Edgar Wood around Huddersfield
Banney Royd - a Grade One listed building
The Edgar Wood Heritage Group (Yorkshire) has also produced a guide and map (revised 2015) to the noted architect’s buildings in Lindley and Birkby. Go here to download our leaflet.
Almondbury: Old Clergy House, Stocks Walk 1898
This building provided accommodation for four curates, each having a bedroom and a study, as well as communal facilities such as a lecture room, dining room and kitchen.
Like all Wood’s Yorkshire buildings, this house is built from local stone, and draws on vernacular features such as mullioned and transomed windows. It also has a number of Wood’s trademarks, such as canted bay windows which break up through the eves, sloping buttresses, and a canopy over the side door above which is a window to light the hall (as in Norman Terrace).
Birkby: Rose Hill, Birkby Hall Road 1909
This large late nineteenth century house has interiors designed by Edgar Wood and his partner J H Sellers in 1909. Although it has not been possible for the Edgar Wood Group to examine these, photographs do show some distinctive features, such as plaster ceilings, and fireplaces constructed using beaten copper hoods or coloured marble slabs, which are typical of Sellers’ work (as illustrated in contemporary issues of The Studio magazine). Other features include furniture and walnut panelling supplied by Taylor and Hobson of Huddersfield.
Birkby: Birkby Lodge, Birkby Lodge Road 1900
Birkby Lodge is a large villa dating from the 1840s. Whilst Wood was working on Banney Royd, he was commissioned by George Pepler Norton, the business partner of W H Armitage, to design an extension. This was a two-storey addition to the west, containing a drawing room on the ground floor, with two bedrooms above. The exterior, whilst not particular distinctive, does include one of Wood’s favourite two-storey canted bays. The original interior has a rich Medieval flavour, with exposed ceiling beams, wood-panelled walls, a copper and brass fire surround, alcoves and inlaid veneers. A painted frieze of the Legend of the Holy Grail, by Wood’s friend F W Jackson, reputedly contained a portrait of Wood as one of the knights. The present location of this important frieze is unknown.
Birkby: Banney Royd, off Halifax Road 1902
Wood’s most important Yorkshire commission, this mansion was built for W H Armitage, partner in the Huddersfield accountancy firm of Armitage and Norton, and no doubt a business contact of J N Sykes. The use of local sandstone, and features like gables and mullioned windows, give the house solidity and a grounding in local tradition, but in other respects it was strikingly modern. Technically advanced and unusual in using cavity wall construction, the house is orientated so that the main living areas, the drawing room, dining room and library, face south over the terrace gardens and can all be accessed from a spacious central hall – a typical Arts and Crafts feature. However, Wood was also by this time using the latest Art Nouveau features, such as in the main entrance, where the doors are ornamented with heart-shaped brass panels with floral designs, set between tapering diagonal buttresses. Inside, there are fine fireplaces with carving by Stirling Lee, set within inglenooks lit by small windows to provide comfortable reading spaces. The rose – a favourite Arts and Crafts emblem – can be seen in the carved newels and plasterwork ceilings.Banney Royd featured in Herman Muthesius’ influential book of 1904, Das Englisches Haus, along with other Arts and Crafts architects such as Baillie Scott and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and thus Wood’s work became widely known in Europe.
In 1918 Banney Royd was sold to the textile magnate Sir Emmanuel Hoyle. During the Second World War it was taken over by the Civil defence Committee for use as a training centre for teams coping with bomb damage and rescue, and was subsequently used by the West Riding Fire Service. In 1966 it became the Huddersfield Teachers’ Centre, and was later sold back into private hands by Kirklees Metropolitan Council.
Birkby: Azo House/Crendon (formerly Kynance), corner of Birkby Lodge Road and Birkby Hall Road 1903
This is a pair of semi-detached houses designed for Joseph Turner and W H Hughes. Azo’s unusual name derives from a range of synthetic dyes produced by the important local textile chemicals firm of Read Holliday, of which Turner was chief chemist and later chairman.The houses present a front onto the garden, and appear to be one mansion, with asymmetrically-place windows and entrances, although the internal plans of the two houses are in fact almost identical. They turn their back on Birkby Hall Road, where there are small service yards bounded by a low range which housed servants’ toilets, coal houses and bicycle sheds. Accommodation consisted of a hall, dining and drawing rooms, kitchen and scullery on the round floor, three family bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor, and two attic bedrooms, probably for servants. Wood’s characteristic large gables, canted bays breaking through the line of the eaves, and porches supported on scrolled brackets, are in evidence, as well as leaded glass and decorative door furniture.
Lindley: Briarcourt, Occupation Road 1894-5
Commissioned from John Sykes as a wedding present for his son Herbert Higginson Sykes and his new wife Annie Eliza Thompson. The house is part of the revival of a local Yorkshire style of Jacobean manor. Imposing externally with its fine porch, deep bay windows and multiple gables, it is most notable for its interiors where Wood used many contemporary Arts and Crafts features to the historical style. Particularly striking are the main oak staircase; the decorated plaster ceilings; the inglenook fireplace in the dining room with a plaster frieze above; and the important frieze in the morning room painted by Wood’s friend F W Jackson. An important feature is the range of fitted furniture: cupboards, dressers and desks. The house was sensitively extended on the west side in 1904 by a local architect, and on the east side in 1906 by adding an extra floor.
Read about our latest project - Briarcourt
For some time members of the Edgar Wood Heritage Group have been researching the history of Briarcourt situated in Occupation Road, Lindley, Huddersfield. We now hope to publish our findings and would therefore be very interested to hear from anybody who has information to share relating to the house, including residents' recollections of the years when it was a Council children's home.
If you want to get in touch or have any information or comments about Briarcourt please email us at [email protected]
Lindley: Clock Tower, Lidget Lane 1902
This is one of Wood’s most important and original works. As the inscription above the entrance states, it was commissioned by James Nield Sykes ‘for the benefit of his native village (and perhaps to ensure his workforce arrived at the nearby mill on time!). The Art Nouveau clock tower stands 83 feet tall, its height exaggerated by the diagonal corner buttresses which terminate in pinnacles which break through the eaves of the copper-clad pagoda roof. The beautifully-elongated symbolic figures above the doorway and on the buttresses were the work of the Paris-trained sculptor Stirling Lee, who worked with Wood on a number of projects. The sculptures above the door explore the theme of Time, while those on the buttresses portray the eternal virtues of Truth, Love, Purity and Justice. The gargoyles reaching out from the four corners of the tower were described as ‘The Beasts Fleeing from the Towers of Time,’ depicting Lazy, Vicious, Cunning and Greedy Dogs.
As far as is known, this was the only tower designed by Wood, but it is interesting to compare it with the tower of Leeds Roman Catholic Cathedral (designed by J H Eastwood in1901-04), and the clock tower at Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria (1912, architect unknown).
Lindley: Norman Terrace, 11-15 Lidget Street 1898
This was a group of three cottages built by James Nield Sykes for workers at his Acre Mills. The accommodation comprised a hall, living room and kitchen on the ground floor, and upstairs three bedrooms and an attic. Although small, each cottage had an indoor toilet, an unusual feature for working class housing at this date. There was also a cellar with a sink, boiler and coals area, and a garden at the rear with an ashes house. Reflecting local traditions, the sandstone used for walls and roofs matches the older buildings around them. The rows of windows (especially at the rear) echo the ‘weavers’ windows’ that can be seen around the district, and the carved lintels are loosely modelled on characteristic seventeenth century types (a local example of which is now built into later housing in nearby East Street). Nevertheless, the two-storey bay of the central house, and the canopied porch with window above to light the hall, are distinctive features of Wood’s repertoire, and variations of them can be seen in many of his buildings in Huddersfield and Lancashire, such as the Old Clergy House, Almondbury, and along the Rochdale Road in Middleton.
Lindley: Wesleyan Methodist Church extension, East Street 1895
The present Gothic Revival building of 1867-68 was designed by George Woodhouse, a native of Lindley with an architectural practice in Bolton. The foundation stone was laid by Mrs James Nield Sykes. When the trustees decided to extend the church in 1894 they chose Edgar Wood as their architect, no doubt being influenced by their most prominent member, J N Sykes, who with his daughters bore the cost. Wood designed a two-storey extension, taking advantage of the steep fall in the land at the east end, and incorporating a chancel, organ loft and minister’s vestry, with a choir vestry and boiler room for the new heating system at the lower level. The style of the extension, harmonising with the existing building, is Gothic, but many details show Wood’s preference at this date for Arts and Crafts, for example the carved stone rosettes on the chamfers of the organ loft arch, and the use of oak for the dado behind the communion area and the choir stalls. However, other details, such as the hinges of the door through to the vestry, and the openwork designs in the choir stalls, seem to look forward to Art Nouveau. The communion (or altar) table is an outstanding example of furniture design. An angel representing the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity is flanked by carvings of scenes depicting the relief of the Homeless, the Sick, the Ignorant and the Poor.Lindley:
Gatehouse, Low Hills Lane 1900
This unusual building marked the entrance to James Nield Sykes’ Fieldhead estate (now built over). It provided coachman’s accommodation of parlour and kitchen with two bedrooms above. The bedrooms are on different levels to allow for the height of the archway, and a spiral staircase in the asymmetrically-placed turret gives access to a small roof balcony. Art Nouveau influences can be seen in the tapered slit windows in the massive oak gates, and in the hinges of the house door within the arch. It is probably that the keystone above this door, and the flat pilaster-like areas in the gables were intended to have decorative carving, as in the gatehouse at Cragg Vale.
Lydgate: Unitarian Chapel School, near Holmfirth 1910-11
This appears as a considerable departure from Wood’s normal Yorkshire style, although it is still constructed mainly from local sandstone. The flat roofs, central façade set back between lower ‘towers’, and the semicircular forebuilding are all very Modernist, yet the tall circular-headed windows to the main hall, and the doorway with its pediment and denticulation look back to Classical Georgian precedents. A comparison with Elm Street Schools (now Elm Wood Schools), Middleton, Lancashire, designed by Wood and his partner J H Sellers, suggest that Sellers also had a strong influence on the Lydgate design.
Thurlstone: Parsonage House 1906
This building appears at first glance to fit in with Wood’s Yorkshire version of the vernacular, using local sandstone, and with characteristic two-storey canted bay windows topped by gables. However, there are some more ‘Modern’ features, such as a flat roof constructed of reinforced concrete. The main entrance also is derived from Classical forms, but with distinctly modern touches, such as the little windows placed over the flat archway. This invites comparison with the entrance to the Lydgate Sunday School, and to the Dronsfield Brothers Factory in Oldham, suggesting the influence of Wood’s partner of this time, J H Sellers.
Lindley: Ridgemount, Talbot Avenue
This house was described in the Listed Buildings as by Edgar Wood. However, recent research by the Edgar Wood Group has established that it was in fact built in the 1920s by the Huddersfield architect Joseph Berry, who was living in Briarcourt at the time. Many internal features resemble Wood’s work, and it seems that Berry was a great admirer of Wood.
Almondbury: Old Clergy House, Stocks Walk 1898
This building provided accommodation for four curates, each having a bedroom and a study, as well as communal facilities such as a lecture room, dining room and kitchen.
Like all Wood’s Yorkshire buildings, this house is built from local stone, and draws on vernacular features such as mullioned and transomed windows. It also has a number of Wood’s trademarks, such as canted bay windows which break up through the eves, sloping buttresses, and a canopy over the side door above which is a window to light the hall (as in Norman Terrace).
Birkby: Rose Hill, Birkby Hall Road 1909
This large late nineteenth century house has interiors designed by Edgar Wood and his partner J H Sellers in 1909. Although it has not been possible for the Edgar Wood Group to examine these, photographs do show some distinctive features, such as plaster ceilings, and fireplaces constructed using beaten copper hoods or coloured marble slabs, which are typical of Sellers’ work (as illustrated in contemporary issues of The Studio magazine). Other features include furniture and walnut panelling supplied by Taylor and Hobson of Huddersfield.
Birkby: Birkby Lodge, Birkby Lodge Road 1900
Birkby Lodge is a large villa dating from the 1840s. Whilst Wood was working on Banney Royd, he was commissioned by George Pepler Norton, the business partner of W H Armitage, to design an extension. This was a two-storey addition to the west, containing a drawing room on the ground floor, with two bedrooms above. The exterior, whilst not particular distinctive, does include one of Wood’s favourite two-storey canted bays. The original interior has a rich Medieval flavour, with exposed ceiling beams, wood-panelled walls, a copper and brass fire surround, alcoves and inlaid veneers. A painted frieze of the Legend of the Holy Grail, by Wood’s friend F W Jackson, reputedly contained a portrait of Wood as one of the knights. The present location of this important frieze is unknown.
Birkby: Banney Royd, off Halifax Road 1902
Wood’s most important Yorkshire commission, this mansion was built for W H Armitage, partner in the Huddersfield accountancy firm of Armitage and Norton, and no doubt a business contact of J N Sykes. The use of local sandstone, and features like gables and mullioned windows, give the house solidity and a grounding in local tradition, but in other respects it was strikingly modern. Technically advanced and unusual in using cavity wall construction, the house is orientated so that the main living areas, the drawing room, dining room and library, face south over the terrace gardens and can all be accessed from a spacious central hall – a typical Arts and Crafts feature. However, Wood was also by this time using the latest Art Nouveau features, such as in the main entrance, where the doors are ornamented with heart-shaped brass panels with floral designs, set between tapering diagonal buttresses. Inside, there are fine fireplaces with carving by Stirling Lee, set within inglenooks lit by small windows to provide comfortable reading spaces. The rose – a favourite Arts and Crafts emblem – can be seen in the carved newels and plasterwork ceilings.Banney Royd featured in Herman Muthesius’ influential book of 1904, Das Englisches Haus, along with other Arts and Crafts architects such as Baillie Scott and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and thus Wood’s work became widely known in Europe.
In 1918 Banney Royd was sold to the textile magnate Sir Emmanuel Hoyle. During the Second World War it was taken over by the Civil defence Committee for use as a training centre for teams coping with bomb damage and rescue, and was subsequently used by the West Riding Fire Service. In 1966 it became the Huddersfield Teachers’ Centre, and was later sold back into private hands by Kirklees Metropolitan Council.
Birkby: Azo House/Crendon (formerly Kynance), corner of Birkby Lodge Road and Birkby Hall Road 1903
This is a pair of semi-detached houses designed for Joseph Turner and W H Hughes. Azo’s unusual name derives from a range of synthetic dyes produced by the important local textile chemicals firm of Read Holliday, of which Turner was chief chemist and later chairman.The houses present a front onto the garden, and appear to be one mansion, with asymmetrically-place windows and entrances, although the internal plans of the two houses are in fact almost identical. They turn their back on Birkby Hall Road, where there are small service yards bounded by a low range which housed servants’ toilets, coal houses and bicycle sheds. Accommodation consisted of a hall, dining and drawing rooms, kitchen and scullery on the round floor, three family bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor, and two attic bedrooms, probably for servants. Wood’s characteristic large gables, canted bays breaking through the line of the eaves, and porches supported on scrolled brackets, are in evidence, as well as leaded glass and decorative door furniture.
Lindley: Briarcourt, Occupation Road 1894-5
Commissioned from John Sykes as a wedding present for his son Herbert Higginson Sykes and his new wife Annie Eliza Thompson. The house is part of the revival of a local Yorkshire style of Jacobean manor. Imposing externally with its fine porch, deep bay windows and multiple gables, it is most notable for its interiors where Wood used many contemporary Arts and Crafts features to the historical style. Particularly striking are the main oak staircase; the decorated plaster ceilings; the inglenook fireplace in the dining room with a plaster frieze above; and the important frieze in the morning room painted by Wood’s friend F W Jackson. An important feature is the range of fitted furniture: cupboards, dressers and desks. The house was sensitively extended on the west side in 1904 by a local architect, and on the east side in 1906 by adding an extra floor.
Read about our latest project - Briarcourt
For some time members of the Edgar Wood Heritage Group have been researching the history of Briarcourt situated in Occupation Road, Lindley, Huddersfield. We now hope to publish our findings and would therefore be very interested to hear from anybody who has information to share relating to the house, including residents' recollections of the years when it was a Council children's home.
If you want to get in touch or have any information or comments about Briarcourt please email us at [email protected]
Lindley: Clock Tower, Lidget Lane 1902
This is one of Wood’s most important and original works. As the inscription above the entrance states, it was commissioned by James Nield Sykes ‘for the benefit of his native village (and perhaps to ensure his workforce arrived at the nearby mill on time!). The Art Nouveau clock tower stands 83 feet tall, its height exaggerated by the diagonal corner buttresses which terminate in pinnacles which break through the eaves of the copper-clad pagoda roof. The beautifully-elongated symbolic figures above the doorway and on the buttresses were the work of the Paris-trained sculptor Stirling Lee, who worked with Wood on a number of projects. The sculptures above the door explore the theme of Time, while those on the buttresses portray the eternal virtues of Truth, Love, Purity and Justice. The gargoyles reaching out from the four corners of the tower were described as ‘The Beasts Fleeing from the Towers of Time,’ depicting Lazy, Vicious, Cunning and Greedy Dogs.
As far as is known, this was the only tower designed by Wood, but it is interesting to compare it with the tower of Leeds Roman Catholic Cathedral (designed by J H Eastwood in1901-04), and the clock tower at Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria (1912, architect unknown).
Lindley: Norman Terrace, 11-15 Lidget Street 1898
This was a group of three cottages built by James Nield Sykes for workers at his Acre Mills. The accommodation comprised a hall, living room and kitchen on the ground floor, and upstairs three bedrooms and an attic. Although small, each cottage had an indoor toilet, an unusual feature for working class housing at this date. There was also a cellar with a sink, boiler and coals area, and a garden at the rear with an ashes house. Reflecting local traditions, the sandstone used for walls and roofs matches the older buildings around them. The rows of windows (especially at the rear) echo the ‘weavers’ windows’ that can be seen around the district, and the carved lintels are loosely modelled on characteristic seventeenth century types (a local example of which is now built into later housing in nearby East Street). Nevertheless, the two-storey bay of the central house, and the canopied porch with window above to light the hall, are distinctive features of Wood’s repertoire, and variations of them can be seen in many of his buildings in Huddersfield and Lancashire, such as the Old Clergy House, Almondbury, and along the Rochdale Road in Middleton.
Lindley: Wesleyan Methodist Church extension, East Street 1895
The present Gothic Revival building of 1867-68 was designed by George Woodhouse, a native of Lindley with an architectural practice in Bolton. The foundation stone was laid by Mrs James Nield Sykes. When the trustees decided to extend the church in 1894 they chose Edgar Wood as their architect, no doubt being influenced by their most prominent member, J N Sykes, who with his daughters bore the cost. Wood designed a two-storey extension, taking advantage of the steep fall in the land at the east end, and incorporating a chancel, organ loft and minister’s vestry, with a choir vestry and boiler room for the new heating system at the lower level. The style of the extension, harmonising with the existing building, is Gothic, but many details show Wood’s preference at this date for Arts and Crafts, for example the carved stone rosettes on the chamfers of the organ loft arch, and the use of oak for the dado behind the communion area and the choir stalls. However, other details, such as the hinges of the door through to the vestry, and the openwork designs in the choir stalls, seem to look forward to Art Nouveau. The communion (or altar) table is an outstanding example of furniture design. An angel representing the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity is flanked by carvings of scenes depicting the relief of the Homeless, the Sick, the Ignorant and the Poor.Lindley:
Gatehouse, Low Hills Lane 1900
This unusual building marked the entrance to James Nield Sykes’ Fieldhead estate (now built over). It provided coachman’s accommodation of parlour and kitchen with two bedrooms above. The bedrooms are on different levels to allow for the height of the archway, and a spiral staircase in the asymmetrically-placed turret gives access to a small roof balcony. Art Nouveau influences can be seen in the tapered slit windows in the massive oak gates, and in the hinges of the house door within the arch. It is probably that the keystone above this door, and the flat pilaster-like areas in the gables were intended to have decorative carving, as in the gatehouse at Cragg Vale.
Lydgate: Unitarian Chapel School, near Holmfirth 1910-11
This appears as a considerable departure from Wood’s normal Yorkshire style, although it is still constructed mainly from local sandstone. The flat roofs, central façade set back between lower ‘towers’, and the semicircular forebuilding are all very Modernist, yet the tall circular-headed windows to the main hall, and the doorway with its pediment and denticulation look back to Classical Georgian precedents. A comparison with Elm Street Schools (now Elm Wood Schools), Middleton, Lancashire, designed by Wood and his partner J H Sellers, suggest that Sellers also had a strong influence on the Lydgate design.
Thurlstone: Parsonage House 1906
This building appears at first glance to fit in with Wood’s Yorkshire version of the vernacular, using local sandstone, and with characteristic two-storey canted bay windows topped by gables. However, there are some more ‘Modern’ features, such as a flat roof constructed of reinforced concrete. The main entrance also is derived from Classical forms, but with distinctly modern touches, such as the little windows placed over the flat archway. This invites comparison with the entrance to the Lydgate Sunday School, and to the Dronsfield Brothers Factory in Oldham, suggesting the influence of Wood’s partner of this time, J H Sellers.
Lindley: Ridgemount, Talbot Avenue
This house was described in the Listed Buildings as by Edgar Wood. However, recent research by the Edgar Wood Group has established that it was in fact built in the 1920s by the Huddersfield architect Joseph Berry, who was living in Briarcourt at the time. Many internal features resemble Wood’s work, and it seems that Berry was a great admirer of Wood.
If you can add to our knowledge of Edgar Wood's connections with Yorkshire, then please get in touch. Email us: [email protected] |
Norman Terrace, Lindley
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