Yorkshire Day 2024: Exploring the historic buildings of Yorkshire

We start our journey in the county town of York at Yorkshire Museum. The Grade I-listed Greek Revival style building was constructed as one of England’s earliest purpose-built museums, completed in 1830 and later extended in 1859 and 1912. 

Purcell have played a significant role in restoring the Yorkshire Museum with the York Museums Trust to preserve the history of North Yorkshire.   

Key to this restoration was the remediation of issues related to the historic roof and severely compromised rainwater management system. The team had to address the complexity of the existing roof before carefully unpicking the faults, identifying their causes, and ultimately designing a harmonious solution. In tandem with this, the team delivered a feasibility study for the reordering of the museum interiors.  

Our proposals were developed with a clear understanding of the heritage significance of the Yorkshire Museum and its surrounding context, informed by Purcell’s Conservation Management Plan and consultation with the local planning authority and Historic England.   

The successful completion of the scheme has provided the museum with a secure future for years to come.  

Hull is known for its rich trading history, but the city fell into economic decline after World War I. Since the city was named City of Culture in 2017, the port city has been thriving. Purcell were appointed to work on the Hull: Yorkshire’s Maritime City project with Hull City Council, preserving and protecting the city’s important maritime heritage whilst regenerating the city and its public realm.  

The project involves the development of historic assets across the city, including two existing buildings, two historic ships, one large city centre garden, and one dry dock, as well as the creation of a new Passivhaus visitor centre.   

To reconnect Hull to its maritime history, Purcell have worked on The North End Shipyard, located on the banks of the River Hull at the former entrance to Queen’s Docks. The site will become the new, permanent dry berth for the Arctic Corsair, Hull’s last surviving sidewinder fishing trawler, preserving her for future generations to enjoy.  

A two-storey new-build visitor centre will sit alongside the site’s central dry dock unlocking the history of Hull’s industrial past. The Passivhaus certified visitor centre, will increase levels of insulation and be approximately 20 times more airtight than current Building Regulations standards. 

At the opposite end of the former Queen’s Dock, another key site is the city’s Maritime Museum, initially built in the 1860s as a dock office, but re-opened as a museum in the 1970s.   

As part of Purcell’s vision for the project, the museum’s unsympathetic courtyard infill will be removed to create a light-filled, triple height atrium space providing a node within the building as part of the newly defined visitor route.   

Reflecting the importance of maritime industries at the time of construction, fishing nets, tridents and sea creatures feature throughout the museum’s original decoration, which are being celebrated and enhanced through the building’s refurbishment. Purcell’s Yorkshire architects have also immersed themselves into local maritime history, working with consultants to coordinate the hanging and positioning of whale skeletons throughout the museum.  

Linking the Maritime Museum and North End Shipyard is Queen’s Gardens. Formerly Queen’s Dock, the site was infilled in the 1930s to create a public park. This outdoor space is intended as a refuge from the bustle of the city and as part of the scheme, Purcell are working with landscape architects Southern Green to make the space more flexible and accessible as well as increasing biodiversity on the site.   

Moving to the South of Yorkshire, Purcell’s York architects are working at Elsecar: a village established by the wealthy aristocrats of nearby Wentworth. Elsecar is a former ironworks and mining community and is recognised as an internationally significant centre of industry and innovation in the late-18th and 19th centuries.,   

The village’s industrial heritage is still at the heart of its identity today, with many of the historic buildings retained and repurposed for modern use.  

The workshops associated with the ironworks were developed in the 1990s as Elsecar Heritage Centre’ and is now a popular visitor attraction offering a range of amenities including retail, offices, manufacturing, I museum, heritage, and educational uses. Purcell have worked with Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council for over a decade at Elsecar, including the restoration of the Heritage Centre’s Newcomen Beam Engine.   

Works are currently in progress on three Grade II*-listed buildings at the site, funded by the Cultural Development Fund. The former Earl Fitzwilliam’s private railway station is undergoing extensive repairs and refurbishment to bring the building’s enveloped into a good state of repair, and upper floors into use as creative workspaces.   

The former rolling mill is undergoing creative reuse of a previously underutilised space, and the creation of a new events space for community and performance use. This project will enhance Elsecar’s status as an industrial and creative destination, allowing visitors to engage with the rich history of the industrial work in the South of Yorkshire.  

In Western Yorkshire, Ledston Hall stands on an old estate, owned by charitable trust the Wheler Foundation: the Grade I-listed country house is set within a Grade II*-registered parkland.  

But, before being reborn as Ledston Hall, this magnificent building was a chapel and grange built by monks from the nearby Pontefract Priory. The hall dates to the 12th century, with many large phases of extension and redevelopment works taking place over the years; it has been largely vacant since the 1950’s. Eventually, Ledston Hall was put on the ‘Heritage at Risk’ register, with significant concerns over its condition and future. 

Purcell undertook extensive building fabric repairs and extensions to the interior layouts, creating 10 luxury residential properties and private function rooms. The transformed space highlights many of Ledston Hall’s historic features, including decorative panelled rooms, whilst successfully creating light, modern homes with extensive grounds for residents to enjoy. 

This project is notable in being the first Grade I-listed building not just in Yorkshire, but in the country to gain consent to replace its single glazed metal framed windows with double glazing. The double glazing was sensitively designed and incorporates heat treated glass to replicate the distortion seen in cylinder glass. 

The project has been shortlisted for several awards since its completion in 2023. It won the Refurbishment and Renovation of the Year at the Insider Awards, Yorkshire 2023 and was named the Heritage Project of the year in the RICS Yorkshire and Humber region in 2024.

As we celebrate Yorkshire Day, we honour the history, culture, and beauty of Yorkshire: in our York Studio, appropriately situated in the old Terry’s chocolate factory, we’re honouring the county through some of its architectural gems. We're thrilled to have been able to play a part in preserving some of the architectural treasures of Yorkshire’s rich past and look forward to continuing to do so for generations to come.