Summary
Civic hall, now arts venue, theatre and gallery. 1876-1877 to designs by Hill and Swann of Leeds paid for by public subscription and a mortgage held by Charles Harvey, local Quaker philanthropist and linen manufacturer. 1890-1891 alterations by Cox and Marmon of Liverpool with J Henry Taylor, Barnsley borough surveyor for Barnsley Corporation. 1902 alterations to shops by Taylor, 1915 alterations to hall by Taylor, 1933 alterations to rooms beneath the hall. 1962 hall refurbished. 2006-2009 alterations and extensions by Allen Tod Architecture completed by Bond Bryan Architects are excluded from the listing.
Reasons for Designation
The Civic Hall (listed as The Civic Hall, including 44a, 46, 48, 52, 54 and 56 Eldon Street), 1876-1877 to designs by Hill and Swann of Leeds, with later alterations, most recently alterations and extensions of 2006-2009, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for its imposing ashlar façade in a late Elizabethan classical style enlivened by well-crafted details including figures of Art and Science and cartouche of Charles Harvey over the grand central entrance;
* the building makes a positive and engaging contribution to the architecture of the historic buildings on Eldon Street;
* the interior retains key features such as the enriched hall ceiling, arches, a main staircase and school of art roof structure in the front range, and decorative details including moulded cornices, ceiling roses, encaustic and mosaic floor tiles.
Historic interest:
* the range of facilities offered for the betterment of participants, including a public hall for concerts and meetings, school of art, Mechanics’ Institute and public library, emphasizes the importance placed in the provision of adult education in Victorian industrial towns;
* known for a period as the Harvey Institute, the cost of construction was substantially underwritten by brothers Henry and Charles Harvey, local Quaker philanthropists and linen manufacturers; an important regional industry in addition to coal mining.
History
By the late 1860s Barnsley’s leading citizens were feeling the lack of a really large public hall for concerts, meetings and events. The first call for a public hall came at a Conservative banquet at the Corn Exchange in 1869, followed by an appeal in the Barnsley Chronicle. The cause was taken up by the Mechanics’ Institute, with the committee forming a separate public hall company. In 1873 a large site was purchased near the railway station at a cost of over £3,000 thanks to the committee members with the support of benefactors such as Henry Harvey (1814-1879), a Quaker and linen manufacturer. The architects Hill and Swann were commissioned to prepare a design and a building contract was let for £17, 740 10s to Bootham and Broomhead of Leeds in early 1876. Construction began in March 1876 and the foundation stone was laid on 10 July 1876. The eventual cost was £26,000, but subscriptions had raised only £15,000, leaving £11,000 to be secured by a mortgage.
Detailed descriptions of the new building appeared in the local and architectural press. The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer described a four-storey building of Matlock stone in an Italian style, the entrance surmounted by a slated tower or lantern, with a spacious main entrance with figures representing Science and Art and two carved busts, one being the face of the benefactor Henry Harvey, carved by Matthew Taylor of Cookridge Street, Leeds. The building comprised a front, street range with shops on the ground floor, letting offices on the first- and second-floors and a school of art on the top floor, separated into a gentlemen’s room and a ladies’ room, each reached by a separate staircase and provided with lavatories. On the ground floor a central entrance led through to a wide vestibule with the hall range to the rear. The first-floor public hall was reached by two broad flights of staircases set at right-angles against the hall’s south wall and there were also rear entrance steps up from George Yard. The large hall was 144ft long including the stage, 57ft 6in wide, and 40ft high, with galleries on three sides, and seated 2,000. The galleries were supported on projecting wall trusses and the gallery fronts had decorative iron balustrades. The stage had an orchestra pit and seven scenic backcloths were painted by Monsieur Tommaso Juglaris, a talented Parisian artist. The ceiling was panelled and adorned with 24 large centre flowers and 16 large chandeliers. The hall was heated by two of Hayden and Son’s (Trowbridge and Manchester) hot-air apparatus. On the ground floor, beneath the hall and reached from the vestibule or an entrance off George Yard, were rooms for the use of the Mechanics’ Institute, including a large news room, a reading room, and a library room.
The new hall was inaugurated on 25 January 1878 with two concerts featuring the Manchester-based Hallé Orchestra. Though the hall was popular, a substantial mortgage remained which passed to Charles Harvey, Henry Harvey’s younger brother, also a philanthropist, linen manufacturer and a local magistrate. In 1899 he foreclosed on the debt and put the building up for auction. When it failed to meet the reserve price, he instead presented the building to the corporation, on condition that it open a public library there. At a meeting in February 1890 the corporation agreed to the condition and became the new owners, spending £600 on decorating and altering the newsroom, reading room and lending library. It also resolved to rename the building the “Harvey Institute”.
Plans for updating the building were prepared by Cox and Marmon of Liverpool in 1890-1891 with J Henry Taylor, Barnsley’s borough surveyor at the time. Electric light was introduced and various alterations to stairs were made, including the addition of a staircase accessing the hall gallery, which jutted out on the north wall; the new staircase was the site of a fatal accident on 11 January 1908 when 16 children were crushed and 40 others injured due to overcrowding of the gallery and a lack of supervision. Taylor later undertook further alterations to the building. In 1902 he altered the shops, widening the windows and narrowing the doorways from double doors to single doors; in 1915 he redecorated and re-seated the hall.
In 1912 the Mechanics Institute moved to Hanson Street, where a new institute was built to the designs of Crawshaw and Wilkinson. The school of art continued to operate from the building though.
During the inter-war period the hall was used for concerts, public meetings, dancing and wrestling, whilst it was used as a civic restaurant as well as for concerts during and after the Second World War. It was renamed the Civic Hall in 1933, following the opening of the new town hall, and at this time the newsroom beneath the hall was repurposed as the lending library, the lecture room behind became a reference library and the old lending library became a magazine room. In 1934 the school of art was restructured, having been administratively part of the College of Technology from 1908, and in 1948 the last classes moved out of the building.
The hall was again refurbished in 1962, at which time the Civic Hall also began to be known as the Civic Theatre. At some time in the mid C20 the original narrow tapered lantern was removed.
The Civic closed in 1998 and remained closed until 2009. A redevelopment took place between 2006 to 2009, during which the architects’ practice Allen Tod Architecture went out of business and the scheme was completed by Bond Bryan Architects. The main hall and former library area beneath were replaced by three concrete floors; a small, 368-seat hall was inserted at gallery-level under the surviving hall ceiling, with the two floors beneath presently used for storage. An L-shaped extension was built against the north wall of the hall, replacing the 1890 staircase with a narrow foyer range with new fire exits and an escalator serving the top hall. At the west end a new square extension was added containing an art gallery, offices, workshop and rehearsal spaces, the former stage area of the hall being subsumed into the new extension to form a top-lit void. The shop fronts and the canopy at the central entrance on Eldon Street date from the 2006 to 2009 redevelopment, the canopy following the shape of the 1900s canopy, but without the original detailing. Since 2009 this front range was separated from the theatre and was used as council offices until 2022.
Details
Civic hall, now arts venue, theatre and gallery. 1876-1877 to designs by Hill and Swann of Leeds paid for by public subscription and a mortgage held by Charles Harvey, local Quaker philanthropist and linen manufacturer. 1890-1891 alterations by Cox and Marmon of Liverpool with J Henry Taylor, Barnsley borough surveyor for Barnsley Corporation. 1902 alterations to shops by Taylor, 1915 alterations to hall by Taylor, 1933 alterations to rooms beneath the hall. 1962 hall refurbished. 2006-2009 alterations and extensions by Allen Tod Architecture completed by Bond Bryan Architects are excluded from the listing.
MATERIALS: the original building has a front elevation of Matlock stone ashlar, side elevations of coursed local stone and brick, and a Welsh slate roof.
PLAN: the four-storey and basement front range has ground-floor shops to either side of the central main entrance, which opens into a broad lobby to the rear with a staircase (formerly two mirrored staircases) to two upper floors of offices and the top-floor former school of art. To the rear the double-height hall and ground-floor library area beneath have been altered with three inserted concrete floors* (2006-2009, these floors are not of special interest) with a hall on the top floor containing a stage within the body of the hall and two lower floors presently used for storage. North and west extensions of 2006-2009 are excluded from the listing.
EXTERIOR: the symmetrical front elevation faces east onto Eldon Street. Designed in a late Elizabethan classical style, it is faced in ashlar stone and is of four storeys and seven bays. The first floor has a dentilled cornice and the second floor has a heavy, modillioned moulded eaves cornice above which is a richly and heavily treated attic storey. The outer corners and the central entrance are defined by pilasters with swagged capitals on each floor. At ground-floor level they have banded rustication; a first-floor level they have round-headed niches with shells to the heads; at second-floor level they have fielded panels. The central two-storey, round-arched entrance has shaped jambs with horizontal banding and fielded panels with foliate capitals, with a swagged frieze and dentilled entablature to the springing of the arch and elaborately panelled double doors. Above is a semi-circular overlight with a moulded archivolt with fielded panels and foliate motifs, fielded panels to the soffit, and a giant keystone featuring a figure-head of Charles Harvey in a cartouche. The spandrels have well-carved figures of Art and Science. The canopy in front of the entrance is a 2006-2009 recreation of an earlier canopy dating from around 1900. The rest of the ground floor has early-C21 shop frontages to the ground floor with continuous flat fascias, panelled stall risers and pilasters. The first floor has round-arched windows with pilaster jambs, balustrade supporting sills bands and are archivolted with giant keystones; those to bays two and six are in triple groups. The second-floor windows are similar with triple groups to bays two, four (above the entrance) and six and these have a small balustraded balcony to the central lights with corner piers supporting urns. The frieze above the central triple group has in raised letters PUBLIC HALL 1877.
Above the modillion eaves cornice the attic storey has eight circular dormer windows with segmental pediments alternating with ball finials. Surmounting the four pilasters are square round-arched turrets with finials, those to the centre bay being particularly elaborate and flanking a two-light round-arched dormer with a circle in the head, a triangular pediment and finials.
The south gable wall of the front range is blind of coursed, rock-faced stone blocks with the ground and first floors obscured by the adjoining building. Inset to the rear is the south side wall of the hall, also of coursed, rock-faced stone, with a modillion eaves cornice and a hipped slate roof. There is an upper-floor row of nine round-headed windows with ashlar sills, heads and impost band. At ground-floor level are square-headed windows (some altered or blocked) with ashlar sills and shaped ashlar lintels. The window frames are multi-pane sashes with margin light glazing. At the right-hand, east end, set against the front range return, is a modern external metal staircase* that is not of special interest. The left-hand, west bay projects slightly with a rendered top storey forming part of the top floor of a modern west extension block; the extension block is excluded from the listing.
The north return wall of the front range is mostly obscured by the adjoining building. To the right of the rear of that building two four-storey bays are visible of coursed, rock-faced stone blocks. The wall has been altered, with a fragment of a segmental-arched opening and a blocked window with ashlar sill and shaped lintel, now with two modern doorways and a vertical row of three square-headed windows. To the right a modern full-height stair tower projects with a four-storey extension (excluded from the listing) beyond covering the full length of the original north side wall of the hall. The modillion eaves cornice of the hall elevation is visible above the flat roof of the extension, with a tall, stone stack with a modillion eaves cornice with a slated pyramidal cap to the west end. Inside the extension, the original exterior wall of the hall has similar upper-floor round-headed windows and ground-floor square-headed windows with ashlar sills and shaped lintels (some now altered). At the right-hand end is the modern west extension*, which is excluded from the listing.
INTERIOR: the front range has a central main entrance with a small entrance lobby and a vestibule corridor originally leading through to a broad vestibule to the rear (presently blocked off – 2022). The entrance lobby and original archway to the rear vestibule have paired round-headed arches, with a single round-headed arch to the corridor between, all with pilasters, moulded capitals and fielded panel soffits. The heads of the entrance lobby and corridor arches have multi-pane glazing. The three ceilings between the arches have moulded cornices and elaborate ceiling roses. The floor has decorative black and white mosaic (1912-1913). The former shops to each side have been opened up and retain no original fixtures or fittings of interest. The basement cellars beneath the shops have a stone front wall with brick inner walls and brick jack arches.
The rear vestibule is subdivided into two spaces with moulded cornices and ceiling roses and two round-headed arches to the outer side walls. The southern vestibule has encaustic floor tiles (beneath carpet) and a dogleg staircase with encaustic-tiled half landing (beneath carpet) rising against the cross wall dividing the front range from the hall to the rear. The return flight up to the first floor retains the original turned timber newel posts with ball finials, turned balusters and moulded mahogany handrail (with brass studs installed after a boy from the School of Art was seriously injured sliding down the handrail in May 1890). The upper flights of steps up to the top floor are modern replacements with glazed balustrading. The opposing staircase in the northern vestibule has been boxed-in; the stairwell between the second and third floors has a modern staircase.
The top floor (former School of Art) has a roof with collared open trusses and wheel motifs in some of the apexes.
The present hall is the level of the former horseshoe gallery. It retains the trabeated ceiling with decorative ceiling roses, a complex moulded and dentilated cornice ringing the ceiling with guilloche plasterwork tied at the corners and centres with ribbons and flowers. To the long sides are deep coves with pointed-top apertures for the inset windows. The two lower floors in the hall have concrete floors* and modern metalwork frame of posts and beams* and are not of special interest. Original fixtures and fittings have been stripped out. The hall roof structure has queen-post trusses with raking struts. A number of collars support timbers with circular frames originally for ridge ventilators. The west end of the hall incorporates the former stage area and flanking stair wells, and the original stone walls and blocked apertures are visible in places. The original round-arched central entrance remains with a moulded ashlar architrave. The south-west stair well contains a modern metal staircase* that is not of special interest.
* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 ("the Act") it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest, however any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require LBC and this is a matter for the LPA to determine.
Mapping note: the listed building is coloured blue on the map and excludes the modern narrow L-shaped foyer range on the north side of the original hall and the modern extension at the west end. The top floor of the west extension also partially oversails the original hall building and this modern floor is also excluded.
