Victoria Hall, Saltaire (originally the Saltaire Institute) is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

in the village of

Saltaire Saltaire is a Victorian era, Victorian model village in Shipley, West Yorkshire, Shipley, part of the City of Bradford Metropolitan District, in West Yorkshire, England. The Victorian era Salt's Mill and associated residential district locate ...

, near

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England, built by architects Lockwood and

Mawson Sir Douglas Mawson OBE FRS FAA (5 May 1882 – 14 October 1958) was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Sir Ernest Shackleton, he was a key expedition leader durin ...

History

Saltaire Institute was built by the architectural firm of Lockwood and

between 1867 and 1871 for the industrialist and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

Sir

Titus Salt Sir Titus Salt, 1st Baronet (20 September 1803 in Morley – 29 December 1876 in Lightcliffe), was a manufacturer, politician and philanthropist in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, who is best known for having built Salt's Mill, a la ...

. It cost £25,000. In the original design, the building contained a main hall seating 800, a lecture room, two art rooms, a laboratory, a gymnasium, a library of 8,500 books and a reading room. For use of the building, a quarterly fee was charged. This ranged downwards from 2

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

s for adult males.

Architecture

Victoria Hall is a T-plan, two-storey building with a basement, constructed in

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, with rock-faced stone and a

Welsh slate The existence of a slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the l ...

roof.

Exterior

To the front, the exterior has a symmetrical, eleven-bay

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

facade, with

vermiculated Vermiculation is a surface pattern of dense but irregular lines, so called from the Latin ''vermiculus'' meaning "little worm" because the shapes resemble worms, worm-casts, or worm tracks in mud or wet sand. The word may be used in a number of ...

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

s at ground floor level and

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

quoins to the first floor. The central bay of the building breaks forward. On top of this bay is an elaborate square tower with pyramidal ashlar roof. Each side of the tower has a modillioned segmental pediment on an enriched entablature, supported by

Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...

columns, framing slender, round-arched windows. The central portal has double, panelled doors, fanlight, and large open segmental pediment supported on large consoles. The tympanum has a cartouche bearing the Salt family

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

, flanked by the carved figures of

Art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

by Thomas Milnes. At basement level, the windows are square-headed, while at ground and first floor level the windows are round-arched and archivolted, the first floor windows being framed by fluted Corinthian colonnettes, and with carved head keystones and blind

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

with turned balusters. There is a

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...

led cornice between the ground and first floors. The modillioned cornice forms the base to a deep, panelled parapet decorated with rosettes and pedimented piers with grotesque winged beasts supporting iron finials. Three-bay return elevations. The main hall projects at the rear. It is seven bays long by five bays wide with tall slender round-arched windows with glazing bars and circles in heads.

Interior

The entrance hall has a large, stone dog-leg staircase with large square piers and vertically symmetrical turned balusters. The main hall has an elaborately plastered, coffered roof. Pilasters mark the bay divisions and support a bracketed entablature. There is a raking gallery at the rear, on fluted cast-iron columns. The former side galleries have been removed and there is glass panelling at the rear.

Grounds

The building is set back from Victoria Road, on which it sits. There is a gardened square outside, bounded by a

dwarf wall A wall is a structure and a surface that defines an area; carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or, is decorative. There are many kinds of walls, including: * Walls in buildings that form a fundamental part of the supe ...

. At the front corners, on large square bases, are 2 sculpted lions, by Thomas Milnes of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, representing War and Peace. At the rear of the wall are round section cast-iron railings with spear-head finials on a dwarf wall.

Modern use

At the present time, it is commonly used as a concert venue. Memorable concerts held there include the homecoming gig of local group

Terrorvision ''TerrorVision'' is a 1986 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Ted Nicolaou, produced and written by Albert and Charles Band and composed by Richard Band, all of whom would go on to found and work with Full Moon Features in 19 ...

after they reunited in 2007. On 29 April 2010, the

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...