CONTEXT: Historic England has received an application to assess this former orphanage for listing, prompted by the submission of a prior notification of demolition, with a target determination date of 12 April 2019. The building is not included in a conservation area.

HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION: this private orphanage was funded by a legacy from orphan Joseph Nutter, and was designed by T C Hope in 1888 to accommodate 46 children. It is depicted on the first edition 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map of 1893, and C20 map revisions show that the building was extended to the north-west and south-west. The orphanage closed in 1939 and subsequent uses include Second World War Admiralty use, a tax office, customs and excise office, a driving examiners’ office, and college. Visible from the entrance of the adjacent Grade II registered Horton Park (National Heritage List for England: 100151), the building has a two and three-storey Jacobean Revival design constructed in local stone with Welsh slate pitched roofs. The main north-east elevation has six bays (some projecting), pedimented or with pedimented half dormer windows, one in the form of a low battlemented 3-storey entrance tower; the windows are a mixture of single and paired stone-mullion and mullion and transom.

DISCUSSION: during the C19, accommodation for orphans and pauper children was generally provided by poor law authorities in workhouses alongside adult paupers, although there were some private institutions. The 'cottage home system' by Dr Thomas Barnardo, in which a number of detached or semi-detached ‘cottages’ were set around a 'green', each under the care of a house 'mother' or 'father', was adopted for the accommodation of orphans in the 1870s. Poor law authorities and private benefactors alike were encouraged to also adopt this successful model; for example the Grade II listed Newland Homes, Hull of 1896 (NHLE: 1197604). This private orphanage building in Bradford therefore represents an old fashioned approach for its date to the accommodation of orphans, at a time when attitudes to the welfare of destitute children were changing.

Based on the information provided and with reference to the Principles of Selection (DCMS November 2018) and Historic England’s Listing Selection Guides, this orphanage of 1880 date is not recommended for listing for the following principal reasons:

Degree of architectural interest:

* large numbers of mid-to-later-C19 health and welfare buildings were built to standard formulas, and rigorous selection for listing is required;

* it employs a standard domestic design and composition for its late date, and the detail is unexceptional;

* the architect T C Hope, while having one listed building to his name, is of local rather than national significance;

* from the information available on the interior there are no significant surviving historic fittings;

* listed orphanages are generally considerably more architecturally accomplished, and often associated with a renowned national designer.

Degree of historic interest:

* it represents an out-dated approach to the accommodation of orphans, at a time when attitudes to the welfare of destitute children and arrangements for their care were changing.

CONCLUSION: this former orphanage has clear local interest as a privately funded late-C19 health and welfare building in Bradford. However, within a national context it lacks the special architectural and historic interest required to qualify for listing.