The front elevation of 12 Bridge Street, 1905

The Franklin Barnes name on the Art Deco design for 13 Bridge Street

The architect's final design

The Franklin Barnes building constructed in the 1960s

An architects elevation of the 1886-8 extension

The 'new' 1905 facade

The east elevation of the chapel - click for enlargement of stained glass window.

12 Bridge Street

The recently demolished early Victorian building had been much altered and adapted over the years.  At the same time as the development of number 13, Franklins Barnes' architects submitted plans to the Hereford Planning Committee to alter the front elevation of 12 Bridge Street.  A large open ‘shop window’ was inserted and internal walls on the ground floor were removed to create an open space plan. 

The northern boundary to 12 Bridge Street was defined by the line of the building itself but any fence or wall that defined the boundary to its eastern boundary – the Kings Ditch – has been removed.  It is shown preserved on maps as late as the 1929  Ordnance Survey.   

13 Bridge Street

The Crystal Rooms was a continuous building running through from No 13 Bridge Street into Gwynne Street as far as the polychrome warehouse. The front, with its ‘Viteolite’ cladding rises over three storeys with a flat roof behind a stepped entablature. The rear was also of three storeys with a flat roofed, but because of the change in levels lies at a lower level. The rear fronted mainly onto Gwynne Street on the south with a yard to the north. The yard was accessed by an underpass lying under the east end of the extension and adjacent to the polychrome warehouse.

Most of the development took place on a single parcel of land with static boundaries on three fronts – west (Bridge Street), east (the polychrome warehouse), north (No 12 Bridge Street and the open yard which ran up to the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel). The southern boundary was, over the years, more flexible. Apart from where it bordered Gwynne Street, here to the south there were a number of changes associated with land taken up by small courts until the boundary was fixed before 1929.

Franklin Barnes thus inherited a site which runs on an west to east orientation on the front into one which tends to the northeast. From the building point of view there were thus the two problems to overcome of site plan and change in level if development was to take place as a single unit.

The style chosen for the front was ‘Art Deco’ using ‘Viteolite’ cladding in green and primrose, the first use of that material after the Daily Express building in Fleet Street. The steel-framed rear with light curtain walls (which extends into Gwynne Street) was built with a flat roof and long steel-framed windows which are also reminiscent of Art Deco but, in a modernist sense, accentuate the flat roof.  The practice of using a metal frame was not new cast-iron having been used up the road at Shrewsbury in 1797.  Steel framing, of course, came much later but was used in the Great Northern Warehouse in Manchester in 1898 and was followed by a number of other examples. In 1904 the Engineering Standards Association set regular standards for steel joists used in buildings which culminated in the General Powers Act of 1909 (known as the Steel-Frame Act) which permitted the use of curtain walling in steel-framed buildings. Although promoted by the London County Council, and therefore only applying to London, it encouraged the use of steel throughout the country.

In the 1960s Franklin Barnes rebuilt their other premises in Commercial Road close to the newly-built ring road where they adopted an equally revolutionary style.  The Bridge Street branch was closed, and the redundant shop and store became the Crystal Rooms which has served as a nightclub into the present decade. Although not to everyone’s taste the building (particularly the front) has its aficionados.

The revolutionary style of the 1960s Franklin Barnes building dominates the corner of Commercial Road in Hereford.

The Wesleyan Chapel

The Hereford Wesleyan Society was established c1809 in ‘…a very mean building which had been used as a ball-room (and underneath which was a room that, until very recently, has been occupied as a common tap-room) was fitted up as a chapel; for which the society have paid a year rent of £20.00.

The society and its friend subscribed weekly, monthly and quarterly towards a new chapel and by 1829 ‘The chapel is [was] settled on the Methodist plan, and is not likely to be in embarrassed circumstances.’

The Chapel was built in Bridge Street in red brick in 1829.  Below the chapel was a school and the attending children and the teachers ‘..attended divine service every Lord’s day.’  Curley’s 1858 plan shows the rectangular building set back from the street with a central doorway and a block of toilets to the rear.  

In front of the chapel are two buildings with a central passage leading through to the chapel. At the rear of the chapel are two gardens, presumably associated with the houses on the frontage. There is a narrow passage down both sides of the chapel.

The chapel was enlarged in 1866-8 with an extended west front and vestry to the rear.  The extension of the chapel increased its capacity 380 and by 1882 further improvements increased its capacity to 500.  The 1886 Ordnance Survey map shows houses and gardens of 1858 have disappeared.

In 1905 the Wesleyans considered expansion and commissioned a survey of the chapel buildings by Groome & Bettington, Architects and Surveyors.   Of immediate concern was the state of the extended west façade.  A letter was sent to W Parlby Esq on 29^th March, 1905 stating the pierced stone parapet above the gable wall was in a dangerous condition and its construction was most defective.  The gable wall under the parapet was equally defective and leaned considerable towards the church.

The finished survey report with repairs and alterations was sent on the 11^th April detailing work for:

·         lowering path from bridge Street to the school

·         cleaning and re-staining seats

·         gallery and lobby

·         old vestry

·         kitchen and WC

·         vestry in basement

·         apse

·         iron room

·         drains

Most of this work was carried out shortly after.

During the Second World War the basement was pressed into use as a public shelter in case of air raids.  The windows may have been blocked at this time.

The chapel continued in use until the 1970s when it was closed on grounds of cost. It is uncertain when the rear vestry was demolished but cartographic evidence would suggest the 1970s.