17-19 High Street and Skipton Town Hall

This substantial group comprises a pair of former houses at 17-19 High Street and Skipton Town Hall, standing in a short row on the east side of the northern end of High Street.

History and Development

Numbers 17 and 19 were built in 1837 to 1838 as a pair of houses. The town hall was added in 1862 to designs by J D Jee of Liverpool. The concert hall underwent substantial refurbishment in 1875 to 1878 by Lockwood and Mawson. Numbers 17 and 19 were altered to form a suite of offices for the town hall between the late 1950s and 1962, then refurbished as a restaurant in the 21st century. The town hall received a large museum annexe in 1973, a WC block in 2015, and underwent major restoration and redevelopment in 2019 to 2021.

Materials

The buildings are constructed of coursed and ashlar sandstone and coursed rubble gritstone with stone slate roofs. The concert hall is roofed in slate. The 1973 annexe is constructed of rendered brickwork and the 2019 to 2021 rear extension is coursed gritstone and rendered brickwork.

Plan Form

Numbers 17 to 19 are a pair of three-storey houses with basements. The building has a wide, central entrance formerly leading to a covered carriageway between the two properties, now infilled and converted to a single property. The commercial business presently also occupies two ground-floor bays in the adjacent town hall with a doorway through the south gable wall.

The town hall has a rectangular, two-storey and basement front range with a central entrance and stair hall with rooms to each side. A large rectangular concert hall is set at an angle to the rear with two-storey extensions wrapping around the north and east sides. The concert hall is attached to the front range by a lower, angled link block with a side entrance and projecting, curved, flat-roofed WC block.

Numbers 17 and 19: Exterior

The front elevation faces west onto High Street, abutting number 15 on the left and the town hall on the right. It is of three storeys and five bays, constructed of coursed ashlar stone with a plinth, sill bands on each floor and a moulded cornice. The corners have pilasters with capitals of double scrolls supporting a square block relief-carved with a wreath. The stone slate roof has a higher ridge than number 15 and there is a long ridge stack between the third and fourth bays and another to the right-hand, south gable.

The wide, central doorway marks the position of the former covered carriageway. It has stone pilasters and entablature with two stone steps and panelled double doors. To each side are two tall, rectangular windows with moulded stone architraves. On the first floor are five tall, rectangular windows with five shorter windows on the second floor. The windows over the doorway have moulded architraves and the rest have wedge lintels. The windows all have renewed sashes of four horizontal panes over eight or six horizontal panes.

The rear, east elevation is constructed of roughly coursed rubblestone. In the centre of the ground floor is the blocked carriageway with a segmental arch of voussoirs, the middle voussoir inscribed 1838. Immediately above is a rectangular, single-light window with a square-cut stone frame which has been reduced in height with joints and a stone lintel in the wall above, and a tall, rectangular second-floor window over. There are two bays to each side with stepped windows of varying sizes, all with square-cut stone frames and a variety of casement and sash window frames. On the right-hand side the fourth-bay, first-floor window has been altered to a doorway with an external metal spiral fire escape.

Numbers 17 and 19: Interior

A modern, full-height staircase with a metal balustrade rises to the rear of the central bay formerly occupied by the covered carriageway. Rooms are arranged to each side, with two further ground-floor bays on the south side located within the town hall with which it connects internally on the ground and first floors. Many rooms have either been opened out to provide larger spaces or subdivided to provide ancillary spaces such as WCs. The whole ground floor and parts of the second floor have been refurbished for use as a restaurant.

Many of the windows have moulded architraves. The front ground-floor windows and four of the five first-floor windows have panelled soffits and jambs with panelling beneath the windows where visible. There is a partial moulded cornice on the first floor. In the south-west corner, the former position of the mayor's parlour, there is fake panelling.

Town Hall: Exterior

The symmetrical front elevation faces west onto High Street, abutting number 19 on the left and returning down Jerry Croft on the right. It is of two high storeys with a three-bay, full-height, central portico and two bays to each side. It is constructed of coursed ashlar stone with a plinth, quoins, moulded sill band to the ground-floor windows, moulded band between the ground and first floors, moulded sill string to the first-floor windows, moulded cornice and balustraded parapet.

The portico is raised on four shallow steps with three round-arched doorways with recessed doors, paired outer pilasters and engaged Composite columns on raised bases supporting an entablature. At first-floor level is a stone balustraded balcony with four Composite columns and two columns to the returns supporting an entablature and triangular pediment. To the rear of the balcony is a central doorway with a triangular pediment flanked by two windows with moulded canopies. The upper half of the doorway and the windows have two-over-two pane unhorned sashes, with panelling to the lower half of the doorway. On each side of the portico, both floors have two two-over-two pane unhorned sashes with moulded stone architraves and those on the first floor also have segmental pediments.

The right-hand, south return is of four bays and is constructed of coursed gritstone blocks. The moulded sill band and string, moulded floor band and cornice are continued round, with quoins only to the left-hand corner. On both floors are four tall, rectangular windows with deep stone lintels and twelve-over-twelve pane unhorned sashes. Beneath are four louvred basement windows with deep stone lintels. The single visible bay of the rear, east elevation has a first-floor, two-over-two pane sash window with a projecting stone sill and a deep lintel. Below, a similar window has been converted to a doorway.

The two-storey, four-bay link block is set back and faces south onto Jerry Croft with the first bay slightly angled in. It is constructed of coursed gritstone blocks. The four first-floor windows have projecting stone sills and deep lintels with eight-over-eight pane horned sashes. The ground floor has a recessed, modern entrance doorway to the first bay and an external, modern, curved metal-sheet WC pod obscures the rest of the floor.

Abutting the right-hand side of the link block is the tall, eight-bay concert hall. It is built of coursed gritstone blocks with pilasters separating the bays and a dentil cornice. The sixth bay has a small, stone porch with a lean-to slate roof and a door in the left-hand return with three stone steps up and a small platform with metal railings to the outer edges. The outer, south elevation has a central window with a projecting stone sill and a deep lintel with an eight-over-eight pane sash frame. The other bays have high and tall round-headed windows with tracery frames, that to the first bay partly obscured by the WC pod. All the bays have lunette windows at clerestory level. Set back and attached by a narrow, opaque glazed link is a modern two-storey and two-bay, flat-roofed block of coursed stone blocks with a wide, recessed window on the ground floor and two first-floor windows.

The modern block returns along Museum Walk with irregular fenestration. At the right-hand end, it is attached to a two-storey, flat-roofed, rendered block, which wraps around to return along the rear, north elevation of the concert hall. At the west end is a projecting, semi-circular stair bay, also rendered.

Town Hall: Interior

The front range has a large entrance and stair hall flanked by ground-floor rooms (those on the north side now used by numbers 17 and 19) with a first-floor council chamber on the north side of the landing and rooms on the south side. There are moulded door and window architraves throughout.

The entrance and stair hall have an open-well staircase to the rear with an outer ramped timber balustrade with squared and capped newel posts, moulded handrail and turned balusters with decorative step ends, the balustrade continued along the first-floor landing. There is a patterned moulded plaster ceiling over.

The full-depth council chamber on the first floor has a deep, moulded cornice and patterned moulded plaster ceiling with five glass chandeliers. The room is fitted out with oak fixtures and fittings by Robert Thompson of Kilburn (1961), including dado panelling and rail to the south, east and west end walls, the latter incorporating radiator boxes, and half-height panelling with cornice to the north wall with a higher central section with cresting between two former chimney breasts. The central panelling has a panel with Skipton's relief-carved coat of arms, and to the left, a doorway in the panelling led into the former mayor's parlour in number 19. In front is a dais incorporating a long, panelled desk for the mayor with a lower dais to each side with a panelled desk, and faced by a long panelled bench curved in at each end (complemented by individual chairs with a grander chair for the mayor). There is a fielded four-panelled door with moulded architraves at each end of the south wall and the east and west end walls both have two windows with moulded oak curtain boxes.

The Concert Hall

The grand, rectangular concert hall has a panelled dado with panelled bays above, or tall, round-headed windows to the south wall with moulded and enriched impost bands and heads, the bays separated by pilasters with composite capitals. Above is a dentil and modillion cornice and an enriched, coffered ceiling with deep coving. It has larger panels to the central spine with alternating, enriched circular ventilator grilles and ceiling roses with light fittings, flanked by smaller, square panels with relief rosettes. The coving has alternating lunettes and enriched spandrels. The lunettes have relief medallions containing the monogram STH (Skipton Town Hall) over the bays of the north, east and west walls in place of the windows in the south wall.

The north and south walls have opposing doorways in the third bay from the east end. Both doorways have doorcases with panelled pilasters, console brackets and blocks supporting a segmental-arched pediment, that to the south, external doorway enriched with foliate details and a roundel containing a lion's head, and double, panelled doors.