Holmfirth Technical Institute

Holmfirth Technical Institute

A technical school built between 1892 and 1894, designed by Joseph Smith of Holmfirth and Sheffield in Jacobean Gothic style. The building is constructed of local buff sandstone with Welsh blue slate roof coverings, iron beams, and concrete floors. It is prominently sited at a corner on the northern edge of the Holmfirth Conservation Area.

The building comprises a principal range aligned north-south with two rear wings occupying almost the full width.

The west-facing entrance front is of two tall storeys plus a basement, seven windows wide, with bracketed eaves, moulded bands at first-floor sill and ground-floor lintel level, and a projecting plinth. The stonework is pitch-faced coursed stone with ashlar dressings.

Bays 2, 4 and 6 project forward slightly with stepped and ball-finialled gables. Bays 2 and 6 are slightly wider and feature cusped, stepped, three-light first-floor windows rising above the eaves. The main entrance is centrally placed and has a moulded segmental-arched surround with a two-centred-arched doorway and plate-traceried overlight. Above the entrance, between the bands, is a label inscribed TECHNICAL INSTITUTE. To the first floor are paired flat-headed, cusped windows, and the gable has a trefoil. The bay is flanked by slender tourelles rising from above the main door to above the eaves, topped by ball finials.

Bays 1, 3 and 5 have square-headed windows with transoms, wider at ground-floor level with smaller mullioned lights above the transom. Similar ground-floor windows appear in bays 2 and 6, which also have blocked basement-lights. Bay 6 is splayed to the right at ground-floor, while bay 7 has a ground-floor bow window on the angle, with the projecting first-floor also splayed at the angle. Ground-floor windows have chamfered jambs with dressed margins.

The principal roof is steeply hipped at both ends, with a central domed, colonnaded ventilation cupola at the ridge. At the left the side of a gabled first-floor window of the north wall is visible, and at the right the side of the projecting gabled west bay of the south wall can be seen. A dome of a similar cupola to the south wing is also visible at the right.

The south wall is similar to the west elevation and has a projecting gabled bay at the left matching bay 2 of the west front, and a wider three-window hipped bay at the right with a smaller central gable. A cusped two-light window breaks the eaves with a quatrefoil above. Each of these bays has a three-light basement window protected by a wide area with sloping white-tiled sides and modern railings. Between the two bays is the second ridge cupola. At the right the side of the gable chimney stack of the east wall is visible, abutted by the chimney of the attached police station (not included).

The east wall is largely obscured at the left by the former police station, where it is blind and plain. To the right is the set-back stair bay of the principal range, with a basement entrance, tall three-light windows to the landings, and smaller lift-lobby windows. The three-storey gabled bay to the right is plain and blind except for an inserted first-floor window, and partly obscured at ground floor by abutting masonry and an equipment shed.

Due to the drop eastward from the road, the plain north wall is three storeys at the left, where it has a basement entrance and windows, and two storeys at the right. At the right a first-floor window breaks the eaves with a gable, and a second window to the left of this rises under the eaves. Towards the rear are five ground-floor windows.

Interior

The internal plan is relatively little altered. The most notable insertion is in the south-east corner where modern kitchen and toilets have been added. Some modern partitions exist, principally on the first floor. The majority of skirtings, dadoes, cornices and architraves survive, as do a number of panelled doors, borrowed-light windows, arched recesses, and parquet floors. Small areas of terrazzo floor survive associated with the lift lobbies, and some small ceiling fixtures probably associated with the teaching of textile weaving remain. The stone staircase survives with its original handrails and cast-iron newels and balusters. Remains also survive of a complex ventilation system using timber ducts to vent hot air via wall flues with arched niches through the attic to the cupolas. Skylights and decorative ribbed ceilings survive above the suspended ceilings.