Bank, one of the first independent real boozers back in the 1980’s, subsequently it has seen various uses last seen on my Collyhurst Circular walk.
The development of the site can be traced from the sequence of Ordnance Survey 1:2500 maps. The First Edition of 1893 shows the site as undeveloped. The First Revision map of 1908 shows 384 Chester Road to have been developed, and the site of the National Works to have been occupied by an open-fronted L-shaped range along the western and southern sides, with a detached rectangular building in a central courtyard. It is possible that these buildings all formed part of 384 Chester Road, listed as being occupied by H, G & O Lewtas, lamp manufacturers, in Slater’s trade directory for 1911. The Second Revision map of 1922 shows the early building to have been subsumed by the current building.
1961 Local Image Collection
Later the home of Lion Foodpackers Ltd and Crimpy Crisps.
Situated on the lower ground floor of a gorgeous, red brick, landmark building, this 2 double bedroom apartment merits further inspection. A good size living room opens on to a good fitted kitchen. It also has a great, spacious shower room. It also benefits from a parking space, although a great attraction is the location, being just 1 mile from Deansgate and the City along with being 10 minutes walk to a Metro station.
Then we have the Veno’s Building, which was once a pharmaceutical company founded by William Henry Veno. He established a company in the US before returning to Britain and founded the Veno drug Company in Manchester in 1898.
In 1925 the company was sold to Beecham Estate and Pills Ltd. In the 60s the building was under the name Progress House and was home to the Co-Operative Press Limited, later to become Trafford Press.
Rare sighting of a Profil aka Stymie Bold Italic hyphen.
Designed by brothers Max and Eugen Lenz and first cast by Haas in 1947.
The front elevation was originally in red brick, with a later faience facade applied.
Veno’s a stalled and cursed development. In 1925 William Henry Veno sold his company for £500,000, a decision he later rued. He sought to enhance his million pound fortune but lost everything through speculative investments and the 1929 Depression. He shot himself at his home during a fit of impulsive insanity.
It was also the home of Germolene, a thick antiseptic ointment with a distinctive pink colour and scented with oil of wintergreen
Thanks to L Kaye and the Manchester Local Image Collection there is a photographic record of Tib Street through the years.
Shot on 35mm black and white film, cautiously clad in gaberdine and trilby. The legwork aside the processing and printing of a whole heap of exposures was a gargantuan task.
The river’s source is a spring in Miles Platting , from where it flows underneath Oldham Road and the eponymous Tib Street to reach the city centre. After flowing underneath West Mosley Street, the Tib crosses Princess Street to flow underneath the Manchester Town Hall Extension, the Central Library and the Midland Hotel’s dining room, before joining the Medlock at Gaythorn (now First Street, close to Deansgate railway station.
The distinctive street signs the work of my old pal Tim Rushton.
There are those who will remember Tib Street, as a street of pet shops.
Whilst on Sundays the area was transformed into an al fresco menagerie – a land of caged birds and cuddly coneys.
I have long been curious about the faience fronted shop on the corner of Tib and Swan Streets, it featured on my modernist mooch around the north of the city centre.
I have been informed by Lee Hutchings that it had originally been home to Tuttils Ltd.
It was also, formerly the showrooms for local manufacturers Johnson & Nephew.
Here it is in 1959 – with a Burton’s for a neighbour.
Pragmatic Manchester is far from awash with Art Deco – the lost Paramount/Odeon of Oxford Street comes to mind, demolished in 2017.
The Paramount Theatre was built in 1930 to the designs of architects Frank T. Verity & Samuel Beverley for the U.K. arm of the American Paramount Theatres Ltd. chain. The Manchester Paramount Theatre was a sumptuous American import.
Along with the Rylands Building on High Street – currently receiving a facelift following the demise of Debenhams.
The building was originally built as a warehouse by J. Gerrard & Sons of Swinton for the Rylands textile company, which was founded by the entrepreneur John Rylands. That firm had occupied warehouses in High Street ever since 1822; its west-facing side is on High Street. The building was designed by the eminent Manchester architects, Fairhursts – Harry S. & P. G. Fairhurst, in an Art Deco style. It is clad in Portland stone and features a decorative corner tower and eclectic ‘zig zag’ window lintels. The work was completed in 1932.
Rylands will be sensitively restored to its elegant past. The building will comprise workspace, retail and leisure, creating an exciting new destination in Central Manchester.
Arriving by train and ascending into the light – here’s the station lights.
The railway station has sharpened up its apron and facade.
We have transformed the station forecourt. It has become a quality gateway which delivers a great first impression for visitors arriving in Doncaster by train. This will help stimulate interest from investors and developers, helping to attract new investment and create jobs for the borough and wider region.
Celebrating engineering, speed and connectivity and stretching forty metres in length the public art at Doncaster Station consists of forty seven monoliths which are a nod to Doncaster’s past, present and future. With a fountain and three impressive water walls, the art takes centre stage in the new public space as you step out of the train station and head into the town centre.
The concept was devised by Doncaster Council and further developed by Chris Brammall.
Typically the high and low streets of Britain’s industrial towns and cities, are an amalgam of architectural style and fashion, spanning at least two or three centuries.
Behind the buff faience frontage is a lovely, small two-room pub with a well preserved interior created under plans of 1934. It was remodelled by the Grimsby brewers Hewitt Brothers Ltd who were Doncaster’s biggest pub owners for many years.
Of course, every town had a Burton’s – the tailor of taste.
This post war infill has that distinctive Festival of Britain feel, original metal window frames, Portland stone and blueish slate like panels.
The revamped Frenchgate Shopping Centre, officially opened on October 4th 1968, has in places an upper tier, resistant to zinc over cladding.
The centre has been the heart of the city for over 40 years and was originally called the Arndale Centre because it was built, owned and managed by the Arndale Group. It was renamed in 1988 after a change of ownership, with the new name reflecting the name of the street which passes to the east of the centre and which is one of Doncaster’s main shopping streets.
The sale of the centre came just a year after Frenchgate had undergone a £200 million facelift to transform it into the country’s first shopping centre with integrated public transport and retail interchange.
We propose this is fundamentally transformed though the addition of apartments that wrap along the back of the first-floor retail with a further 2.5 new storeys placed on top. We also feel additional height -up to seven or eight storeys, is justifiable to the corner of Frenchgate and Trafford Way.
The Lovers were once located in the Arndale, removed to a local garden, unloved – then later reinstated in the Waterdale Centre, where we will embrace them a little later.
Turn right to take in the 1920s mosaic remake remodel of the Grade II listed Blue Building.
The Blue Building which used to be the Doncaster Design Centre and Tourist Information Centre was originally the home of John Whitaker, a wine merchant, and son of James Whitaker who was Mayor of Doncaster in 1758.
In 1925 the complete building was demolished apart from the facade which was retained and given a facing of decorative blue tiles. The intention was to build a shopping arcade from High Street to Printing Office Street. Only part of the arcade, known as the Westminster Arcade was built. It had a number of shops, the largest being that of Woodhouse & Co Furnishers.
Two adjacent 60s extensions – to the right a redundant post office to the left an almost redundant telephone exchange, with the earlier brick built exchange in smack dab the middle.
Turn another corner and it’s all at the Co-op now – the Grade II listed Danum Co-operativeBuilding, department store and offices: 1938-40 designed by T H Johnson & Son for the Doncaster Co-operative Society Ltd.
Over the road a zig-zag Halifax Building Society branch, tightly contorted by its corner footprint.
To the right of the Danum, this former Boyes store, having relocated to the Wilko site, the building is ripe for residential conversion.
To the left the Colonnades Shopping Centre a fierce angular glass and brick bunker of mixed office and retail space – the sole occupant seeming to be Home Bargains.
A £3.3m makeover of the Colonnades shopping mall in Doncaster town centre was completed in 2019.
The scheme of works was co-ordinated by Doncaster Council and funded by the Sheffield City Region Local Growth Fund.
Built in the 1980s, the brick built building received a major overhaul. The investment saw the visual appearance enhanced inside and out. The five floors were transformed into the prime office space needed in the town centre and the enhancements to the retail area were also finished.
The shift in the town’s axis to the Frenchgate and Market areas, seems to have taken the wind out of its sails.
The former flicks now a redundant pale brick behemoth – no more and ABC.
Doncaster’s new £250,000 ABC cinema, part of the Golden Acres development near the town centre, was opened on May 18th 1967.
Closed in January 1981 for conversion into a triple screen it re-opened on 9th April 1981 with seating in the three screens for 477, 201 and 135.
The Cannon Group took control in the mid-1980’s and it was re-named Cannon and it closed on 18th June 1992, screening its opening film Doctor Zhivago.
Cinema Treasures
The Golden Acres development seemed to have morphed into the Waterdale Centre.
It is currently being reshaped to provide a line of desire twixt the Civic and Cultural areas, from the town centre. There are still the remnants of homes, shops and a pub amongst the demolition – almost inevitably there is new paving.
Waterdale is a well-known part of Doncaster’s town centre. During its heyday it was a bustling area with people flocking to shops and the like – it was a place you had to visit while you were in town. However, it had suffered a steady decline which continued when the southern bus station closed – Frenchgate Interchange opening, and Doncaster College moved to the Hub at the Waterfront. With limited public transport entering the area and no student population on its doorstep, less people had reason to pass through.
Demolition of the College.
The Civic and Cultural Quarter is transforming Waterdale reconnecting it to the town centre. The quality and content of the plans is raising the profile of this part of town to new levels. The carefully thought out layout and consistent building design is giving the area a clear identity. It is already becoming a big attraction that draws people in and encourages redevelopment in the neighbouring areas.
The weary walker is diverted toward the Civic Quarter Car Park.
The former Civic Offices are to be demolished.
Demolition of the Central Library is well under way.
Facing the former library we find the CAST Theatre, Civic Buildings and Savoy Cinema, grouped around Sir Nigel Gresley Square.
Within the square is a frieze, salvaged from the former Gaumont Cinema, the work of sculptor Newbury Abbot Trent.
The Gaumont Palace Theatre in Hall Gate at the corner of Thorne Road, Doncaster opened on 3rd September 1934 with Jesse Matthews in Evergreen.
It was designed by architects WE Trent and W Sydney Trent.
In 1949 WH Price the Borough Surveyor produced an outline plan for the area, with a green space at its heart, it was never realised. In 1955 Frederick Gibberd produced his plan to include a ten storey Town Hall, Art School, Technical College and Civic Theatre, revised and reduced in 1963 – eventually his Police Station and Law Courts were completed in 1969.
The former NHS Clinic at the ‘T Junction’ is transformed into a day care service.
The building was designed in the office of the Doncaster Borough Architect’s Department in a team led by borough architect Mr LJ Tucker.
The ceramic designs were a later addition when it was discovered that the large open areas of glass overheated almost everything inside, the work was undertaken by LJ Tucker and family.
The sculptural work by Franta Belsky, now has a skip for company.
As a footnote the work by Fabio Barraclough reveals a murky past.
Barraclough was born in Madrid in 1923, to a Spanish mother and Yorkshire father who founded Madrid’s Chamber of Commerce. He moved to London with his family in the 1930s as a refugee from Francoist Spain. He taught fine art and sculpture at Rugby School, where colleagues considered him “highly entertaining, a most unorthodox and highly gifted” teacher. He established himself during the 1960s and early 1970s as an authority on sculpture, publishing in academic journals and becoming a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
In 2000, it was revealed that Barraclough, while outwardly living the life of anti-apartheid activist since the 1970s, had been a paid informant of the South African state security police. The media was used to promote his image as a “brilliant, liberal artist with apparently impeccable credentials” in order to gain public trust, while he was funnelling money from anti-apartheid groups to the police. He died on 6th January 2019.
Over the way faros the green sward is St Peter in Chains RC – A large and striking design by JH Langtry-Langton, incorporating important furnishings by J F Bentley from the predecessor church, along with good furnishings of the 1970s. The churches houses the modern successor to the medieval shrine of Our Lady of Doncaster.
Figurative stained glass by Patrick Feeny for Hardman in 1973 and abstract glass fitted in 2000 as part of reordering and revival of the shrine.
Designed by architects Bond Bryan and built by main contractor Willmott Dixon, the new cultural and learning hub has been created following the restoration of four existing buildings.
A key focal point of the scheme is the restored frontage of the Edwardian former Doncaster High School for Girls, which has been framed by Senior’s slimline SF52 aluminium curtain wall and showcased within a new steel-frame building. The glazed facade, which was fabricated and installed by Senior’s supply chain partner Chemplas, also features Senior’s aluminium commercial doors.
Whilst walking the length of Hessle Road, up and back – taking the air, snaps, the sights and sounds, I came upon a fine Faience tiled frontage.
I began photographing, wandering dangerously into the space between the slip road and the flyover. A shout rang out, emanating from the boozer, the landlord called me over.
“Do you want to take a look inside?”
“Yes”.
A listed interior the new landlord is working hard along with Historic England to restore the capacious rooms to their former glory, including the entrance mosaic and ceiling – images P Hampel
Inheriting a whole heap of issues and a grey parrot called Sparky.
But the boozer is now up and running serving cask ale to throngs of first class thirsty customers.
The Yorkshire Brewhouse 1904 ended mid week when we’re normally closed but we were asked to open for a group of very thirsty sailors. We moved on to Reet, another Yorkshire Brewhouse beer and thanks to the football that one has gone too. It’s back to the YBH Faithful Stout once again. I’d come quick and get it while you can.
Once two pubs the Hessle Road Inn was subsumed by the Alexandra. The area was once home to the city’s Jewish Community – the cemetery survives next door.
There are Star of David motifs incorporated into the windows, sympathetic to this local heritage.
Built around 1895, designed by Smith, Brodrick and Walker, with late C20 alterations – British Listed Buildings.
It’s a fabulous pub which deserves to thrive – pop in for a pint if you’re passing, just watch out for low flying parrots.
Modern Mooch 