Huddersfield has the nation’s tallest listed building – and now one of the smallest.

No-one can miss Grade II-listed Emley Moor mast towering 1,047ft above Huddersfield’s landscape.

But hundreds of thousands of people will have walked past Huddersfield’s latest listed ‘building’ … and never noticed it.

For it’s an electrical junction box dating back to 1895 on Fitzwilliam Street in Huddersfield town centre, made by the man who first had the idea to build a tower on Castle Hill to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

It was spotted by local history expert Chris Marsden who applied to Historic England to have it listed and it’s just been given Grade II status to protect it in the future.

Consumer electricity began in Huddersfield in 1892 when a generating station was built on St Andrew’s Road and the Electricity Department’s showroom was opened in August 1895 in Imperial Arcade on New Street.

 

 

The junction box – also known as a feeder pillar – was designed to control the electrical supply to several buildings in the surrounding area and this one was produced in 1895 at the Huddersfield foundry of GW Tomlinson, whose tender for supplying the boxes was approved by the corporation’s Electric Lighting Committee in June that year.

The foundry was founded by George William Tomlinson, of Birkby, a magistrate and churchwarden at Huddersfield Parish Church.

He is reputed to have been the first person to suggest building a tower on Castle Hill to mark Queen Victoria’s 60 years on the throne but died in 1897 aged 60 after suffering a bout of malaria he’d contracted while on a visit to Venice so never saw it constructed.

Speaking about Huddersfield’s latest listed ironwork, Chris said: “It’s the only Huddersfield freestanding junction box of its type that I know of. In 2023 I led a group of 25 people on a Discover Huddersfield walk called Not Any Old Iron which looked at vintage architectural metalwork.

“When I showed the group the junction box I found none had ever noticed it. It may be quirky but it’s also significant.

“I think the box rather celebrates the corporation’s pride in the 1895 introduction of the electricity service and it’s the best surviving piece of electricity supply infrastructure of the time.”

 

 

Chris added: “Identification of the owner remains an issue. It’s painted in Kirklees Blue but it would originally have been in Corporation Green. It’s disconnected from power but inside the terminals are labelled with long gone substations and customers.

“When I was on the walk I asked the group for news of sitings of others and I’m pleased to say another eight similar boxes have now been found. All eight are set into walls and some are half buried in raised pavements.”

A report by Historic England granting the box Grade II status states: “Pillars like these can have strong historic interest as they serve as a reminder of the development of electricity into a mass-consumed utility and of the development of its infrastructure in the early years of the 20th century.

“As can be seen with this example, Huddersfield Corporation’s civic pride and the structure’s link to the electricity industry are evident on the pillar’s badge.

“The fast pace of technological advancement and redevelopment of urban streets has resulted in a low level of survival of electricity junction boxes and the removal of many of these boxes across the country. As such, they are now rare nationally.”

In case you’re wondering there are smaller listed ‘buildings.’ In Kirklees 50 mileposts are listed and nationally there are individually listed plaques.

Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content, copywriting and ghost-writing autobiographies.

 

A fly-through video shows just what the proposed visitor centre and café on Castle Hill will look like