Yorkshire House Cross Street/Tib Lane Manchester

The Yorkshire Insurance Company, whose chief offices are in York and London, was founded in 1824, and for many years had offices in Manchester. A short time ago they decided to have a building of their own and purchased a site in Cross Street at the corner of Tib Lane. The scheme for the building provides for shops on the ground floor with lofty basements. The general offices and the board room of the Company have been placed on the first floor, the other departments such as the Marine etc., occupying part of the upper floors.; a large strong room and store room for the use of the Company is provided in the sub-basement. The building will be faced with Portland stone and the mansard roof will be covered with grey slates with a lead cresting and acroteria. Inside the walls of the entrance corridor, staircase and offices of the Company will be panelled in walnut to a height of 8 feet. The floors of the entrance corridor, landings and public space in the general office will be covered in marble. Generally the floors of the offices will be finished in cement for covering with rubber or linoleum. The contract for the building has been let to Messrs G McFarlane & Sons Ltd, New York Street, Manchester. ..(sub-contractors). The steel has been let as a separate contract to Messrs Redpath & Brown, Trafford Park, Manchester. Messrs Frank P Oakley and Gerald Sanville A/ARIBA are the architects. [Builder 13 August 1926 Page 242]

YORKSHIRE HOUSE, CROSS STREET - This building stands on a clear site with roads on three sides of it. The longer fronts are to the return streets, the narrow front to Cross Street. The building therefore faces Cross Street somewhat as a bastion, and this effect is enhanced by Tib Lane, and the other return streets rising from Cross Street. The architects have cleverly taken advantage of this, and has emphasised it by cutting off the two corners of the building and making these corners, except for windows at the top and bottom, solid. Generally, a chamfered corner to a building is a weakness, especially when it is pierced all the way up with windows. Here, being small and solid, it is the reverse. This building, like the Midland Bank House on the same street, consists of an elaborate base, a plain shank, and an elaborate top. The base, however, is more broken up than in the bank building, the big shop windows being treated individually and not as set in a plain field of stone. The storey immediately below the cornice is again treated as a frieze storey in order to reduce the height and to prepare the eye for the great cornice above. This cornice, however, looks a little heavy in detail for its frieze and the balustrade above it is heavier still. This balustrade appears to me to be very much out of scale with the rest of the detail, which is a great pity. When one glances from it to the first floor windows this becomes very clear. Probably from the street one does not see it so clearly. The emphasis on the centre window over the entrance door in Cross Street with its two little columns and a hood is in itself very charming and much better than the corresponding emphasis given to the central windows on the return flanks. Indeed it might have been better if this return had been kept quite plain, with regular fenestration, so as not to compete in any way with that to Cross Street. There is a very charming iron trellis balcony to the first floor window on the chamfered face, and a very effective red and gold painted stone shield above the window. These charmingly delicate things, however, only emphasise the overweight of the top of the building. Nevertheless, as a whole this is one of the most effective new buildings in the town. – C H Reilly [Manchester Guardian 9 August 1928 page 5].

Reference    Builder 30 July 1926 Page 193 (tenders)
Reference    Builder 13 August 1926 Page 242 with perspective
Reference    Builder 5 November 1926 Page 757 - Revised plans approved
Reference    Manchester Guardian Friday 13 April 1928
Reference    Manchester Guardian 9 August 1928 page 5 New Office Buildings in Manchester  II –  Yorkshire House, Cross Street. Professor C H Reilly
Reference    RIBA Drawings Collection: Yorkshire House, Cross Street, Manchester, design, drawn by Gerald Sanville, 1925 [PB129/4]