Is yet another beautiful Hull building being left rot ahead of demolition? Our derelict heritage correspondent Angus Young hopes not.
What would Victorian architect Samuel Musgrave make of his elegant buildings today? For a start, he might wonder how and why many of them are no longer around.
St. Silas’s Anglican Church in Barmston Street was consecrated in 1871 and held regular services until 1967. It was demolished two years later. Home Bay in Madeley Street opened in 1880 as the Refuge for Aged Fishermen and their Widows. It was later known as Madeley Chambers but eventually disappeared in the early 1980s as part of a wider clearance programme to make way for the new-look A63 dual carriageway. Musgrave’s extensions to the Sculcoates Union Workhouse in Beverley Road were added in 1883. They included new school buildings, staff accommodation and four domed towers. Older readers might remember it as Kingston General Hospital which was finally demolished in 2002 to make way for a new school.
However, others have survived. Had he been around today he would probably chuckle at his 1886 Corn Exchange in Beverley housing a chic department store. He might also approve of his Fish Street Day Schools overlooking Trinity Square now forming part of the neighbouring Old Grammar School Museum. And he would be very pleased that his United Reformed Church in Hornsea is not only still standing but remains a place of worship just as he envisaged in his 1872 design.
As for his extraordinary Gothic landmark in Hull’s Park Street, like the rest of us Musgrave might be wondering what is actually going on.
His original 1891 design for the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children includes many familiar features – towers, pinnacles and a large, flamboyant main entrance door. It could easily double as Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A larger extension was added in 1920, requiring the demolition of one of the main towers on Musgrave’s original building. It operated as a hospital until 1967 when patient care was transferred to Hull Royal Infirmary but various health services remained based at some parts of the site until 2020.
After being sold, the Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust said farewell to their former home. “The building – though maintaining its beauty in the way of an impressive staircase, colourful tiling on the floors and magnificent high ceilings – has well and truly seen better days,” said the trust.
So what’s next ? In 2021 planning permission was granted to convert the building into 60 apartments and to build a new three to five-storey complex at the site to add another 65 residential units. Since then very little has happened.
The wider site – previously known as Victoria House in its NHS days – is owned by property developer James Ledger who has previously converted a number of historic buildings into residential use, including the former Charterhouse school, James Reckitt Library and the Winding House on Victoria Dock. Whether he still intends to go-ahead with the ambitious facelift project in Park Street or sell the site is unknown. We asked for an update but, as yet, have not received a reply.
Having stood largely empty for the best part of a decade, let’s hope someone can help bring a new lease of life to Samuel Musgrave’s masterpiece.
Angus Young