Webb Clock Tower

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A square-plan masonry built tower of two stages, in Italianate style. Entrance faces east.

It comprises a tall lower portion with a rusticated semi-circular arched doorway on one face, containing a rectangular flush door, with similar blind recesses on the other three faces, finished with roughcast render to the main walling, with smooth rendered quoins and voussoirs; and a roughcast rendered belfry storey above a cornice, with louvred rectangular openings; red pantiled shallow-pitch pyramidal roof surmounted by an iron weathervane; looks like PVC gutter and downpipe, returning into the belfry storey. No clock face remains.

SETTING: The tower stands on a low podium of two concrete steps surrounded by a small grassed area, beside a road with houses opposite and sport and leisure ground and facilities behind it.

Historical information

Built as a clock tower in 1952 on behalf of the employees of the Old Bleach Linen Company in memory of William Hubert Webb who had been an active member of the firm from 1888 until his death in 1950 and had been Director and Chairman of the Board for over 50 years; opened on 10 September 1952.

References – Primary Sources
1. Inscription on tower.
Secondary Sources
1. Northern Whig, 11 September 1952 (report on opening, and illustration).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a building of little architectural but some local historic interest.