St James Building Oxford Street Manchester

Charles Clegg & Son were joint architects with Fryers & Penman whose main office was in Largs, Ayrshire but who shared a branch office with Charles Clegg & Son at 21 Spring Gardens, Manchester. Alexander Thomson Heathcote, as chief assistant, was responsible for much of the work.

CALICO PRINTERS THE GREAT BUILDING IN OXFORD STREET —The members of the Manchester Society of Architects paid a visit last evening to the new premises in Manchester of the Calico Printers' Association, which are in course of erection in Oxford Street on the site of St. James's Hall and Theatre, and were shown through the building by Mr C T Clegg. of the firm of Messrs Clegg and Son, Fryer and Penman. It was explained that the work was begun in the April of last year, and will be completed by September. About a thousand workmen are employed on it. The site covers an area of 6,454 square yards and the frontage on Oxford Street is 306 feet 6 inches, or 6 feet longer than the Town Hall. The building will be eleven storeys high and when completed will be the largest commercial house in Manchester. As to the construction, the material consists of steel encased in concrete, and all the windows are steel casements. The floors are of hollow bricks on the Kleine system, and the staircases are of reinforced concrete with closed brickwork. There will be twelve shops in the front, and also in the basement a public safe deposit. At one end of the building arrangements have been made for a cafe with a large billiard room, and a block towards the rear will be let off to outside people. Where the canal which crosses under Oxford street, comes down by the side of the Palace, part of the building is carried over the water by steel girders, with a span of 45 feet, and to obtain the foundations for this part of the work excavations to the depth of 40 feet have had to be made in the solid rock. The arrangements of the Calico Printers' Association permit on the ground floor of facilities for the loading and unloading of goods which have hitherto been confined entirely to railway stations. By means of two electrically driven cranes it will be possible to remove the entire load of a lurry at one operation. There are to be six goods-hoists and three bale-lifts, and the building will be further equipped with seventeen passenger lifts. It is proposed to concentrate in the Oxford Street house all the office and commercial business of the Association, which is at present scattered about in numerous departments in the city. The contractors for the building are the Building Construction Company Limited, of London. [Manchester Guardian 10 May 1911 page 16]

MANCHESTER —The members of the Manchester Society of Architects recently paid a visit to the new premises in Manchester of the Calico Printers' Association, which are in course of erection in Oxford Street on the site of St. James's Hall and Theatre, and were shown through the building by Mr C T Clegg of the firm of Messrs Clegg and Son, Fryer and Penman. It was explained that the work was begun in April of last year and will be completed by September. About a thousand workmen are employed on it. The site covers an area of 6,454 square yards and the frontage on Oxford Street is 306 feet 6 inches. The building will be eleven storeys high and when completed will be the largest commercial house in Manchester. As to the construction, the material consists of steel encased in concrete, and all the windows are steel casements. The floors are of hollow bricks on the Kleine system, and the staircases are of reinforced concrete with closed brickwork. There will be twelve shops in the front, and in the basement a public safe deposit. At one end of the building arrangements have been made for a cafe with a billiard room, and a block towards the rear will be let off. Where the canal which crosses under Oxford street, comes down by the side of the Palace, part of the building is carried over the water by steel girders, with a span of 45 feet, and to obtain the foundations for this part of the work excavations to the depth of 40 feet have had to be made in the solid rock. The arrangements of the Calico Printers' Association permit on the ground floor of facilities for the loading and unloading of goods which have hitherto been confined entirely to railway stations. By means of two electrically driven cranes it will be possible to remove the entire load of a lurry at one operation. There are to be six goods-hoists and three bale-lifts, and the building will be further equipped with seventeen passenger lifts. The contractors are the Building Construction Company Limited, of London. [Building News 23 June 1911 page 892]

Built as the headquarters of the Calico Printers Association on the site of the St James Theatre. Most of the theatre was demolished. However, the entrance and staircase was retained and incorporated into the new 500,000 sq ft office building. The CPA vacated the building in 1969 at which time it was acquired by Central and District Properties for refurbishment and re-letting. In 1990 a further refurbishment included the restoration of the entrance hall and staircase and the re-opening after almost 80 years of the archway from the stair which originally led to the theatre auditorium. The building contains its own car park and loading bay and accommodates some 2000 workers. [Manchester Evening News 13 December 1990 Page 21 - advertisement feature]

ST. JAMES' BUILDING, MANCHESTER. HEAD PREMISES OF THE CALICO PRINTERS' ASSOCIATION, OXFORD STREET, MANCHESTER.  - The new premises of the Calico Printers' Association form the largest commercial block of buildings in Manchester. The Calico Printers' Association at present occupies about twenty warehouses and offices scattered about Manchester and owing to the inconvenience of such an arrangement the directors made provision for housing all the departments under one roof. Several well- known firms of architects were invited to submit competitive schemes for the new buildings, with the result that the plans submitted by Messrs Clegg and Son and Messrs Fryers and Penman, Manchester, were selected. The contract was let to the Building Construction Company, Limited, at £300,000. The building is eleven storeys high; the width of the frontage is 306 feet, the height to the main cornice is 105 feet, and to the top of the tower 166 feet. The main entrance in the middle of the facade leads directly to the grand staircase and hall, and to the lifts by which the offices occupying the whole front are reached. Beyond, on the ground floor, are the invoicing and transfer departments, and the correspondence department, also approached from a secondary entrance. The interior of the building, consisting of parallel blocks stretching from front to back, and separated by lighting areas, is given up to the enormous warehouse space. The goods entrance is at the end of the street front. A cart-way, beneath an arch way, leads through the building to the loading way at the rear. There are loading platforms on either side, and goods hoists and travelling cranes are at hand for the transport of goods from the lurries to any part of the building. The abuilding is constructed on the steel-frame principle. The fireproof floors are by the Kleine Patent Flooring Syndicate. The floor consists of hollow bricks, with reinforcement of steel bars. The progress or the building was much assisted by the speed with which the floors were constructed. During times of pressure as many as 12,000 hollow bricks and 35 cubic yards of mortar have been required for one day's work alone. The internal areas and side walls not occupied by windows are covered with Messrs King and Company’s patent cement, carried out by Mr James Higson, of Manchester. The top story, with the exception of the space allotted to the staff dining-room, is occupied by the lavatory accommodation for the various departments.  A large section of the basement floor is taken up by a safe deposit with a separate entrance, designed and built under the patent of the Ratner Safe Company, Limited, on a special principle designed to resist, the  oxy-acetylene blowpipe, the latest and most  dangerous scientific implement used by the  highly-skilled burglar. The minimum thickness of the outer shell is 1.5 inches, the outer plate being of Ratner drill-proof compo safe steel. This structure is divided into three different rooms, the entrance to each of which is protected by drill-proof and flame-proof steel doors, of a minimum thickness of 3i inches. These doors are provided with three distinct locks, all of different construction- one being a 9-lever interchangeable-key lock (the combination of which is automatically changed. by the insertion and operation of a new key), one double stump 9-lever lock, and one 7-lever lock. The main room contains 846 small safes (technically termed "integers "), and is further provided with a  triple chronometer lock, which insures that  nobody (not even the controller of the keys)  can open the door except at the time for  which the chronometers are set. When fully fitted, the deposit is designed to contain 2,538 safes, and its total weight amounts to over 100 tons, the weight of each door exceeding 3 tons. In addition to the safe deposit proper, nine large strong-rooms are provided, which can be fitted to meet the requirements of their respective tenants. We also understand that the book-rooms containing the deeds and documents of the Calico Printers' Association are provided with Ratner fire-resisting doors, and that altogether there are some eight to ten of these doors in the building. There is a special room for plate, cash-boxes, etc. The heating and ventilating installation has been designed and erected by Messrs G. N. Haden and Sons, of Manchester, London, Birmingham, Dublin, Trowbridge, etc. The heating is accomplished by a hot- water apparatus with accelerated circulation, arterial mains being provided in sections with many subdivisions for the suites of offices and warehouses where the radiators are fixed. The ventilation of the whole building is also divided into sections for the warehouses and offices. Fresh air is admitted to all rooms independently of the windows, and the vitiated air is conveyed in ducts and air-shafts, in which electrically-driven fans exhaust some millions of cubic feet per hour. Each room is under separate control, both for the heating and the ventilation. The Oxford-street front, of Portland stone, is designed in the Renaissance style. The ground floor consists, besides the entrances, of thirteen shops, which are to be let, with semi-circular arches over the windows. The stone for this building is supplied by Mr F. J. Barnes, and was also used on the new Royal Infirmary. The building is valued at half a million pounds, and is a notable addition to Manchester’s commercial houses. [Building News 25 April 1913 page 574]

Reference    Manchester Guardian 10 May 1911 page 16
Reference    Building News 23 June 1911 page 892 same report, slightly abridged
Reference    Building News 25 April 1913 page 574