Old Great Horton Working Men's Club could become offices

Jessgrove, a textile business, has put forward a planning application to Bradford Council to transform the vacant Great Horton Working Men’s Club, in Harris Court into offices.

The family-run firm, which is one of Europe’s leading suppliers of linings and offers a textile storage and distribution service, is currently based down the road in Cross Lane Mills.

But if the plans go ahead, it will move its headquarters to the new site and link up with Whaley’s, which occupies the adjacent premises and is part of the same group as Jessgrove.

The plans include connecting the two buildings with an extension where a narrow alleyway currently sits at the rear of the working men’s club building.

This extension is described as a “simple glazed link to connect the buildings whilst visually maintaining separation” in the Design, Access, and Heritage Statement for the application.

It adds: “The aim of relocating the Jessgrove headquarters to the adjacent site is to align the two businesses.”

The old working men's club (Image: Newsquest)

The new office building will have three floors, as well as a basement, and includes features such as a break-out room, gym, and a large open-plan office, if plans are approved.

The application includes the demolition of a pre-fabricated garage in the car park of the premises.

Here, spaces will be reduced from 20 to 12, with a planting bed in the middle of a small roundabout and hedging around the perimeter, to create an “attractive buffer between the building and the residential properties and significantly improve biodiversity”.

The main site entrance, on a back road off Southfield Lane, will remain but security gates matching the existing fence are to be installed, while a second access point will be created onto the end of the back road by removing a wall.

The car park will also include a disabled spot, as well as two spaces for bikes.

Plans are for 12 employees to use the building, which will be open from 8.30am until 6pm on weekdays.

The building dates back to the 1820s, when it was built as a house as part of the Harris Court Mill Complex.

It became a working men’s club in 1886 and the property became known as ‘Fat Pot'. 

The Design, Access and Heritage Statement said: “Since then, the building has been extended incrementally and unsympathetically to the original design with poor quality additions.”

This includes the main body of the house being extended forward in a modern style and painted.

Harris Mill was destroyed by a fire in 2019 and according to the agent for the application, Saltaire-based Rance Booth Smith Architects Ltd, the working men’s club shut in 2021.

The plans are to comprehensively renovate the property and “bring it up to current standards in terms of energy use whilst maintaining/recreating the original character appropriate to its settings”.

This will be done by removing the “poorer quality extensions” including the entrance and stair tower”, which are in “a poor state of repair and in a state of collapse” and sandblasting the stonework to clean off the paint.

A planning officer said they are supportive of the proposals which “appear well considered and have been developed with a view to enhancing the heritage significance of the building”.

The application was submitted by Lee Craven on behalf of Jessgrove and validated on July 17.

The determination deadline is September 11 this year.