C20 Society is disappointed to learn that our listing application for Shipley Clock Tower in Bradford, West Yorkshire, has been turned-down by DCMS.

Designed in 1960-61 as part of a redevelopment of Shipley town centre by the Arndale Property Trust, the freestanding 6 storey tower is in a late ‘Festival of Britain’ style and stands above the surviving Market Hall, overlooking the  recently revamped Market Square. While the architecture of the surrounding Arndale development has been largely altered, the clock tower survives remarkably well.

Of the four post-war clock towers currently on the national register, all are in the south of England or the Midlands, in part due to their popularity as civic gestures in the first wave of New Towns, few of which were developed beyond the green belt around London. With Shipley being a rare exception, the Society felt listing the tower would help address this regional imbalance, while recognising the building’s historic interest as part of an important early redevelopment by the Arndale Property Trust.

However, Historic England declined to recommend the tower for listing, their report concluding: “the freestanding clock tower is of some interest as a local landmark, possessing a degree of civic aspiration and pride in the newly rebuilt market area, but it lacks the quality of design and materials of other listed post-war clock towers.”

‘Gaiety and pleasure in detail cuteness’

When the post-war town centre redevelopment was complete, chairman of Shipley Council, Coun. Stanley Rodway, favourably compared it to the nearby model industrial village of Saltaire (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site), built “Just up the road about 100 years ago”.

The central market complex accommodates shops at street level with offices at first floor level, which wrap around the off-centre, freestanding clock tower. Below the shops is an underground market hall, accessed by steps and escalator within the clock tower. The tower itself is built of concrete and faced in panels of yellow brick laid in Flemish bond, with alternating panels of textured brick separated by reconstituted stone bands in a hexagonal pattern. Offset trapezoidal balconies jut out at third and fourth storey levels, while the the upper level is open to the elements and once contained a spiral stair. The top level is clad in white ceramic tiles, with clock dials to its four faces (sadly removed in recent years), and on its principal face a nude male jacquemart figure that strikes a bell. The clock’s return elevations have vertical concrete vents, while inside the clock tower, the original U-shaped stair survives, with its timber handrail and base rail and terrazzo treads. The tower survives in excellent condition, aside from some minor losses – the clock fascia’s have been removed in the past decade – which could feasibly be restored.

The Shipley clock tower and market hall features in Owen Hatherley’s Modern Buildings in Britain: A Gazetteer, in which he describes how “In this small mill town in the City of Bradford…[a clocktower with] the sort of gaiety and pleasure in detail cuteness that is so commonly found in Coventry, but rarer in the hard townscapes of West Yorks. There are various routes into the market, but the most enjoyable is to enter through the base of the clock tower itself, where a cubic glass passageway, treated like a Mondrian grid, has inset into it a stairwell to the market below. Sometimes modern architecture was about innocent joy, and that’s what differentiates it from the ponderous Victoriana that dominated towns like Shipley.”

Post-war clock towers

Four post-war clock towers are currently listed on the national register, all at Grade II:

• Broadgate House, Coventry – Donald EE Gibson, Coventry City Architect’s Department (1949-53)
• Chrisp St Market Clock Tower, Poplar, Tower Hamlets – Frederick Gibberd (1951-52)
• Central Parade, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest – F G Southgate (1957-58)
• Stevenage Clock Tower, Hertfordshire – Leonard Vincent, Stevenage New Town Development Corporation (1957-59)

Catherine Croft, C20 Society Director, commented:

“Shipley’s Clock Tower (built 1960-61) is a fabulous, Festival of Britain-style totem of mid-century modern design. Anyone who saw acrobats dramatically abseiling down it during last year’s 2025 Bradford City of Culture will know how much of a local icon it is.

 All the post-war clock towers that are nationally listed are currently in the South of England or the Midlands, with none in the North of England – adding Shipley to that list would have helped redress a glaring regional imbalance, and celebrated a much-loved civic landmark. For Historic England and DCMS to reject it feels more like levelling down than levelling up, but we’re confident that one day it will be recognised.

 Despite the disappointing listing decision, we hope the Town Council’s ambitions to restore the tower and add a public viewing platform come to fruition.”