Kirkgate Tenements

Three tenement blocks built in 1914, probably designed by K F Campbell, Borough Engineer. The buildings are constructed in coursed dressed sandstone with slate roofs.

The three blocks are arranged in a row running approximately east-west, with Tudor House positioned to the north. York House and Stewart House are identical in design, each with a T-shaped plan, while Tudor House is adapted to fit the site contours. All three blocks are three storeys high. Each has a stairwell projecting at the west end and a south-facing balcony providing access. Four chimney stacks run along the south side of the roof on each block. Doors and wooden-framed windows have ashlar dressings. Iron railings surround the entire complex, with small enclosed courtyards between Tudor and York House, and between York and Stewart House. Each block originally contained 12 units of accommodation.

The front elevations on Oldgate display the cross of the T-shape as a gable end. Stewart and York Houses feature a central gable containing two windows with a single window to each side breaking slightly forward. The right-hand window has a door at ground level; remaining windows are paired 4-over-1 wooden sashes, those on the ground floor now boarded up. A continuous cill band runs at first and second floor level. The central triangular gable is flanked by semi-circular pediments, all bearing a raised diamond decorative motif. Tudor House has a modified version of this form, with the central gable angled back immediately beyond the first window set and no left-hand pediment.

The left returns of York and Stewart Houses contain eight windows alternating between large and small 1-over-1 sashes. At the west end is a projecting bay with one pair of windows to the rear and a pyramidal roof behind the semi-circular gable to the front. Prominent eaves dentils are visible. Tudor House has no projection on its north outer side, which is canted along its entire length. Each angle has a pair of windows as on the front, and a single narrower version. The roof line has a low parapet, shaped at the angles.

The right returns of all three blocks are similar, each with a projecting staircase bay at the west end featuring a covered balcony with railings facing the rear. The stairs are concrete with railings bearing intermittent decorative twisted balusters and a decorative tile string course on the staircase walls. The south-facing elevation has three alternating doors and windows on each floor, with a continuous balcony and iron railings, the top floor sheltered by a continuation of the roof line. Two vertical panels of red diagonally slatted wood demarcate units on the first and second floors. Communal coal houses are positioned alongside the stairs. The rear elevations are rendered and plain.

The interiors of the flats are largely standard with minor variations at the front and in Tudor House. The front door opens into a small lobby with a built-in cupboard, leading to the main room which has a false lowered ceiling and where the fireplace has been removed. The partition wall at the rear is original, but the partition between kitchen and bathroom is later, as originally there was only a toilet cubicle in the rear corner. Some flats have built-in cupboards beside the chimney breast. Tudor House flats have larger rear rooms and differently organised front flats, though with similar provisions.

The area of central Huddersfield containing these tenements was designated an Insanitary District in 1909, containing courts, alleys and cellars of substandard housing. Huddersfield Corporation had already built a Hostel (now Batteys Buildings), and privately built tenements were constructed immediately to the south in 1911. The Kirkgate tenements were unusual among corporation housing of the period, which typically aimed at artisan-class occupiers rather than the lowest class of workers provided for here. Each apartment contained two rooms and an internal toilet, which represented a substantial improvement on the previous accommodation. Construction is dated to approximately 1914, predating the post-war housing programme in Huddersfield.

The chimneys were reduced in height during the 1930s. The canopies and wooden panels to the balconies are later additions, as are the ceilings, kitchens and bathrooms in the flats. The blocks were sold by the Local Authority in 1977 to a Housing Association and refurbished at that time, though they were unoccupied at the time of inspection.