Somerset Buildings

Somerset Buildings is a commercial building with ground-floor retail units and offices to the upper floors, designed in 1883 by W H Crossland with sculptural work by C E Fucigna. The building exemplifies late-19th-century Queen Anne style architecture with French influences and incorporates classical Greek sculpture throughout its decorative scheme.

The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with a slate roof and substantial ashlar ridge stacks. It occupies a prominent corner site bounded by Church Street to the south, Byram Street to the east, Wood Street to the west, and a small pedestrianised space to the north. The principal entrance lies on the south side. Directly across Church Street stands Kirkgate Buildings, a similarly styled but larger building also designed by Crossland with sculptural work by Fucigna.

The ground floor is the building's tallest level, with floor heights diminishing on the upper storeys. Paired stringcourses divide the floor levels and continue around the entire building. An eaves cornice runs around all elevations at roof level.

The south elevation facing Church Street is arranged as three wide bays. The three ground-floor bays are separated by banded pilaster strips with vermiculated rustication. These strips are topped by console-supported panelled pedestals and then continue as quoin strips on the upper floors. The centre bay forms the main entrance bay and features a full-width round-arched opening that breaks through into the lower half of the first floor. The arch has a figurative head keystone depicting a Greek mythological figure wearing a foliate headdress, possibly Daphne. The opening contains a massive fanlight with horizontal and vertical muntin bars, set upon a console-supported dentil cornice incorporating two seated lion sculptures. Below is a partly-panelled screen with baluster-style columns featuring capitals with prominent helices, partly-glazed panelled double doors, and overlights with margin lights. Gilded lettering on the two main overlights reads 'TEN CHURCH STREET' and 'SOMERSET BUILDINGS'. Above the entrance opening are three glazed roundels with carved shell, draped cloth and festoon decoration.

At second-floor level is an arcade of three round-arched windows separated by engaged columns and piers with simplified Corinthian capitals and a blind balustrade beneath. The two outer windows have carved console keystones, whilst the centre window has a keystone carved as a lion's head with a ring in its mouth.

The two outer bays contain glazed shopfronts to the ground floor with signage fascias, dividing mullions and transoms, and stall risers of varying height. The upper section of the shopfront to the right is also arcaded. Both units also have shopfronts on the west and east elevation returns respectively. Due to sloping ground level from west to east along Church Street, the shopfront on the right is taller. The first and second floors are lit by two sets of paired plate-glass sash windows in each outer bay.

Set just above the eaves cornice on the outer bays are dormer windows with elaborate ashlar frontispieces incorporating flying-buttress style side supports surmounted by rams' heads representing the Ramsden family. Each dormer has a cross window with a sculptural relief panel above. The left dormer has a cartouche with the initials 'JR', presumably John Ramsden, in relief surrounded by draped cloth, fruit and lion's heads holding rings in their mouths. The right dormer has a cartouche with the date '1883' in relief flanked by seated lions. Both are surmounted by a segmental pediment incorporating what appears to be folds of cloth arranged in a shell shape with dentil decoration. Set to the centre is a smaller and plainer dormer window with paired sash windows and a shaped pediment with similar shell decoration and carved consoles.

The east elevation facing Byram Street is arranged as four wide bays and is similarly styled to the south elevation. It has tall ground-floor glazed shopfronts, each divided by banded pilaster strips with vermiculated rustication that continue up the elevations as quoin strips. The shopfronts have signage fascias to the top, dividing mullions and transoms, and stall risers. The first and second floor bays each contain two sets of paired sash windows. The attic level has dormer windows mirroring those of the south elevation. The dormers in the outermost bays at each end are the larger type with flying buttress supports, whilst those in the inner bays are the smaller dormers with shaped pediments. The dormer in the southernmost (left) bay has a carved relief panel depicting a medallion of a Greek male's head in relief surrounded by garlands of cloth, oak and laurel leaves. The panel in the northernmost (right) bay depicts a female's head wearing a crown and flowers in her hair.

The north elevation is arranged as three wide bays facing a pedestrianised area and is plainer in character. It has altered paired shopfronts to the ground floor of each bay with no original entrances. A mezzanine level is clearly visible in the unit occupying the two left bays. Each pair of shopfronts is separated by the same banded strips and quoin strips seen on the other elevations. The two left bays each have three sash windows to each first and second floor, whilst the right bay has six windows to each floor. At attic level the left bay has a dormer with flying buttresses, the relief panel here depicting an eagle with its wings outstretched. Four remaining dormer windows are plainer with segmental pediments.

The west elevation facing Wood Street is a four-bay arrangement and is a plainer version of the east elevation. Banded pilaster strips with vermiculated rustication and quoin strips appear only in the end bays. Due to the sloping ground of the site and the fact that Wood Street is slightly higher than Byram Street, the ground-floor shopfronts on this side are lower in height. The elevation's first and second-floor windows remain the same as those on the east elevation, but the attic dormer windows are plainer with segmental pediments, apart from the southernmost end bay which has a flying-buttress dormer window depicting an eagle with its wings outstretched.

Internally, the Church Street entrance lobby has been modernised. The original cantilevered sandstone open-well stair survives with cast-iron joist supports on the landing and half-landing levels, though the original cast-iron balustrade has been removed. Partly-glazed painted-timber screens containing later doors provide access off the stair onto the first and second floor levels.

The building has a glazed central atrium that rises through three storeys from the first floor up to the attic/roof level. It has plain supporting piers and a glazed pitched roof with elegant mild-steel trusses springing from plain corbels. The bottom floor of the atrium (the building's first-floor level) has been altered with later partitioning inserted to create additional office space. The atrium is surrounded by a gallery/balcony walkway on each upper level with offices located alongside the external walls. The offices retain their original internal windows, some with replaced glazing, fronting onto the galleries/walkways.

Both of the upper-floor galleries retain their original painted cast-iron balustrade incorporating decorative panels at intermediate intervals and a timber handrail. Original moulded door and window architraves survive, along with deep roll-moulded skirtings and some original four-panel doors. Suspended ceilings have been inserted and fireplaces have been removed, but chimneybreasts survive.

It is believed that the library and art gallery leased the upper floors in 1898, but it is not believed that they made any significant alteration to the office layout of the building and there are no related fittings or fixtures. The ground-floor shop units have mostly been altered and modernised. Some of the basement areas have also been modernised, but coal holes and storage recesses survive on the east side underneath the pavement of Byram Street.