18 Bond Street, Dewsbury

Warehouse at 18 Bond Street, Dewsbury

This is a warehouse built in 1871 for Simon Crawshaw Jr to designs by John Kirk & Sons. It is now in use as a takeaway with a residential flat above. The building is designed in the 19th-century Italian Renaissance style.

The structure is built of rock-faced millstone-grit 'bricks' with ashlar dressings on the front elevation, red brick with ashlar dressings on the rear elevation, and slate roof coverings. The building has a rectangular footprint, flanked on both sides by adjoining buildings. It fronts Bond Street to the south, with a yard area and the rear of a Croft Street building to the north.

The building is tall and relatively narrow, comprising three bays and three storeys plus a basement. It has a hipped roof, which is hidden from view at street level. Due to the sloping ground level of Bond Street, the basement is partially visible at the front, and there is a raised ground floor.

The front elevation features pilasters at each outside edge running the full height of the building and topped by carved kneelers projecting beyond the eaves. The raised ground floor has ashlar facings and incorporates three tall round-arched openings, each with a shaped and fluted keystone and carved intrados, separated by engaged antae (square columns), creating the appearance of an arcade. The column bases continue down to street level where the stonework is rusticated. The left arched opening forms the main entrance with a very tall doorway rising between basement and ground floor, now fitted with modern glazed doors. The two right bays have openings with shaped heads to the basement level; the far right has timber loading doors to the lower part, while the centre opening has been blocked up with ventilators inserted. Above, the round-arched ground-floor windows have replaced plate-glass glazing and solid tympanums. A substantial stringcourse separates the ground and first floors. The first floor has three tall plate-glass sash windows with replaced obscured glazing and shaped heads set within shouldered ashlar surrounds with a sill band below. The second-floor windows are shorter with shouldered ashlar surrounds, carved half-H aprons incorporating a sill band, and replaced glazing. Narrow stringcourses run above and below the second floor. The top of the elevation has a dentilled eaves, with the roof hidden from view; two later skylights have been inserted into the roof.

The rear elevation is of two bays, constructed of red brick with sandstone dressings in the form of sills and lintels. The two ground-floor window openings have been altered and partly bricked up with a later doorway inserted, though original lintels survive. One of the first-floor window openings has been partially bricked up to form a smaller window, but the original two-over-two sash window survives to the left. The second-floor windows are casements. A modern commercial extractor pipe and flue is attached to the left side of the elevation.