The heritage campaign group made a listing application for the \u2018Festival of Britain-style\u2019 six-storey tower in 2024 in a bid to make the \u2018totem of mid-century modern design\u2019 the first post-war listed clocktower in the North.<\/p>\n
Of the four post-war clocktowers currently on the national register, all are in the south of England or the Midlands.<\/p>\n
Designed as part of a redevelopment of Shipley town centre by the Arndale Property Trust, the precast concrete tower stands above a surviving, semi-subterranean market hall, which was also turned down for heritage protection by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.<\/p>\n
In its official notification, Historic England said that although the structure had a \u2018playfulness in details, such as the alternating doorways with little shaped balconies on the brickwork stages\u2019 the building was not as good as other examples elsewhere.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s heritage watchdog also dismissed its links to the architecture of the 1951 Festival of Britain, saying the Shipley tower was \u2018completed a decade later, and earlier listed examples [such as the 1952 Chrisp Street Market Clock Tower] Tower Hamlets and [the 1958 clocktower at Central Parade] Walthamstow have stronger connotations\u2019.<\/p>\n
Historic England went on: \u2018While there is a degree of interest in its retention of the original timber and glazed entrance kiosk to the lower-level market hall and the bell-striking jacquemart to the clock stage, cumulative alteration has negatively impacted the structure\u2019s overall appearance.\u2019<\/p>\n
It added: \u2018The prominent sixth stage, clad in eye-catching white ceramic tiles, is seriously impacted by the loss on all four faces of the large, circular clock dials, while the spiral staircase silhouetted against the sky in the open fifth stage has been replaced by a more mundane angled ladder with safety hoops.\u2019<\/p>\n
Responding to the news, a spokesperson for the Twentieth Century Society said: \u2018Anyone who saw acrobats dramatically abseiling down it during last year\u2019s 2025 Bradford City of Culture will know how much of a local icon it is.<\/p>\n
\u2019All the post-war clocktowers that are nationally listed are currently in the South of England or the Midlands, with none in the North of England \u2013 adding Shipley to that list would have helped redress a glaring regional imbalance and celebrated a much-loved civic landmark.<\/p>\n
\u2018For Historic England and DCMS to reject it feels more like levelling down than levelling up, but we\u2019re confident that one day it will be recognised.\u2019<\/p>\n
They added: \u2018Despite the disappointing listing decision, we hope the town council\u2019s ambitions to restore the tower and add a public viewing platform come to fruition.\u2019<\/p>\n
Designed by Arndale\u2019s in-house architect, Shipley market hall and clocktower sit on an island block on the northern side of the town\u2019s market square which has recently been revamped and relandscaped by Bradford Council.<\/p>\n
A Historic England spokesperson said: \u2018After careful consideration, we recommended that Shipley Clock Tower and market hall should not be listed and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport agreed with our advice.<\/p>\n
\u2018We advised that both buildings do not have the high level of architectural distinction and technological innovation that can be seen in other listed examples across the country. They have also been altered over time, with many original features being lost. While we recognise that the clock tower is a landmark within the local area, the buildings do not meet the high bar for listing in a national context.\u2019<\/p>\n
\ufeff<\/p>\n
Comment<\/p>\n
Si Cunningham, chair of Bradford Civic Society and vice chair of the Shipley Towns Fund board<\/p>\n
The clocktower certainly has its admirers, and at a time when civic design is becoming increasingly homogeneous in towns like Shipley and Bradford, we should be encouraging a bit more fun and diversity in our landmarks.<\/p>\n
I do think the whole listing process, and the inevitable headlines it generates, has become a bit of a distraction from the wider issue that buildings like this are increasingly not economically viable to take on. What use is a listing of a clocktower when it can\u2019t be used to tell the time?<\/p>\n
We have no shortage of listed buildings in Bradford that are rotting away \u2013 Sunwin House and the Richard Dunn centre being our two notable 20th century examples.<\/p>\n
On a more positive note, the tower is firmly on the radar of the Shipley Towns Fund, which has a very clear remit to invest in Shipley\u2019s town centre, so I\u2019m hopeful we may hear its chimes again one day, with or without a listing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The heritage campaign group made a listing application for the \u2018Festival of Britain-style\u2019 six-storey tower in 2024 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11178,13,11179,11180,11181],"class_list":{"0":"post-24893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-bradford","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-historic-england","11":"tag-shipley","12":"tag-twentieth-century-society"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116488026407834326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}