62-63 Market Place, Kingston upon Hull, City of Kingston upon Hull

Summary

Two early-C19/mid-C19 shops with offices above.

Description

Two early-C19/mid-C19 shops with offices above.

MATERIALS: brick with stucco to the front elevation, stone dressings, and timber and glass shopfronts.

PLAN: aligned east-west and polygonal on plan.

EXTERIOR: the front elevation (east) is a four-storey four-bay block with two shops on the ground floor. It conceals a pitched roof, with a gable front to number 63, two red-brick chimneystacks and flush rooflights. The shopfronts are very finely detailed and are of a high quality. The ground floor of number 63 Market Place has a shopfront flanked by two entrances. It has a recessed central entrance with a soffit above panelled with mirrors and a partially surviving mosaic tiled floor below. The door is a modern replacement but there is an etched-glass overlight featuring a gilded number '63'. The shop windows to either side are single sheets of curved plate glass set in a timber frame ornamented in classical style. The stall risers are also curved and are beaded horizontally. The shopfront is flanked by panelled pilasters topped by double-decker acanthus leaf consoles that support the frieze above the shop windows. This frieze has a central acanthus-leaf console separating a pair of swan-neck pediments, with the frieze flanked by bosses linking the double-decker consoles with the dentilated cornice above. Above this cornice, there is a further panelled frieze carrying the shop sign. This is angled downwards and may be the front board for a retractable canopy. The entrances flanking the shopfront are of similar design, but the entrance to the right is a third wider than that to the left. Both have panelled doors and stone surrounds with a cartouche set above a rectangular frame with a scrolled pediment. The cartouche above the right entrance is inscribed with the number '63'.

The ground floor of number 62 Market Place (south) forms another shopfront, but without flanking side entrances. It is of a different design to 63 Market Place but also has a recessed central entrance with a mosaic tiled floor. It is flanked by plate-glass windows in ornamented timber frames with splayed tops to the jambs with panelled stall risers below. The entrance door is three-quarter glazed with a single sheet of glass, the frame shouldered at the top and rounded at the bottom and topped with a finial. Below, in the solid lower quarter of the door, is a cartouche featuring a green man design with a fielded panel below and an ornamented letter box. The lintel above the door is dentilated with a scrolled pediment above and a plain glass top light above that. The shopfront is flanked by pilasters, the lower part fluted, and the upper panelled. At the top of each pilaster, there is a lion head console with a monkey at the back reaching around the side. Each lion head console is supported on a short pedestal sitting on a cushion, which in turn is supported by an acanthus leaf corbel with a fruit swag below. The shop name board that spans between the lion heads is angled downwards and is relatively plain.

Above the shopfronts, the upper three storeys are stuccoed in a restrained classical style with storey bands and banded rustication to the first floor, and similar rustication to the second and third floor which now appears partly infilled. The two bays above number 63 Market Place are flanked by Roman Ionic pilasters rising through the elevation to a simple gabled pediment. The first-floor windows have no surrounds; the second-floor windows have moulded surrounds with pediments above supported on consoles; and the third-floor windows have moulded surrounds with no pediments. The two bays above number 62 Market Place are without the pilasters and the pediments, and lack surrounds to the first and second-floor windows. The second-floor windows have cornices supported on consoles and the third floor has moulded surrounds. All the windows, apart from two replacement top opening casement windows on the top floor, retain one-over-one timber sash windows.

The rear elevation is rendered with a range of mid- to late-C19 sashes. At least one horizontal sliding-sash window is recorded to survive.

History

The building is shown on the 1853 Ordnance Survey town plan of Hull together with a similar-sized property to the right of number 63. It was probably built in the 1840s and originally symmetrical, with a four-storey six-bay pedimented block divided at ground floor into three shops. By the first edition Ordnance Survey 1:2500 map (1893) the third (north) building and shop had been redeveloped but the footprints of 62 and 63 remained unaltered, complete with yards towards the rear of the properties. It is now a truncated four-storey four-bay block and retains its restrained Classical style despite the loss of the two bays of the northernmost building which unbalanced its intended composition. In style, the well-preserved finely detailed shop fronts to 62 and 63 Market Place are consistent with a mid-C19 date and may be contemporary with the rest of the building built before 1853. From around 1846 number 63 was occupied by J Askam’s Grocers and Tea Dealers, until around the 1890s, and it later became the premises for the Eastern Counties Fire Company and a tobacconist. Number 62 similarly became a tobacconist, around the 1880s, before becoming Andrew King’s watch and jewellery business until the 1920s. By the third edition map (1928) the rear yard of number 63 had been infilled.

Reasons for Listing

62-63 Market Place is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an imposing, originally symmetrical, four-storey stuccoed building designed in a restrained Classical style;
* for the well preserved, high-quality and finely detailed mid-C19 shopfronts, which are becoming increasingly rare survivals;
* the building has a strong group value due to close proximity with a number of listed buildings in Market Place and adjoining Silver Street, which visually enhance and impart historic character to the streetscape of this part of Hull Old Town.

External Links

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