Secular buildings

SECULAR BUILDINGS

Architectural descriptions of some individual secular buildings are included in other sections of this volume. The present article, written in 1966–7, is chiefly concerned with domestic buildings from the Tudors to the First World War, but it deals also with the more noteworthy industrial and commercial buildings.

1501–1700 (fn. 1)

Comparatively few examples of 16th- and 17thcentury building still exist in Hull. A few specimens of timber-framed buildings, some perhaps of late medieval date, survived into the present century, only to be destroyed during the Second World War. Notable among these were the King's Head Inn, and the buildings at the entrance to George Yard, both in High Street; fragments of the carved corner brackets from the George Yard entrance are preserved in Wilberforce House Museum. (fn. 2) A minor and much-encased complete building still stands in Scale Lane (no. 5). The other surviving contemporary buildings are all of brick, which was early in general use in the absence of good local building stone.

A brick dwelling-house, or possibly warehouse, survives at the rear of no. 52 High Street. The north façade, exposed by war damage to neighbouring property, has moulded or roughly-cut brick mullions to the surviving original windows. The only decoration is a string-course beneath which is a course of bricks laid diagonally with the angles protruding beyond the wall surface. A rudimentary brick cornice is placed beneath the eaves. Similar features are found on the south front of Burton Constable Hall, usually dated about 1550.

Another 16th-century example is the Grammar School and Merchants' Hall, built in 1583–5. (fn. 3) The building is a plain rectangle of two stories, lit by ranges of wide windows with brick mullions and transoms. The entrance doorway is simple and as unadorned as the rest of the fabric. A contribution towards the cost of the building was made by Alderman William Gee and his merchant's mark, with the date 1583, appears externally on the ground floor; the town arms, with the date 1585, are on the upper story. (fn. 4)

The use of decorative brickwork developed during the 17th century into a style which has been called 'Artisan Mannerism'. (fn. 5) A characteristic of the style, which showed strong Dutch influence, was the liberal application externally of 'Classical' pediments, pilasters, strings, and cornices similar to those used in contemporary wood-panelled interiors. In the Home Counties one of the prototypes was the Dutch House at Kew, built in 1631. In Hull the dated examples are from the period 1660–80 and include Crowle House (1664), at the rear of no. 41 High Street, and Etherington House (1672), formerly nos. 50–51 High Street. (fn. 6) Contemporary but undated houses are one in Dagger Lane, now demolished, the Coach and Horses Inn at no. 9 Mytongate, the White Hart Inn, off Silver Street, and parts of Wilberforce House. Much plainer than any of these is no. 85 Queen Street, where a simple steep-sided gable completes the façade.

The modest frontage of the house in Dagger Lane was crowned by a double-tiered Dutch gable, beneath which was complex decorative panelling in raised brickwork set against an all-over rusticated background. The much-altered ground story had a late Georgian shop-front. (fn. 7) There is equally decorative brickwork in the rear courtyard of the Coach and Horses Inn, though there the floors are separated by a continuous row of shallow brick pediments; the pediment over the entrance arch is in addition made open to enclose a pedestal and urn. A brick machicolation masks the roof edge. The windows are all later, and the courtyard has been much mutilated and curtailed. The ground floor of the 'White Hart' has been remodelled, but the 17th-century brickwork of the first floor remains unaltered. A centrepiece, framed by pilasters, rises above the eaves level and is crowned by a broken, triangular, dentilled pediment. The two windows of the centrepiece have pediments, one triangular and one elliptical, and all the windows are surrounded by decorative brickwork.

The former High Street front of Etherington House and parts of its two courtyards were decorated with crisply-moulded brick cornices, string-courses, and shallow pilasters. The main front was demolished about 1870, the remainder in 1947. The interior was remodelled about 1750. (fn. 8) The surviving visible fragment of the Crowle House concentrates its finery upon a tower-like centrepiece dominated by a pair of 'jewelled' Corinthian pilasters. (fn. 9) Arches with carved keystones and springing blocks, and plaques bearing Crowle initials and the date, are all of carved stone and are placed symmetrically. The façade, like the whole of the interior, has been much altered, but it is important because it provides a guide to the date of the closely-related part of nearby Wilberforce House.

According to tradition Wilberforce House was built by the Lister family about 1590, and within its walls they entertained Charles I in 1639. (fn. 10) If either belief is correct, the façade and many other features of the house were remarkably in advance of those of its contemporary Hull neighbours. Two other possibilities seem to exist: either the house was rebuilt after the Civil War or the Restoration or it was refronted and remodelled at that time. It is perhaps most likely that the façade, with features so similar to those of the Crowle House, dates from c. 1660. The principal range, parallel to the street, is set back behind a forecourt, an unusual feature in High Street. At the rear, the southern wing and much of the northern one are 18th century in date.

The tall brick garden wall, and the façade behind, have an overall patterning of rustication. The knobbly pilasters of the gate piers also echo similar features on the tall three-storied porch built centrally over the front entrance. Short Corinthian pilasters are placed in the centre of the first floor between each pair of windows. The same motif, but on a much larger scale, dominates the porch. The shallow moulded brick pediments, niches, pedestals, oval windows, and other decorations are all typical of later-17th-century 'Artisan Mannerism'. The façade was again remodelled in the mid-18th century during the Wilberforce ownership. In the process the vertically extended first-floor windows cut through the 'jewelled' aprons beneath the former sills, and sliding sashes replaced the 17th-century mullioned and transomed casements with their leaded lights; one of the latter has been reinstated.

The lateral elevations are much simpler. That to the south butted up against now demolished buildings, its gable-ends alternating with former light wells. At the north end, demolition of the rear wing of no. 24 High Street revealed blocked-up brick-mullioned windows, as well as traces of the former staircase window that is perhaps of early Georgian date. The mullioned windows are rectangles placed horizontally, in contrast to those of the entrance front which are uniformally vertical. The former may be an indication of the two distinct building periods here suggested for the older block.

Three rooms contain features which could date from the earlier 17th century. The southern groundfloor room is traditionally known as the kitchen but from its position is more likely to have been a more important room in the early house. Its wide brick fireplace has a four-centred arch and there are fragments of contemporary panelling, the remainder being an early-20th-century reconstruction. The principal rooms on the first floor have richer panelling. In the northern room it is sub-divided by short Ionic pilasters, an order repeated in the clustered columns of the chimney-piece. The Lister coat of arms, granted in 1612, is carved on the centre panel. The lower half of the chimney-piece is modern, presumably of c. 1905 when the chimneypiece was bought by the corporation and returned to Wilberforce House, from which it had been removed. (fn. 11) The remainder of the interior contains mid or later Georgian features. (fn. 12)

The wealthy merchants' houses in High Street often escaped extensive changes during the Victorian period because their owners felt little need to keep up with fashionable change in decoration. In Market Place, however, superficial remodellings succeeded each other rapidly. Here owners felt obliged to conform with fashion, without undertaking total rebuilding with its consequent loss of business. The results of this process of accretion became visible during the demolition in 1966 of shops and houses comprising nos. 21–27 Market Place.

Externally the block had a stucco facing applied in late Regency and Victorian times so that the true date of the group was not suspected; this may have been c. 1600. The party walls, of narrow, pale-pink bricks, supported a massive timber framework. (fn. 13) Major and minor beams had moulded undersides painted with red, green, yellow, and white stripes, indicating that the timberwork had initially been exposed in the principal rooms of the ground floor. Later ceilings, probably inserted at the end of the 17th or early in the 18th century, masked the painted timbers completely. Of the same date was the repanelling of the walls on both ground and first floors. Doors and panelling had generous bolection mouldings and the new work was completed by a reconstruction of the principal staircases with stoutly-turned columnar or twisted balusters set under broad handrails. All the new work was of softwood in place of the earlier oak. This renovation proved unfashionable in turn, and new midGeorgian panelling replaced or overlaid that of the Baroque period. The balusters, but not the staircase handrail, were renewed up to the first floor, and the principal doors were reduced in size and fitted within new architraves. There were also more modest, though elegant, late-18th-century alterations. The Victorian occupiers in their turn renewed all the chimney-pieces and rebuilt the lowest flights of the staircases in new positions at the rear of the extended shops. The latter were, at the same time, completely rebuilt internally behind new plateglass fronts.

1701–1835 (fn. 14)

The increasing prosperity of Hull during the 18th century provided the necessary means to rebuild or reconstruct houses of widely varying type. Maisters House was rebuilt after a fire in 1743, Wilberforce House and Etherington House were renewed internally, and numerous houses in High Street, Lowgate, Salthouse Lane, and Whitefriargate were rebuilt on a more generous scale. This activity in the Old Town was followed by the development of new suburbs beyond the walls during the last quarter of the century.

The more efficient 18th-century craftsmen added the word 'architect' to their correct description of joiner, bricklayer, or plasterer. Most such men were, in fact, dependent upon the succession of wellillustrated pattern books that were published during the century as their source of decorative detail. This dependence is clear in the case of internal and external doorcases. For the former the designs of William Kent proved popular, for the latter one of the many volumes published by Batty Langley was chosen and adhered to with surprising consistency until the first decade of the 19th century. The pattern-book designs for chimney-pieces were not copied quite so faithfully, and Hull craftsmen did develop a characteristic and very opulent staircase that went well with the wood-panelled interiors that remained locally in demand until about 1770.

Though the term 'architect' appears in Hull records of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the first recognizable architect to work in Hull was probably Joseph Page. After his death in 1775 his place was taken by Charles Mountain, the elder (c. 1743–1805). (fn. 15) Page (and his master, Thomas Scott), Aaron Pycock, and perhaps Charles Mountain were all of Lincolnshire stock. They chose Hull rather than their native county both for their apprenticeships and their careers. The first three were trained as bricklayer-plasterers; Mountain too was a plasterer, though his son of the same name described himself as a slater as well as architect. (fn. 16) Page completed his apprenticeship in 1740 and three years later was designing the new Maisters House, at no. 160 High Street. Here his proposals were critically scrutinized by Lord Burlington, leader of the new Palladian movement which had repudiated the current Baroque style and favoured a return to a more orthodox classicism. Burlington's Yorkshire seat of Londesborough was not far from Hull and his protégé, William Kent, also had connexions with the district. (fn. 17) Thereafter Palladian features were incorporated in numerous schemes by Page and others, until the innovations of Robert Adam and his contemporaries proved irresistible even to Page. His last major work was the redecoration of the court room suite at Trinity House in 1773–4.

The loss of life which occurred when the former house of the Maister family was destroyed by fire in 1743 did not deter Henry Maister from rebuilding on what was for Hull a lavish scale. He evidently tried to play a leading part as an arbiter of local taste. Although Page was employed as architect, it is perhaps not surprising that Maister sought Burlington's advice. According to surviving letters Burlington revised the designs of Maisters House, recommending greater simplicity. (fn. 18)

The rectangular site could accommodate only an L-shaped building, the front block containing the principal rooms which were isolated from the rear wing by the front and back stairs. The exterior is simple and is ornamented only with string-courses and an Ionic doorway copied from Batty Langley's plates. Internally the entrance hall is flanked by wood-panelled rooms with standard cornices and late-Georgian chimney-pieces. Beyond them lies the staircase hall (fn. 19) that rises, unbroken, to a lantern above the general level of the roof. By November 1744, Page, a plasterer as well as a bricklayer by trade, was finishing the gallery. The staircase rises only to the first floor. Its rich wrought-iron balustrade was made by Robert Bakewell, of Derby, who repeated the pattern he had used at Staunton Harold (Leics.) and Okeover (Staffs.). The handrail rises in an unbroken line up to the landing, in the French manner, so that viewed from the upper ironbalustraded gallery it forms a square with quadrant corners. The plaster wall panels were derived from the Kent-Flitcroft models, the brackets supporting busts from a device found frequently in Daniel Marot's designs. One unusual feature, that was to be repeated at Winestead Red Hall, is the garland of shells over the niche containing a plaster cast of Ceres, bought from Henry Cheere's workshop. The shells are also to be seen much higher up within the lantern. The rich stucco work fills the panels of the coved ceiling beneath the lantern and the soffits underneath both landings. Various motifs on the latter may be compared to those found at Blaydes House. The very simple wrought-iron work of the back stairs is also the documented work of Bakewell.

The principal first-floor room is the former dining-room, the chimney-piece of which is derived from details published in contemporary works on Inigo Jones. The same source was used for the doorcases leading into the rooms on this floor. The architraves to both door and windows, and the details of the modillion cornice, all have carved enrichment. It may be noted that the ceiling of the neighbouring room, now joined to the dining-room by the removal of the partition wall, is markedly lower than that of its larger neighbour, again evidence of close attention to the rules of proportion contained in current architectural literature. In the rear wing of the upper floor there is preserved some 17th-century panelling that presumably escaped the fire of 1743. (fn. 20)

Page's style can or could be recognized also at Etherington House and Blaydes House, both in High Street, and perhaps at the present Sailors' Home in Salthouse Lane. He is known, too, to be connected with Page's Square, in Dagger Lane, (fn. 21) with King Street, (fn. 22) and with minor works at Trinity House. (fn. 23) Maisters House was a complete rebuilding, and its success may have prompted business or social rivals to emulation. The earlyGeorgian refitting of Etherington House, demolished in 1947, is perhaps a case in point. (fn. 24) Many of these former fittings have been reset at Brantingham Thorpe and the Old Rectory at Winestead.

The southern staircase rivalled that of Maisters House, both in size and refinement, and its designer was presumably familiar with Burlington's work at Chiswick. The main entrance door opened into a marble-paved hall ending in a broad apse, the curve of which contained the staircase. The balustrade, with its carved and turned woodwork, began with a very bold scroll, the newel post of which resembled that at Wilberforce House. The staircase window was Burlingtonian: a tripartite arrangement of Ionic columns supported a full entablature, over which was a lunette window with stucco-ornamented mullions continuing the vertical lines of the columns beneath. The whole composition was framed by an arch. Above this was a blocking cornice from which sprang four arches with broad bands of guilloche decorating the soffits. The pendentives between these arches had an infilling of diagonal miniature coffering as a background to four 'classical' medallions. The plain lunettes had lion masks flanked by swags of drapery, a motif also found at Maisters House and Winestead Red Hall. The whole was finished by a segmental dome the decoration of which was confined to a circle of reeding and a central eagle.

The secondary staircase was of the characteristic Hull pattern with broad 'tread and riser' only, carved and turned balusters, and an unbroken sweep of handrail ending in a generous scroll at the foot. One of its features is also found at Beningbrough Hall, near York, now known to be the work of William Thornton, architect-joiner, (fn. 25) who also did the carving and joinery at Hotham House, Beverley. (fn. 26) It is possible that the staircase of the latter house provided the inspiration for the well-defined group of lavish staircases that occur in Hull and its immediate environs.

The compartmented stucco ceiling included some Rococo work in its inner panels, and similar work was applied to an overmantel that surmounted a marble chimney-piece that is now at Brantingham Thorpe. The remaining interiors of the principal rooms were wood-panelled. Some of the Kent-type pedimented doorcases, carved chimney-pieces (one with a pulvinated frieze of ruffled feathers in place of the normal oak or bay leaves), and much panelling have likewise been removed and reset.

If Etherington House was restored about 1750, the building of Blaydes House (no. 6 High Street) followed about a decade later. The five-bay front has had its former pairs of Georgian windows replaced by single wide Victorian windows on the ground and first floors, though those on the top floor survive to show the original spacing. Angle quoins were placed only on the ground floor, and interest concentrates on the broad, wooden, Doric tripartite porch of the type popularized during the 1750s and 1760s by John Carr, of York. The capitals, soffit, and other details have carved enrichment. The outer steps, like the floor within, are of marble. A rich and heavy staircase of the usual Hull type leads to the first floor. The Venetian staircase window has fluted Corinthian columns, while the landing soffit has Page-type plasterwork.

The complete suite of panelled rooms exists intact, as do the white or coloured marble chimneypieces, above which are carved or panelled overmantels. The finest doorcase is that in the southern first-floor room. It has Corinthian demi-pilasters and pediment, a favourite motif of Sir Robert Taylor and one which was, on occasion, also used by Sir William Chambers. The joint influence of Carr, Taylor, and Chambers would indicate a building date of 1760–70, a decade during which Robert Adam's innovations had made scarcely any impact on provincial architecture. It is tempting to consider Page as a possible designer of Blaydes House on the strength of features found among his authenticated work, as well as because he is known to have had business dealings with the builder of the house, Benjamin Blaydes. (fn. 27)

The refitting of Wilberforce House also took place during the mid-18th century. The relic of the early house plan, the screens passage, was kept. From it opened the White Drawing Room. The original fireplace was replaced by one at the far end of the room, the older one being hidden behind new wooden panelling. The present chimney-piece, however, is a recent introduction. The adjacent room, in the north wing, contains panelling and other fittings removed after the Second World War from Moxon's House (no. 21 High Street), the most notable feature of which is the delicate and naturalistic carving. Several other rooms in the house retain, or have been fitted with, late-Georgian chimney-pieces.

The main staircase, in the south wing, may be compared to that of Blaydes House, though it is unlikely that the same craftsmen were employed for the stucco work ornamenting the wall above the Venetian window, the landing soffit, and the ceiling. Over the window is an open-work basket of grapes flanked by prolific vine trails. A similar profusion of fruit, flowers, scrolls, and foliage enlivens the ceiling, the centre motif of which is the Wilberforce eagle. In each corner is a medallion symbolizing one of the four seasons. The staircase itself is again of the familiar Hull variety: richly-turned and carved balusters set in pairs on steps composed only of 'tread and riser'. The soffit of the tread here, as elsewhere, has triple raised and fielded panels.

A much simpler mid-18th-century staircase forms the principal feature of no. 46 High Street. Stucco wall panels, a simply compartmented ceiling, the Hull pattern staircase, and a Venetian window, the arch of which intersects with the cove of the ceiling, all follow the recommendations in Isaac Ware's Body of Architecture (1756). The house has panelled rooms, but much of the woodwork is a re-use of 17th-century material.

These houses are typical of the best of their date in the town. The houses of humbler merchants also survive, in streets such as Mytongate, Bowlalley Lane, and Bishop Lane. Nos. 7–9 Bishop Lane have two quite low stories of plain red brick, surmounted by the plainest woodwork which makes no pretence at being a classical cornice. The pantiled roof, with its dormer windows, is steep enough to allow reasonable headroom in the attic floor. Windows have simple brick arches and plain or moulded stone or wooden sills. These houses also retain some of their original panelling, with arched recesses flanking the chimney-pieces. However comfortable such houses may have been, they lack presence in all but the narrowest streets, though they formed, with variations, the staple of the city's domestic architecture within the town walls.

Terrace building, in fact, seems to have been developed cautiously in Hull, perhaps because few individuals held a sufficiently long frontage in any one street. The earlier terraces are really, therefore, small groups of houses built to a uniform design. Until the erection of Parliament Street (1795–1800) nothing like the streets of terraces that are a commonplace in London, Manchester, Bristol, or Liverpool was seen in the Old Town. Beyond the walls, however, terrace houses were to become the standard unit from the last quarter of the 18th century onward.

The modest beginnings of terrace designing may be traced in Bishop Lane and High Street. A group of four houses in Bishop Lane (nos. 10–13) dates from the later 1750s. They are three stories high and four bays wide, with a meagre 'cornice' at roof level. Each window has narrow sills supported by small consoles, the woodwork coming almost flush with the wall surface, and the rubbed-brick arches having triple key-blocks. The doors have wooden frames with eared architraves and pediments in dentilled cornices. The latter motif is repeated on the better chimney-pieces within the panelled rooms.

The High Street terrace is perhaps a little earlier. Though it was converted to a commercial use in 1887, (fn. 28) much of the original work survives intact. As in other Hull terraces the units were built individually though the eleven-bay front has a uniform design. The window arches have single key-blocks, and several examples of the original heavy sash bars also survive. Internally the staircases vary from the cramped and awkwardly-detailed example of no. 202 to the more spacious one of no. 203. The ground-floor room off the staircase of no. 203 has a pedimented doorcase with a carved frieze, and two walls of panelling remain beneath a dentilled cornice. On the upper floor, now interconnected across the whole row, the panelling is simpler. The chimneypieces have been either enriched with later-Georgian composition ornament, or were replaced at that time by others more richly decorated. One theme chosen for the decoration symbolized war and peace. The fine Rococo cast-iron grate front has an unusual ogee outline.

The one notable mid-Georgian semi-detached pair of houses that survives, nos. 23–24 High Street, has a central Ionic double doorcase in stone, united under a broad pediment. The standard Hull 'treadand-riser' staircases survived war damage, as did one of the better chimney-pieces with its carved decoration in an early 'Adam' manner. Most of the existing decorative stucco work is a recent replacement. The Venetian windows lighting the staircases were originally framed by an Ionic order, but when the houses were restored after the Second World War this was replaced by Doric.

Nos. 76–78 Lowgate are a good example of a substantial pair of late-18th-century merchants' houses fronting a prominent street, behind which, symmetrically arranged round a courtyard, are both the domestic offices and stable quarters and the warehouses. The latter are placed in the furthermost corners of the courtyards and have access from Lowgate by means of a pair of arches. Such houses are a late survival of a traditional practice that became outmoded in Hull after the opening of the first dock in 1778. Thenceforth the wealthier merchants insisted upon a complete separation of their dwelling-places from their counting houses and warehouses. This important change created an opportunity that was quickly seized by the Dock Company when it developed its surplus land north of the dock. (fn. 29)

For the working classes living conditions in the Old Town were squalid. The closely-built character of the town had been commented upon by Defoe, (fn. 30) and an observer wrote in 1746 that congestion within the walls was such that house prices had been forced up and there was no room for further building. (fn. 31) As the century progressed labourers and artizans were increasingly housed in narrow, closed courts lying behind the street fronts. One example was Page's Square, on the west side of Dagger Lane, partly built in 1753 by Joseph Page; on a site measuring about 120 by 50 feet fourteen houses were set around a narrow court. (fn. 32) Such dwellings were often built back-to-back or were hemmed in by other buildings. (fn. 33) Conditions in these courts in the 18th and early 19th centuries are revealed by later reports. In 1891, for instance, Narrow Passage, behind Scale Lane, was described as containing eight houses, mostly three-roomed; three of the houses had back yards, two square yards in area, with a privy, but the other five had no yards and used privies situated under the back bedroom of one of the houses. (fn. 34)

At Page's death in 1775 there was no obvious architectural successor. Edward and Thomas Riddell, George Pycock, Jeremiah Hargrave, and Charles Mountain, the elder, were all eager to enter the lists. (fn. 35) The competition that existed between them is revealed, for example, by their efforts to gain the various commissions offered by Trinity House. Mountain had been employed there as early as 1772, but his principal patron was to be Joseph Robinson Pease (1752–1807), the grandson and heir of Joseph Pease (1688–1778). From 1778 onwards Pease invested in various architectural projects to the estimated value of about £20,000, with an additional £5,000 for the furnishing of Hesslewood, near Hull, and the Pease house in the town itself. (fn. 36) He liked elegance; (fn. 37) for example, he bought furnishings for his Hull houses in London and Manchester. Such was Mountain's chief patron, who may also, as a shareholder of the Dock Company and a subscriber in the Parliament Street tontine, have helped Mountain to secure commissions. Mountain certainly designed Hesslewood, the Pease country house, and a house in Mosley Street, Manchester, for Pease's Robinson connexions. There is little doubt that he designed, too, the Pease house in Charlotte Street, Hull. At the same time Mountain was engaged in building the marine school for Trinity House and a plain row of houses in Myton Place. (fn. 38)

Mountain's style, externally, was derived from late Palladian houses, such as those of Sir Robert Taylor, while internal details were influenced by the work of the Adam brothers or the Wyatts. He often used composition detail in an attempt to combine the elegance of London work with economy. Before Mountain's time the pediment spanning several bays and the elaborate arrangement of a columned doorway surmounted by highly-enriched windows were unknown in Hull. Mountain counteracted the vertical accent of this central feature by the regular use of double string-courses. He maintained the earlier Hull tradition of spacious staircases, but his were visually weaker, if more elegant. Slender turned mahogany balusters and wide shallow steps rose within a broad square compartment, instead of the earlier much narrower staircase hall.

The present Sailors' Home, in Salthouse Lane, was perhaps the last major house to be built within the Old Town. It was roughly contemporary with the infirmary of 1784 (fn. 39) and, like it, had an unusually ample site. Its three-story, four-square, block is set back between low blank-arched 'pavilions' and linking quadrant walls, the stone coping of which is continued across the façade as the lower element of a double string-course. The principal entrance was the small tripartite portico with composite columns inspired by those of John Carr. An earlier Hull example of this motif exists at Blaydes House. Unlike Carr's model that in Salthouse Lane has engaged columns instead of pilasters set against the wall. The door opening has now been reduced to form a window and the entrance transferred to the south, or garden door, facing Alfred Gelder Street (no. 105). The interior was much altered in the 19th century both for the branch Bank of England and for the Sailors' Home. (fn. 40) The staircase, with its Venetian window and stucco enrichments, is substantially intact, and one reception room retains a typical 'Hull-Adam' ceiling comparable to those in George Street.

It was at about this time that the first attempt was made in Hull to control the structure of new buildings by legislation. An Improvement Act in 1783 (fn. 41) included clauses declaring that new houses should have party walls of brick or stone at least 14 inches thick, and prohibiting the use of wood for eaves cornices. These regulations are said to have been generally ineffectual. (fn. 42)

Parliament Street, which is still exceptionally well preserved, was cut through an area of old slum property. (fn. 43) It was built at a time when the economic effects of the French war were not fully realized. Indeed, Howe's victory of June 1794 seemed to augur well, and in August that year a Hull lawyer, Aistroppe Stovin, proposed to start a tontine to finance a new street that would combine a public improvement with a sound investment. A subscription of £20,000 was called for and an Act of Parliament sought. In the event only £7,000 was raised, despite the support of the town's M.P.s, the principal merchants, and Trinity House. The Act was passed in 1795, (fn. 44) but the scheme almost foundered. Charles Mountain and Thomas Riddell, who at this time worked in some form of partnership, were appointed as surveyors, and they no doubt designed the uniform elevations stipulated in the Act. Each site was to cost from £2 to £3 3s. a square yard, with an average frontage of 20 ft. 6 in. Building began in 1796 and was virtually complete four years later, when the final dividend was paid. The simple elevations are three bays wide and three stories high, crowned only by a coping. Ornament was confined to the doorways where Doric, Ionic, or Composite columns were presumably the choice of individual occupiers. The restricted site would only allow for a variation in the width of the entrance hall.

Internally many of the chimney-pieces have richlydecorated pilasters, friezes, and cornices in the Adam-Wyatt manner, while some have central panels derived from engravings by F. Bartolozzi. (fn. 45) Many of the ornaments, executed in composition, were obtained from London or York, though it is possible that some were made locally. (fn. 46) The ornament was inexpensive (fn. 47) and its cost must often have been less than that of the plain wooden framework to which it was glued, a complete reversal of the earlier system, when all decoration was carved by hand. Similar ornament exists, or existed, in houses in High Street, Dock Office Row, and Nile Street, as well as in George (formerly Charlotte) Street in the northern suburb.

Contemporary with the building of Parliament Street was the ambitious scheme of reconstruction by Trinity House of part of its property on the south side of Whitefriargate. (fn. 48) Trinity House had already become, by gift or purchase, the major landowner within the Old Town and from the early 18th century onwards the Board had embarked on various projects of improvement. At first the principal motive was economic: a reconstructed or remodelled building could command a bigger rent and, with a policy of short leases, these rents could be raised steadily. The main properties were those fronting Whitefriargate and Carr Lane, but there were others in Lowgate, The Butchery, Prince's Dock Street, and elsewhere. Until the Board's decision in 1791 to build the new Neptune Inn on the south side of Whitefriargate, there had been no attempt to give architectural coherence to the street frontage. In the early 18th century the site had been occupied by gardens and stables interspersed with houses in what was still a residential area. There was, it is true, 'Mr. Warton's Inn' the 'Cross Keys' and an occasional shop, but houses predominated until the late 1820s. The first six new houses were built at the western end of the street in 1736–7. They still remain, much disguised, beneath 19th-century stucco. Further building took place in 1749, but the next major scheme was the erection of five houses in 1752–3. The builder was John Meadley, but a draft plan was submitted by William Ringrose; Thomas Scott acted as overseer. In 1764 three further houses were built, this time in Posterngate; again they survive, stucco-fronted. George Schonswar was the designer, though Thomas Towers was awarded the contract to build, with Schonswar acting as joiner. Joseph Page was paid £3 3s., presumably for plaster work. A block of five more houses in Whitefriargate was begun in 1771 with Ringrose as builder; a decade later the stables built in 1749 were replaced by three new houses.

The Whitefriargate frontage owned by Trinity House had now been virtually rebuilt from end to end. No doubt the use of brick, with the standard Georgian sash window at regular intervals, produced reasonable uniformity, but the success of their building operations, and the prosperity that followed the peace of 1783, tempted the Board to a change of policy. In 1791 it was decided to erect a large inn, with a dwelling-house on either side, as a showy centre-piece. Riddell, Hargrave, Settle, Pycock, and, later, Thorpe, were asked to submit plans. George Pycock won the competition, but building did not start until 1794, by which time the existing houses had become vacant. By then the French war had begun. Pycock contracted to build the carcase of the whole block, but various troubles beset him. Wages rose, but the Board refused to sanction the increase, and as the work dragged on Pycock was asked to enter into a penalty clause of £1,000. The work was not finished until 1797 and a year later the Board was still refusing to settle Pycock's claim for fees and for the advance in workmen's wages; their own surveyor, however, was awarded £105 for superintending the construction of the new inn, already named the 'Neptune'. The inn was finally let and opened to the public in November 1797, but it was not a success. It became the custom house in 1815, and later both it and the neighbouring houses were converted into shops. (fn. 49)

Except for the insertion of modern shop-fronts Pycock's elevation remains essentially intact. His design was complex, made more so by his alterations to the attic story. The ground floor was simply treated, with an elliptical-headed arch framing the entrance to the courtyard. The flanking windows were plain rectangles, those in the end pavilions being tripartite. On the first floor was the ballroom, the central Venetian window of which has a pair of roundarched windows to the left and right. Those in the pavilions repeat the Venetian theme, though the arches of the centre lights were omitted as they would have come too close to the sills of the secondfloor lunettes. Over the outer pairs of ballroom windows are carved panels, above which a cornice binds the composition together. The end pavilions have, in addition, triangular pediments over the giant blank arches that enclose the lunette and tripartite windows. The attic windows are circular above the pediments and rectangular elsewhere. In the centre, at parapet level, is a sculptured panel bearing the arms of Trinity House. The flanking houses are much simpler, three bays wide and three stories high. Internally the only feature to survive recent reconstruction is the ballroom, approximately a double cube, 52 ft. long. Composition decoration is applied to the doorcases and window surrounds. The compartmented ceiling is a rich, if late, example of the Adam manner, and is by far the best of its type in the city, with its scrolls, husks, and musical trophies.

War precluded further major building schemes until well after 1815, but the commercial revival of the 1820s proved strong enough to tempt the Board to pull down everything east of Pycock's work. (fn. 50) The designs of Charles Mountain, the younger, were accepted in 1829 for a prolonged façade, and the work was carried out in 1829–31. Smith's Bank (now Woolworth's stores) was to be the centre unit, eleven bays wide. The five middle bays of this are articulated by Ionic pilasters and antae supporting a pediment filled with emblematic sculpture by Thomas Earle (1810–76). (fn. 51) The slightly lower flanking blocks, each of ten bays, have a simpler treatment. This work balanced the partially rebuilt western block of 1826–9, where again pilasters, and a tall attic instead of a pediment, stress the centre-piece. The remainder of the frontage was merely altered at irregular intervals, without any coherent design. Trinity Square, off Anlaby Road, was completed in 1837 to the design of the Appleyards, a family of builders at work in Hull during the Regency and early Victorian periods. John and Frank Appleyard had contracted to rebuild the eastern block in Whitefriargate, to stucco the fronts of Trinity House, and to build or rebuild various other properties owned by Trinity House. They thus represented a late example of the long tradition of builder-architect.

The development of a suburb to the north of the Old Town began in the 1770s. The Dock Act of 1774 had required the Dock Company to construct a new road from Beverley Gate to North Bridge, and it authorized the company to sell surplus land not needed for the dock itself. The road was built in 1778, and in 1781 its various sections were named Savile, George, Charlotte, North, and Bridge Streets. (fn. 52) Sites were sold in 1781 and 1787, (fn. 53) and most of the streets were built up in the eighties and nineties. Richard Baker's estate, which he bought from John Jarratt in 1787, (fn. 54) was also built up at this time. On Jarratt's remaining ground building took place a little later, but Jarratt Street and Jarratt (later Kingston) Square had been laid out and named by 1801. (fn. 55) Joseph Sykes's estate, which he bought from the Revd. John Mason in 1796, (fn. 56) had similarly been laid out by 1801. On the northern fringe of the new suburb building was less rapid. On Samuel Wright's estate, for example, Wright Street was laid out about 1802 (fn. 57) but was slow to be developed. Again, on the Prymes's estate Pryme Street had been made by 1801 (fn. 58) but few houses were built. At the eastern end of this estate New George Street was being made in 1803, (fn. 59) but in the centre of the estate Caroline Place and Francis Street were not set out until 1822–6. (fn. 60)

Many buildings in this area were destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, but enough survive to reveal the character of the houses in the early suburb. The finest group of late-18th-century houses on the former Dock Company's estate, or indeed in the city itself, was that on the north side of Charlotte Street, now part of George Street. (fn. 61) Between Grimston Street on the west and Prince's Row on the east fifteen building plots were sold by the company in 1781, (fn. 62) on each of which the purchaser was to erect a house not less than 30 ft. high. (fn. 63) The ground on the west side of Savile Street and the north sides of George and North Streets was disposed of at the same sale. A sale notice of 1803 commends these houses for their elevated position, prospects northwards and westwards, accessibility from another street, and present and presumed future respectability. (fn. 64) The houses were numbered 1–15 Charlotte Street from east to west and are now represented by nos. 89–141 (odd numbers) George Street, numbered in the opposite direction. They were mostly of three stories above semibasements and were built of red brick with stone or cast composition dressings. They formed a continuous terrace but the individual houses varied considerably both in size and design. By 1966 the group had been much mutilated, mainly by bombing, but its architectural quality could still be recognized. The most handsome houses and the first to be built were those at the west end where nos. 15 and 14 (c. 1782) (fn. 65) have frontages of five bays, the three central bays in each case breaking forward and being surmounted by a pediment; as elsewhere in the terrace, the pediments originally contained composition ornament in the form of wreaths and swags. The elevations are divided horizontally by stone bands and continuous stone sills. No. 15 is the only two-storied house in the row; internally the two back rooms have bay windows and one of them is the best preserved room in the street, retaining an enriched plaster ceiling and a chimney-piece of yellow and white marble. Against the back wall the half landing of the staircase, a 19th-century stone replacement of the original, is lit by a Venetian window. The arrangement at no. 14, a three-storied house, is somewhat similar, but the staircase, which has two turned balusters to each tread, is original.

The elevations of the next three houses in Charlotte Street were designed as a grandiose symmetrical unit (c. 1782), but no. 13 and part of no. 12 have been demolished. They were built for J. R. Pease, who himself occupied no. 12, and it is probable that they were designed by Charles Mountain, the elder. (fn. 66) Mountain is known to have been employed by the Dock Company and to have been asked to draw elevations in connexion with their development north of Bridge Street; (fn. 67) here a surviving house in Carroll Place (see below) has a centre-piece closely resembling that of no. 12 Charlotte Street. No. 12, the central house of the group, was of five bays surmounted by a pediment, while the flanking houses were each of three bays. The side doorways and all the ground-floor windows had semicircular heads and were set in arched recesses connected at impost level by a continuous stone band. The most elegant fitting which remains internally is the main staircase of the central house, built against its west wall and occupying a domed stair well with a curved end. A decorated plaster ceiling remains in no. 11.

The now painted frontage of no. 10 Charlotte Street (c. 1792) (fn. 68) has three bays surmounted by a pediment and there is a through passage at the west end of its ground floor. The next seven houses eastwards date from c. 1796–9 and were also the property of J. R. Pease, the builders being Fox and Usher. No. 9 is of five bays with the round-headed ground-floor windows connected by an impost band; the central doorway is flanked by Corinthian columns supporting an entablature. No. 8 is the only house for which the name of a separate architect, Thomas Riddell, is recorded. (fn. 69) Its pedimented front is of three bays and four stories, the top floor having low windows above the main cornice; the door-case is original and at first- and second-floor levels there are inset panels bearing crossed palm and oak-leaf ornament. The interiors of nos. 7 and 8 contain many original fittings enriched with applied composition ornament. To the east of this house the group has been much altered by demolition, rebuilding, and the insertion of shop-fronts. The houses were all of the standard three-bay terrace type but there is evidence that some had been designed as larger units and later fitted up for individual occupiers. Nos. 5, 4, and 3 originally comprised such a unit, the central facade being surmounted by a segmental pediment with an elliptical window in the tympanum. At the corner of Prince's Row the former no. 1 Charlotte Street has been rebuilt as the Queen's Hotel.

At the eastern end of the Dock Company's estate the one surviving house, in Carroll Place (formerly Paradise Row), was built in 1781–4. (fn. 70) Its design is here attributed to Charles Mountain, the elder (see above). It has a wide three-bay frontage and is three stories high above a semi-basement. The ground-floor windows are modern and the wall has been partially rendered. The most notable feature is the treatment of the central bay: the elliptical-arched entrance is flanked by enriched Doric columns supporting an entablature with a reeded frieze, swags, and an urn. Over this is a pedimented window, with an inset balustrade, linked vertically to a window with an eared architrave.

On the south side of George Street a number of three-storied terrace houses of various widths has survived from c. 1790. Some of the brickwork is now painted or plastered and several shop-fronts have been inserted. Nos. 16 to 26 together form a frontage of seven bays with an original arched passage between two modern shops. The central windows have stone architraves and there are cast-stone panels bearing oak leaf swags below the window-sills. Three of the houses (nos. 82, 90–92, and 94) retain their entrance steps and their pedimented doorcases flanked by Doric columns. The south side of George Street and the north side of Dock Street were developed together, the lots sold by the Dock Company in 1787 (fn. 71) extending from one to the other. The purchasers then sub-divided the plots and built houses facing both streets. Those remaining in Dock Street are three-storied terrace houses with semi-basements but no front areas. Nos. 6 and 8 have bay windows to their upper floors. The least altered house is no. 12, which, like no. 9, is of three bays with a pediment across its full width. All the other ground floors have been altered, many having inserted shop-fronts. On the east side of Savile Street is a terrace of three-storied, two-bay, brick houses, now all painted, dating from c. 1830; (fn. 72) the ground floors all contain modern shops.

Albion Street was the principal street of Richard Baker's estate, built up in 1788–98. (fn. 73) On its north side, between Percy (formerly York) Street and Union Street, a continuous terrace of thirteen houses has survived (nos. 18–30). They were built in 1794–6, and are of three stories above a semibasement, most of their two- and three-bay fronts having modillion cornices; all are of brick with stone bands and channelled stone window-heads with plain key-blocks. The wooden doorcases have Doric columns, pediments, and semicircular fanlights. The doorway of the house at the west end, which faces Percy Street (no. 1), is flanked by stone Ionic columns. The adjoining house in Percy Street, built c. 1797, has a symmetrical front with five windows to the first floor and a central stone doorway with Tuscan columns and a pediment. There are still a few houses belonging to the same development in Story Street (nos. 1, 2, 3, 12, 13, and 14, built by 1789, and nos. 19, 22, and 23, built by 1796); and also on the south side of Albion Street (nos. 8 and 9, built in 1788–9). Some have been plastered or otherwise altered, but several retain their pedimented Doric doorcases. In Jarratt Street a row of ten more modest three-storied houses (nos. 1–9), similar to those in Albion Street, has survived from John Jarratt's estate, built up c. 1803. The ground laid out by Joseph Sykes at the same period was developed with three-storied terraces fronting the principal streets (Mason, Sykes, and Bourne Streets), and a complex of narrow courts and squares containing humbler houses behind them. A short terrace in Worship Street (nos. 21–25 consecutive) forms the terminal feature of the vista along Albion and Jarratt Streets. It was built by 1806, and has a modillion cornice rising to form a pediment above the four central bays; modern shops have been inserted on the ground floor. Adjoining its north end are four similar houses facing Mason Street. Building on Samuel Wright's estate was not very rapid and there appear to have been only eighteen occupied houses in Wright Street, the principal street, by 1835. Six survivors (nos. 6–11), on the north side, are large three-storied terrace houses, above semi-basements, with three-bay fronts. Similarly, on the Pryme estate, there were only eleven occupied houses in Pryme Street in 1835. (fn. 74) Four (nos. 1–4) survive on the north side. When Caroline Place was laid out in 1822 provision was made, for the first time, for small front gardens, (fn. 75) several of which still exist.

Several notable public buildings were erected in this area in the 1820s and 1830s, among them St. Charles's Roman Catholic church, the Public Rooms, (fn. 76) and the Medical School, all in or near Kingston Square. The Medical School, built in 1833, was designed by Henry R. Abraham and its stone entrance front is a scholarly exercise in the Greek Revival style. The wide central bay is framed by antae and the narrower flanking bays by plain strips. The whole is crowned by an entablature with a dentil cornice and a central pediment. There is a carved jar enclosed by a disc in the centre of the frieze and acroteria with honeysuckle ornament are placed at the angles of the parapet. Each of the flanking bays contains a window to the principal floor and a doorway to the basement at plinth level. The main entrance, approached by six steps, has a lugged and battered architrave surmounted by a hood on console brackets; the frieze is dated 1833. (fn. 77)

Among the more noteworthy houses in the early suburban development west of the Old Town were those on the south side of Nile Street, built c. 1800–5 by Robert Nevis. (fn. 78) The main terrace, of five houses, was distinguishable from its neighbours by its central pediment. Composition ornament was used in the interiors, where the only distinctive motif was the carved fasces-like treatment of the first-floor window reveals in place of the usual panelling. On the east side of the River Hull, in Great Union Street, a novel scheme was carried out involving both a shipyard and houses (nos. 54–56). The shipyard, opened in 1805, was hidden from view behind high walls which linked three houses in a uniform, if extended, composition. (fn. 79) The flanking houses are standard Hull terrace units, but that in the centre is larger and more elaborate. The central doorway is linked to the windows on the two floors above; the lower order is Composite, that of the first-floor window Doric, and the uppermost window is framed by a heavy architrave, all of this decoration being in stone. The doorway frieze has a carving of a ship's stern flanked by various nautical motifs and garlands. The wooden-framed fanlight, like examples in other east-coast towns, is blind. The southern house has been demolished.

By the early 19th century suburban development had begun both in Spring Bank and along the turnpike roads leading from the city on sites which then commanded fine open views. (fn. 80) The development took the form either of continuous terraces or of detached 'villas'. Some of the early terraces, built of grey brick or faced with stucco, can still be recognized along Beverley Road, Anlaby Road, and Spring Bank. In most cases the houses have been altered for commercial or industrial uses and their front gardens have disappeared. On the west side of Beverley Road part of the former York Parade consisted of a terrace of seven two-storied houses of grey brick with Classical porches and boldlyprojecting bow windows. These houses (nos. 53–65) were built between 1815 and 1818; only nos. 53, 55, and 61 remain unaltered. Further north nos. 79 and 81 are the only recognizable survivors of four double-fronted villas in the Grecian style dating from 1832 and built by David Thorp, architect; (fn. 81) they are faced with stucco, linked by screen walls, and have wide eaves, Doric porches, and central castiron balconies. The remainder of York Parade consists of more modest two-storied houses of which only no. 89 retains an unaltered front. In Anlaby Road are two surviving examples from the Greek Revival period, one of which (no. 199), designed by Charles Hutchinson, was completed in 1840 as the Hull and East Riding Female Penitentiary. (fn. 82) The other (no. 215), of slightly earlier date, is a stuccofronted detached house of three bays, the central bay being recessed and containing a Greek Doric porch. The frontage is flanked by screen walls which are pierced by round-headed openings and surmounted by acroteria. To the south of Spring Bank, while development was proceeding along the main road, a small estate was built up with terraces of modest two-storied houses. Spring Street, which formed the eastern boundary of the estate, had been laid out by 1805, but most of the building took place between 1834 and 1842. (fn. 83)

Late Georgian public or semi-public buildings were frequently domestic in scale and detail. George Pycock's infirmary of 1784 (fn. 84) could pass as a large, if plain, country house; the new Dock Office of 1820, (fn. 85) in Dock Office Row, has only a cupola and a generous spacing of windows to mark it off from the neighbouring residences, and the inscription on John Earle's (1799–1863) Pilot Office in Queen Street, built in 1819–20, (fn. 86) fulfils a similar function. All these buildings were of brick with wood or stone dressings. Regency and early Victorian public buildings were more frequently of stone, or stuccofaced and 'frescoed' so as to resemble stone. Hitherto inaccessible quarries could now be reached by new means of transport, and architects in Hull had the opportunity to indulge in the porticos favoured during the Neo-Classical period. The more fashionable nonconformist congregations built new and more elegant chapels, while rival colleges competed architecturally as well as educationally. The infirmary was refronted (fn. 87) and the Public Rooms were erected in Kingston Square. (fn. 88)

Charles Mountain, the younger (1773–?1839), who had succeeded to his father's practice after the latter's death in 1805, was the first of the Hull architects responsible for these transformations. He had been trained as a slater and contracted as such whilst architect to the new eastern block he was building for Trinity House in Whitefriargate. He also designed new almshouses with Greek Doric porticos for the House in Posterngate and Carr Lane. (fn. 89) Mountain's formula was simply to add columns or pilasters to a rectangular base regularly pierced by windows, doing in Hull what Sir Robert Smirke was doing in London.

H. F. Lockwood (1811–78), (fn. 90) who followed Mountain as the chief exponent of the Greek Revival in Hull, was more under the influence of Sir John Soane and attempted more dramatic effects. His principal works, such as Trinity House chapel, the new front of the infirmary, (fn. 91) Hull College, Great Thornton Street Chapel, (fn. 92) and Albion Chapel, were built just after the close of the period under review. Lockwood's best-known pupil was Cuthbert Brodrick, whose Royal Institution of 1852–4 (fn. 93) also resembles Soane's work. Both Lockwood and Brodrick helped to perpetuate a sense of Georgian scale in Hull architecture, which lasted well into the Victorian era. This can be seen in domestic and commercial buildings as well as in the great dock and railway warehouses of the 1840s. At the same time the popularity of carved decoration, often incorporating maritime symbols, persisted locally for most of the 19th century. John Earle's sculptured pediment at Ferries's Hospital (1822) and his son Thomas's at Smith's Bank, in Whitefriargate (c. 1830), reflected the Baroque exuberance of Hargrave's work of 70 years earlier. Such vigorous sculpture continued to be a characteristic of Hull and is found as late as 1867–71 on the Dock Office in Queen Victoria Square. (fn. 94) The persistence of a strong Georgian tradition may have been responsible for the only slight impact made on Hull by the Gothic Revival. It may also account for the fact that a Renaissance style was chosen for nearly all the important buildings of the later 19th century.

The growth of trade during the 18th century involved much rebuilding and new building among the town's warehouses. As some merchants moved away from their High Street houses these properties were devoted entirely to business, and warehouses were progressively extended back from the river. The opening of the docks led to the building of other warehouses in the north and west of the Old Town. All the warehouses of this period were built of brick in a simple functional manner with few decorative features. Their loading bays and window openings, for example, usually have plain segmental brick heads, though the sills are sometimes of stone. Despite extensive demolition and replacement in the 19th and 20th centuries some of the earlier warehouse buildings still survive.

The earliest remaining warehouse which can be precisely dated stands behind High Street on the river front just south of Drypool Bridge. It was built for Joseph Pease in 1745 and 1760 and is four stories high. The earlier section is seven bays long with a central loading bay in ground and first floors, the later is six bays long with the loading bay at the east end. The treatment is unusually elaborate. In each case the loading doors are framed by brick pilaster strips with stone impost blocks, from which spring semicircular brick arches with stone key blocks. The imposts are inscribed with the dates of erection and the key-blocks with Pease's initials. The tympanum of the 1760 section is pierced by a circular opening with four key-blocks. A final decorative feature is a stone-capped parapet and the roof is pantiled. The windows have brick sills and the framework of the building is entirely of timber. (fn. 95)

A surviving example of an early-19th-century warehouse in High Street is no. 37, built in 1829 for the iron merchant and warehouse-keeper William Walker. (fn. 96) It is of four stories, five bays wide with a central loading bay rising through three floors. The arch over this bay also extends over a third-floor hoist door. An arched opening on the ground floor has impost blocks, rusticated voussoirs, and a keyblock. The windows have stone sills. An oval recess over the loading bay formerly contained a tablet inscribed 'W. S. W. 1829', and two cast-iron tie-rod heads bear the name Walker and the date. Two nearby warehouses of the same period are nos. 38 and 42 High Street.

The first warehouses adjoining the new dock opened in 1778 were provided by the Dock Company. These lay on the south side, fronting on the legal quay. Their construction was 'to be done with reasonable frugality. . . . The rooms to be 10 feet high and the building covered with blue slates'. Two warehouses were built during 1779 and another was added in 1795. (fn. 97) They are probably among those which still stand, in what is now Guildhall Road. Two of the remaining warehouses are noteworthy. The first is of three stories, thirteen bays long with two loading bays rising through all three floors. On the ground floor, at each end, is an arched opening which originally gave access to the streets behind. The second, adjoining to the east, is a slightly lower three-storied block, eleven bays long with two loading bays. The entire ground floor has been altered except for the central arched opening. In both buildings the internal construction is entirely of timber.

Further east, lying between the former quay and Salthouse Lane, are three privately-built warehouses. Two of the building lots here were let in 1801 to William Corlass, merchant, and the warehouses were built the same year. (fn. 98) They are of three stories above a cellar, with gable walls and pantiled roofs. All three have the same asymmetrical elevation to the quay (now North Walls): three bays with a loading bay at one side, rising through all the floors. The arch over the loading bay embraces a third-floor hoist door. The elevations to Salthouse Lane are symmetrical, and all three alike: the separate loading bay on each floor is centrally placed. The internal construction is again entirely of timber. The easternmost warehouse is now only a shell. Further along Salthouse Lane, on the corner of Perrott Street, is another warehouse of the same period, having a stone inscribed 'William Corlass 1810'. The treatment is especially plain, with simple square window openings.

Two warehouses built in the 1830s provide good examples of the buildings put up on the west side of the town, after the opening of Humber and Junction Docks. That at the corner of Posterngate and the dock-side (now Prince's Dock Street) was built in 1831, perhaps for Joseph Pease. It is five stories high and has a slate roof. The dock-side elevation, which is gabled, is of three bays with a central loading bay rising through four floors. A tablet in the gable reads 'J. P. 1831'. The elevation to Posterngate is six bays long with a loading bay near one end rising through all five floors. (fn. 99) The second warehouse, with elevations in Mytongate and Humber Dock Street, was built in 1837 for Thomas Thompson, merchant and shipowner. (fn. 100) It is four stories high, gabled and slate-roofed. The Humber Dock Street elevation is three bays wide with a central loading bay rising through all the floors; a tablet reads 'T. T. 1837'. The Mytongate elevation is five bays wide with a central loading bay. The gables of both warehouses have stone copings, and all the windows have stone sills.

An elegant shop-front in the ground floor of the last-mentioned warehouse is probably contemporary with it. A long fanlight extends across the three windows and three doors, all of which are framed by decorated pilaster strips; over the front is a frieze and cornice. This elaborate early-19th-century shopfront contrasts with the simple shop-fronts of the 18th century, few of which survive. No. 35 Blanket Row, however, contains two small late-18th-century fronts, each consisting of a shallow, segmental, bow window, framed by plain pilasters and crowned by an entablature; both retain their shutter boards.

1835–1870 (fn. 101)

When the local board of health was established in 1851 it inherited the problem of numerous courts and alleys, many of them built before 1835, both in the Old Town and in the suburbs. James Smith noted that this type of property was generally owned by people seeking the greatest return on their money by offering the least accommodation that would be accepted. (fn. 102) Indeed a sale notice of 1806 offered Garden Place, Sykes Street, to 'persons desirous of making great interest of their money, and the situation being near the dock and haven, they are always sure of tenants'. (fn. 103) Garden Place contained 22 houses, approached through a narrow archway from the street, most of them with only two rooms. (fn. 104) The courts were mostly concealed behind houses of a less mean character. On the Prymes's estate, for example, (fn. 105) where development continued in the 1830s and 1840s, (fn. 106) two-storied terraced houses were built along the street fronts; good remaining examples are nos. 87–103 and 115–25 (odd) Francis Street West. Behind these were such surviving courts as Agnes's Terrace, of 1848, (fn. 107) and Eleanor's Place, both off Raywell Street. As development proceeded on Wright's estate conditions were laid down 'to preserve . . . uniformity and respectability in the appearance of the streets', and no 'tenements' were to be permitted. (fn. 108) Two-storied terraces, built about 1850, (fn. 109) survive in Neville Street and Percy Street. There are more elaborately treated houses in Reed Street, where nos. 3–5 and 6–8 (consecutive) are two-storied terraces built in 1843 and 1845 respectively; (fn. 110) each bay is framed by a giant pilaster order rising through both stories and terminating in a modillion eaves cornice, and a first-floor plat band, aprons beneath each window, and blind windows over the doors are all of stucco.

The local board appointed a surveyor to supervise new building, and by-laws were drawn up in 1852. A significant clause in the by-laws stipulated that plans of proposed buildings must be deposited with the surveyor before work began. (fn. 111) Action was taken at once against the erection of the worst type of courts: in 1852 the board rejected a plan for building two 'front houses' in Walker Street, with a square of fourteen houses behind; at the same time it objected in principle to any court not having an open space at least 20 feet wide running 'the whole extent of the ground' and it laid down a minimum size for the back-yards of each house. (fn. 112) These and other requirements were contained in the Improvement Act of 1854. (fn. 113) One of the standard layouts evolved in response to these regulations consisted of a series of short terraces set at right-angles to a principal street; four houses face the street, backing upon two rows of about six houses, and this grouping is repeated at intervals of about 20 feet along the street. Many examples still survive.

One significant addition to working-class housing at this period was the model dwellings built by the Society for Improving the Dwellings of the Labouring Classes. This national society had received a gift for the purpose, and the dwellings were erected on the corner of Midland and St. Luke's Streets in 1862. The architect was H. M. Eyton, of London. The two-storied building lies around a courtyard and contains five one-bedroomed, nineteen two-bedroomed, and eight three-bedroomed flats. It is of white brick with red-brick and stone dressings. (fn. 114)

Increasing trade brought some notable changes in warehouse accommodation in the mid-19th century. The Dock Company had built no substantial warehouses on Humber and Prince's Docks and there were only wooden sheds on the quays. In 1846, however, when Railway Dock was opened, two warehouses were completed beside Prince's Dock to encourage trade further. Another followed in 1851 on the south side of Railway Dock, and it was extended in 1857. Additional smaller warehouses had by the latter date been built at the north end of Humber Dock. (fn. 115) All these buildings are still in the simple, functional tradition.

One of the warehouses completed in 1846 is a relatively small building, at the south-east corner of Prince's Dock. It was probably designed by Edward Welsh, (fn. 116) resident engineer of the Dock Company, and is three stories high; it is built of brick, with stone in the eaves cornice and window sills, and has a slate roof. The dimensions are seven bays by five. There are no continuous loading bays rising through the floors: instead they take the form of separate loading doors, of which there are twelve altogether. The loading doors have threecentred brick heads. The framework includes castiron columns but is otherwise of timber. The ground floor contained offices for the resident engineer's staff.

The second warehouse, built in 1845–6, (fn. 117) is on a much larger scale. It was designed by John B. Hartley (1814–63), (fn. 118) whose father Jesse was surveyor to the Liverpool Dock Trustees. John Hartley was consulting engineer to the Hull Dock Company from 1842 until 1858, and he designed both Railway and Victoria Docks. (fn. 119) The warehouse stands between Prince's and Humber Docks, rising to a height of five stories above a basement and measuring 200 by 60 feet. It is of brick, with a bold stone cornice and heavy blocking course; above this, on each of the long elevations, is a stone panel supporting a cast-iron clock face. The windows have stone sills. At the angles of the building and around the loading bays are rusticated stone quoins, and on the ground floor the loading bays have three-centred arches of rusticated quoins and voussoirs. The building is eighteen bays long with four loading bays on the south elevation and six on the north, all of them rising through the five floors. There is a similar loading bay in each end elevation. The warehouse is of fireproof construction throughout. The outer walls diminish in thickness as they rise, and the length of the building is divided into three by brick cross walls. Stone staircases in the north-east and northwest corners rise to the fifth floor. Two rows of cast-iron columns run the length of the building, dividing it into three aisles; on each floor the aisles are spanned by cast-iron beams, and these in turn support brick vaults; the floor over the vaults is levelled with concrete and stone-flagged. The roof is spanned in a series of shallow pitches.

The warehouse in Kingston Street, on the south side of Railway Dock, is even larger, consisting of three continuous blocks. That in the centre is five stories high and about 300 feet long, and was being built in 1851. (fn. 120) The west block is of seven stories, 240 feet long, and was built in 1857. The east block, again of seven stories, is 185 feet long, and was probably also built in 1857. Both extensions were designed by Edward Welsh, who may have been responsible also for the centre block. (fn. 121) The sheer bulk of the long elevations is relieved only by the irregular spacing of the deeply-recessed loading bays, eleven on the south and thirteen on the north, and by the gabled outline of the parapet walls. Two large openings, one in the west and one in the centre block, allowed the passage of railway wagons. They have segmental brick heads linked to the rounded jambs by rusticated stone haunches; the loading bays, rising through all the floors, and the windows have similar heads. The sills are of stone. The wall elevations finish with a projecting brick cornice, and the gabled parapet, which masks a series of shallow roof pitches, has a stone coping. The gables of the extension blocks are pierced by circular louvered ventilators. The short east elevation shows a more elaborate treatment of window bays. The building is divided internally by three rows of cast-iron columns, but the framework and floors are otherwise of timber.

In the later 19th century several warehouses facing Queen's Dock were added, and many private warehouses in the Old Town were rebuilt. The latter were now being designed by architects and given a more sophisticated appearance; two surviving warehouses, built in the sixties and seventies, provide examples of this type. The first, designed by George Wilkinson, architect, and comprising nos. 3–4 High Street, was built in 1864 for Henry Hodge, seed merchant and crusher. (fn. 122) It is four stories high and three bays wide, and the style is Italianate. The bays are framed by pilasters of grey brick, the rest of the building being of red brick. The pilasters have stone caps and support a brick frieze and stone modillion cornice and blocking course. The building stands on a stone plinth and has a sill band, also stone, at first-floor level. The central entrance arch has a semicircular head with voussoirs and key-block, while the windows have segmental or semicircular brick heads and stone sills. The lateral walls have cast-iron tie-rod heads with the initials 'H. H.' and the date 1864. The second example, a warehouse with elevations in Dagger Lane and Posterngate, was built in 1872 and 1876 for B. B. Mason, wine and spirit merchant. The architect was William Botterill. (fn. 123) Both sections are of four stories above a basement, built of brick, and slate-roofed. Each elevation has a central loading bay, and the loading doors and windows have stone sills. The Dagger Lane section (1872) has a parapet decorated with projecting brick courses and dentils, capped by a stone coping, and there is a circular opening in the gable. The Posterngate section (1876) has various stone dressings, including rusticated quoins, and a pediment with a lunette in the tympanum. The framework, otherwise of timber, includes cast-iron columns.

Comparatively few noteworthy industrial buildings survive from this period. The mills and other works lying along both banks of the River Hull, for instance, have been much rebuilt in more recent times. Of the seed-crushing mills an early surviving example is that of Henry Hodge, adjoining Blaydes Staith, which is now used as a warehouse. (fn. 124) This was built about 1857, as the tie-rod heads show; it is of grey brick with stone dressings and rises from a rusticated plinth through four stories, terminating with an entablature and blocking course. The windows have stone sills and straight rusticated heads. The south elevation is ten bays long. At its west end a narrow extension carries the base of the now-demolished chimney, and it also bears two carved stone panels with the words 'H. Hodge Seed Crusher'. The river front has a round-headed entrance with rusticated stone arch and key-block. Most of the oil- and corn-mills which lay along Holderness Road have similarly been rebuilt or demolished. Only one stump remains of the many windmills that stood in this area. This is a fivestoried red-brick tower, with an adjoining range of two-storied cottages, at no. 602 Holderness Road. Some of the outbuildings, but not the tower, of the Anti-Mill also survive at nos. 216–18 Holderness Road. A surviving steam corn-mill is that at the corner of Abbey Street which was built for Thomas Petchell in 1838; (fn. 125) the initials 'T. P.' and the date appear on two stone tablets. The mill is of red brick, and the windows have segmental heads and stone sills. It consists of two attached blocks: that on the north is five stories high, and measures six bays by three; the other is three stories high and three bays wide, and it was originally shorter than the north block. The south block contained the steam engine, and it has a tall semicircular-headed window in its east gable wall.

The two cotton-mills both in part survive. Hull Flax and Cotton Mill was built in 1836–40 (fn. 126) on a site extending from Cleveland Street to the River Hull. It originally consisted of five parallel ranges of buildings, of which, reading from south to north, a mill block, the scutching house, and the cotton warehouse, as well as the offices, survive substantially unaltered. (fn. 127) Of the five-story mill block, only the seven easternmost bays of the original nineteen remain: the block is five bays wide. The surviving section was one of two sets of working floors which stood on either side of a service core containing the engine house and staircase. The scutching house is two stories high and eight bays long, and the cotton warehouse two stories high and nine bays long. All three buildings are of red brick, terminating in stone-coped parapets. The windows of the mill and warehouse have straight stone heads and stone sills, while those of the scutching house have segmental brick heads. The east front of the scutching house was more elaborately designed; it has a central ground-floor entrance contained within a threecentred arched opening of two orders, one of red and one of grey brick, and there is a glazed fanlight. Internally this building has cast-iron columns and beams, supporting brick vaults and a stone-slab floor. The offices, which front upon Cleveland Street, are two-storied, seven bays long, and built of red brick with stone dressings. The entrance, at the south end, consists of a recessed Doric portico supporting a frieze and cornice, all contained within a three-centred arched opening; the tympanum is filled by a radially-glazed fanlight. At the north end was an arched way through the building, now blocked.

Kingston Cotton Mill was built in 1845–7 (fn. 128) on part of an 11-acre site adjoining Cumberland Street, near to its junction with Fountain Road, and having access to the River Hull. The mill was designed by James Lille & Sons, of Manchester; it was five stories high and 500 feet long. (fn. 129) Three sets of working floors were divided by two service cores containing the engine houses and staircases: only the easternmost working floors remain. The surviving building is of red brick, eighteen bays long and five wide, and ends in a stone-coped parapet. The four corners are strengthened by projecting panelled piers, and the windows all have straight stone heads and stone sills. Internally the structure was fireproof, similar to that of the scutching house of Hull Flax and Cotton Mill.

Of the miscellaneous industrial premises in the town those of the Hull Brewery Company, lying between Silvester and Jarratt Streets, are worthy of note. The brewery was built by Gleadow, Dibb, & Co. in 1867–9 to replace their building in Dagger Lane, and it was designed by William Sissons, architect. (fn. 130) Four ranges of buildings are placed round a central courtyard. All are of red brick and essentially simple, though some Classical details are used. The windows throughout are of two lights with double-arched heads, and both heads and sills are of stone. The north range is fourteen bays long, in part five and in part three stories high. The fifth floor has a continuous band of glazing contained in timber framing, and the roof is crowned by a hexagonal timber cupola with a copper-covered ogee dome. Both the north and south ranges have rusticated brick quoins and wooden bracketed eaves cornices. The three-story south range is of thirteen bays, with the five central bays set back. The entrance to the courtyard has been moved from its original central position; it has a three-centred arch, with rusticated stone voussoirs and quoins. A three-story block was added to each end of the south range in the 1890s, their details conforming to those of the original buildings.

At the end of this period a significant physical development in connexion with the docks was the replacement of the old dock office building, near the entrance to Queen's Dock, by a new one. The Dock Offices were built in 1867–71 according to a design by C. G. Wray, of London, chosen by competition. Architecturally one of the most original and successful public buildings in Hull, it stands on an island site. The plan is an irregular triangle with a bowed frontage of nine bays to Queen's Gardens and shorter straight frontages to Queen Victoria Square and New Cross Street. The three rounded angles are surmounted by large domed cupolas. When the building was erected the bowed front overlooked Queen's Dock and the bridge between it and Prince's Dock. The style of the Venetian Renaissance was evidently thought appropriate to this waterfront setting. The structure is of two stories and is faced with Ancaster Stone. There is an applied Roman Ionic order to the ground floor, a Corinthian order above, and a Composite order to the tall drums of the three cupolas. Between the two stories is a continuous balustrade, interrupted only by the rusticated piers which frame the end bays on each façade. The windows are round-headed, those on the first floor being surmounted by carved panels and an enriched frieze pierced by circular openings. The cupolas stand behind the main cornice and are crowned by lead-covered domes. The central feature on the Queen Victoria Square frontage rises through both stories and is surmounted by a pediment with sculpture above it and in the tympanum; below is a recessed entrance flanked by two pairs of Ionic columns. A smaller entrance at the centre of the bowed front carries the Royal Arms supported by figures riding on sea-horses. Maritime symbols are used decoratively throughout the building: the cast-iron railings have tridents and harpoons, guilloche ornament is formed by interlacing rope, and dolphins support the lanterns above the domes. Internally the most notable features are the stone staircase and the former court room on the upper floor, situated behind the bowed east front. The court room has Corinthian columns, an enriched ceiling, and a cornice in which shells and starfish are incorporated. The sculptures and much of the decoration were the work of John Underwood, of London. (fn. 131)

1871–1914 (fn. 132)

Only two limited schemes for the building of new houses were carried out by the corporation during this period, both to rehouse people displaced by road improvements. First, when Great Passage Street was widened in 1899–1900, the corporation planned three blocks of flats, each four stories high, on its south side; these were built in 1900. (fn. 133) Secondly, in conjunction with the making of Alfred Gelder Street, the building of 77 workmen's houses on a site in Rustenburg and Steynburg Streets began in 1902. (fn. 134)

In two other cases of the improvement of workingclass housing the work was done by private enterprise. One was a scheme carried out by the Hull Artizans' and Labourers' Improved Dwellings Co. Ltd., which was formed in 1888 to build new dwellings 'of a similar kind to those . . . established in London and some of the chief provincial towns'. (fn. 135) Land was bought adjoining Cannon and Gibson Streets and 53 houses, mostly in a spacious cul-desac (now Gordon Avenue), were built in 1889–90. The architect was B. S. Jacobs. (fn. 136) All the houses had rear access. The company's intention of building three other sets of houses (fn. 137) was never fulfilled.

The second example of private enterprise improvement was the garden village built on the north side of Holderness Road by James Reckitt for his employees. Reckitt, a Quaker, may have been influenced by the Cadbury garden village project at Birmingham, begun in 1895. (fn. 138) His object was 'to provide a house and a good garden . . . for the same rent as is now paid for inferior houses with no garden at all'. (fn. 139) An estate of 130 acres was bought by Reckitt from the Jalland family in 1907. (fn. 140) The layout of the village, with its tree-lined roads, as well as all the buildings, was designed by Runton and Barry, architects, of Hull. The focal point was a 'village green', with a village hall (built in 1910 and since demolished) and a club-house (1909) near by; there is also a shopping centre (1909) and three sets of almshouses. (fn. 141) All the houses are two-storied, mostly in semi-detached pairs, and simple in style; they are red-brick or rough-cast and have tiled roofs. The almshouses are Tudor and the club-house and shopping centre Renaissance in style. The clubhouse is single-storied and built of red brick with partially rendered walls. Its symmetrical front has a projecting gabled feature in the centre, flanked by four-bay wings. The entrance is set in a stone portico with two Ionic columns. The shopping centre is the most formal structure in the village and is built of red brick with largely rendered walls. It is set round three sides of a court; the shops face upon the court and are sheltered by a Doric colonnade, the balustrade above it forming a continuous balcony to the upper floor. In the middle of the central range is an opening flanked by brick piers and above it, at first-floor level, a brick arch surmounted by an open pediment with a swagged cartouche in the tympanum; the whole is crowned by a cupola. The ends of the two wings terminate in similar arched pavilions. On their outer elevations the wings have central stone doorways with Doric pilasters and pediments. (fn. 142)

The most notable developments in middle-class housing during this period were around Pearson Park and in 'the Avenues'. Building around Pearson Park began in the 1860s and continued until 1909. (fn. 143) After giving 27 acres to the town for the park itself Alderman Pearson retained 10 acres and laid out building plots around the north, east, and south sides of the park. In his gift Pearson had stipulated that the corporation should make a carriage-way and pavement round the perimeter of the park, and provide drainage and lighting. The layout and planting of the park were completed in 1862, to the designs of James Niven, curator of the Botanic Gardens. A lodge in the Tudor style, designed by R. G. Smith, was built at the east entrance, and the main entrance gates were completed in 1863. The gate leaves have been removed but the cast-iron piers and archway survive. The piers, each consisting of a column and two pilasters, support urns and trophies. The central arch has pierced foliated spandrels and a mask keystone; above are the Hull arms flanked by dolphins and maritime emblems; two side entrances for pedestrians have piers crowned by lamp standards. (fn. 144) The houses around the park are detached or semi-detached villas; most of them are in variations of the Italianate style, while a few are 'Tudor'. None is architecturally outstanding, but an attractive overall effect is given by their setting of matured trees and landscaped parkland. (fn. 145) Grey brick was used for all the houses up to about 1885, red brick becoming more usual thereafter.

Immediately to the west of Pearson Park 'the Avenues' began to be developed in the 1870s. This land was the Westbourne Estate belonging to D. P. Garbutt and comprised 230 acres. The principal streets to be set out were four parallel tree-lined 'boulevards', namely Marlborough, Westbourne, Park, and Victoria Avenues; and a fifth, Prince's Avenue, running along the east side of the estate, adjoining Pearson Park. (fn. 146) The layout is reminiscent of contemporary French planning schemes, and this influence is also suggested by the use of the terms 'boulevard' and 'avenue'. There were originally six cast-iron fountains standing in 'circuses' along the avenues, but only two remain: each consists of a tall octagonal pedestal, with mermaids around the base, supporting a large shallow basin, in which stand four herons supporting a smaller basin. (fn. 147)

The earliest building took place on Prince's Avenue, which was formally opened in March 1875, (fn. 148) and at the eastern end of the other avenues, and development has continued ever since. The avenues were continued to join Chanterlands Avenue when the latter was extended in 1908. (fn. 149) There are a few detached houses, but most are semi-detached or in short, uniform, terraces; all are in red or yellow brick, and there is considerable variety of styles. The most notable houses architecturally are in a group comprising nos. 1, 3, 5, and 7 Salisbury Street, nos. 96 and 98 Westbourne Avenue, and nos. 107 and 109 Park Avenue. George Gilbert Scott, the younger, was the architect of nos. 3 and 5 Salisbury Street, and perhaps of the others. (fn. 150) These houses, of red brick, were built between 1877 and 1879 in the 'William-and-Mary' style. They have hipped roofs, Dutch-gabled dormers, and large stucco panels decorated with swags. The group is not only unique in Hull, but is also a relatively early example of the influence of Norman Shaw and Eden Nesfield, who had introduced the style in the early 1870s. Other noteworthy houses are nos. 204–12 (even nos.) Park Avenue, by Thomas Spurr, built in 1898–1900 (fn. 151) of red brick with yellow-brick dressings in a miniature 'castellated' style. Nos. 34–40 (even nos.) Westbourne Avenue, by J. Dossor, architect, date from 1904 (fn. 152) and have brick ground floors with bay windows, overhanging half-timbered upper stories, and partly tile-hung gables.

In the town centre, shop-fronts, like warehouses, became increasingly elaborate during the 19th century. (fn. 153) It was said in 1842 that 'the new and handsome fronts to the shops of our tradesmen— erected during late years—hold no mean rank among the improvements of the town'; one front in Prospect Street was particularly praised, with its window 'of plate glass in panes of an enormous size' and woodwork 'beautifully carved and gilded'. (fn. 154) One example of such shop-fronts survives in no. 76 Lowgate, inserted into the 18th-century house in the 1840s when it belonged to a firm of wine and spirit merchants. The Roman Corinthian order is used, and the entrance and window are framed by fluted columns supporting an entablature, with a dentil cornice. A second example is in the Land of Green Ginger premises of W. Tesseyman & Sons, leather manufacturers, who moved there in the 1840s. The entrance and window are framed by plain pilasters, with console brackets supporting a frieze and cornice; the cornice rises to form a crowning pediment. The coarser detailing of shopfronts in the later 19th century is well illustrated by no. 84 Queen Street, designed by W. H. Kitchen for a firm of tea merchants in 1874. On each of the flanking pilasters is the figure of a Chinaman, standing on a globe and supporting a foliated capital which is crowned by ogee gablets. (fn. 155)

A little later, in the 1890s, two shopping arcades were built. The Paragon Arcade, opened in 1892, was designed by W. A. Gelder in a Gothic style and built of red brick with carved stone dressings. It links Paragon Street to Carr Lane and has vaulted entrances at both ends. The shops open into a twostoried hall which has a pointed glazed roof carried on fretted cast-iron trusses. Hepworth's Arcade, opened in 1894, is L-shaped and runs from Silver Street to Market Place. It was built for J. Hepworth, the Leeds tailor, and was designed by W. H. Kitching in a Flemish Renaissance style. The arcade is faced with stone; internally it is two stories high and has a glazed barrel-vaulted roof. (fn. 156)

In the 1860s and later new buildings for banks and offices were concentrated in the area bounded by Lowgate, Silver Street, and Bowlalley Lane, where many of them still survived in 1967. The local architects Smith and Brodrick (later Brodrick, Lowther, and Walker) were responsible for a number of these buildings which often had ornate frontages in a great variety of styles and materials. An early example of their work was the Yorkshire Insurance Company office and Hull Club, built at the junction of Lowgate and Bishop Lane in 1874; (fn. 157) this is of red brick with carved stone dressings in the Venetian Gothic style. Later the façades were more often faced with stone and the favourite styles were those of the Italian or Flemish Renaissance. Notable buildings of this type were the exchange (by William Botterill, 1866), (fn. 158) the York Union Bank (now the Royal Insurance Group offices), in Lowgate (by Smith and Brodrick, 1890), and the National Provincial Bank (now the Westminster Bank), at the corner of Lowgate and Scale Lane (by Brodrick, Lowther, and Walker, 1900). (fn. 159)