20 Bond Street, Dewsbury

20 Bond Street, Dewsbury

This is a former warehouse, now converted to offices, built in 1862 by architect Charles Henry Marriott for the woolstapler Matthew Grandidge. It is designed in the 19th-century Italian Renaissance style.

The building is constructed of rock-faced millstone-grit 'bricks' with ashlar dressings to the front elevation, mellow red brick with ashlar dressings to the rear, and coursed millstone grit to the west return. The roof is covered with slate.

The building is roughly square in plan with a central stair. It stands four bays wide and three storeys tall plus a basement, with a half-hipped roof concealed from ground level by a deep dentilled eaves cornice. The principal elevation faces south on to Bond Street. To the north, the building is bounded by a yard area and an open plot fronting on to Croft Street. Due to the sloping ground level of Bond Street, the basement is partially visible to the eastern half of the front elevation, and the eastern half of the building has a raised ground floor. The building is flanked by adjoining structures to the east and west.

The south-facing front elevation sits upon a plinth of large millstone-grit blocks with raised quoining to each outer edge. All windows contain plate-glass sashes with segmental-arched heads and carved surrounds. The ground and first-floor window surrounds are eared and shouldered with carved apron panels. The main entrance is set off-centre to the third bay and comprises a tall doorway with a segmental-arched head set within a quoined surround with a keystone incorporating vermiculated rustication. The door itself is four-panelled, recessed, and accessed by stone steps, with a plain overlight above. The bay to the right contains tall paired windows to the raised ground floor separated by a carved mullion. Below are two short, segmental-arched basement windows in the style of overlights with metal grilles attached in front.

The ground floor of the left two bays contains a late-19th-century timber shopfront, now accessing the office reception. This shopfront features fluted pilasters topped by pedimented caps carried on paired brackets, a plain signage fascia, slender mullions, and large expanses of plate glazing. The upper lights contain clerestory-style simple Art Nouveau stained and leaded glazing. The shop entrance is recessed and contains a partly glazed panelled door with an overlight (painted over) and a threshold with a patterned tessarae floor.

The upper two floors have alternated single and paired windows with carved sill bands below. Second-floor window surrounds lack ears and shoulders and have half-H aprons instead. The elevation is topped by a deep dentilled eaves cornice. A truncated chimneystack rises to the east side of the roof.

The north-facing rear elevation is gabled and plainer, constructed of mellow red brick with ashlar dressings in the form of lintels and sill bands. It is four bays wide with an additional attic storey. Each bay on the three lower floors contains a window with replaced four-light casements, with a further single window to the gable apex. To the ground floor left is a doorway with plain ashlar surround incorporating impost blocks, plain timber double doors, and a boarded-up overlight.

The building projects beyond its neighbour at 22 Bond Street and consequently has a short west return elevation, constructed of coursed millstone grit with ashlar dressings. This return is two bays wide and three storeys tall with a full-height loading bay to the left bay. The taking-in doors have all been removed and the openings bricked up, probably during conversion to office use, but the ashlar surrounds with impost blocks and ashlar floor ends survive, with the bricking-up retaining the original recessed position of the doors. The ground-floor former taking-in door has been replaced by a doorway and window, whilst the former first-floor opening has a small inserted window. To the right bay on each floor are tall, paired slender multipaned windows with ashlar sills, lintels, and mullions.

Internally, spaces have been generally modernised and partitioned to form office space, with early-21st-century suspended ceilings inserted throughout. The partitions are a mixture of late-19th and late-20th/early-21st-century insertions. Simple moulded door and window architraves survive throughout, along with some late-19th-century four-panel doors, though most doors are modern replacements including fire doors. A painted fire surround with cast-iron insert and tiled cheeks survives in one first-floor room, but others have been removed. Chimneybreasts survive throughout the building.

The main entrance leads into a hallway with a glazed screen composed of arched upper lights and replaced double doors, opening into a central stair hall with a stair on the west side and rooms off to the east side, front and rear. This layout is roughly replicated on each floor level. A later opening with a glazed screen has been inserted in the south-west corner to connect the former shop with the rest of the ground floor. The former shop itself is plain and has a modern raised platform or mezzanine inserted to access the connecting doorway due to differing floor levels.

The main dog-leg stair has a carved newel post, turned balusters, and a sweeping handrail, with a cut string from the first half-landing level upwards. The first-floor landing is enclosed by a late-19th-century partly-glazed panelled screen. The second-floor landing incorporates internal cross windows to the south and east sides for additional light.

A later metal basement stair has been inserted to the rear of the ground floor alongside the rear wall. The basement comprises a series of interconnected spaces with a concrete floor, painted stone walls, and encased ceiling beams.