Kendal Milne and Company (Harrods) Deansgate Manchester

Kendal's (Mancunians steadfastly refuse to call it anything other) had its origins in as a draper's shop opened in 1796 by John Watts of Burnage. By the 1830s several young managers had joined the firm and three of them, Thomas Kendal, James Milne and Adam Faulkner purchased the retail store from the Watts family in 1835. In the 1840s, they had installed gas lighting and had a fleet of 50 horses drawn delivery vans around the city, By the close of the century the range had expanded from drapery and fashions to include cabinet and furniture making and house furnishers with their own workshops, funeral undertaking and consumer goods. In 1901 they received a Royal Warrant as "Upholsterers to the Royal Household." Harrods purchased the company in 1919 and the House of Fraser group took control in 1959.

In April 1929 Kendal Milne and Company announced proposals to erect a new building on the site partially occupied by their existing furnishings section on the Salford side of Deansgate, with an area of some 35,200 square feet. The building was to be of Portland stone and while the details of the interior had already been decided, the public were invited to give their opinion on the external architectural appearance. This was believed to be the first occasion on which any business concern in the world had invited its customers and the public generally to select a design for a new building it proposed to erect. J W Beaumont and Sons prepared perspectives of four designs published in the Manchester Guardian on 30 April 1929 and readers of the paper and customers at the store invited to place these in order of preference. All designs incorporated a loggia or winter garden surrounding the restaurant at fifth floor level which was intended as a special feature of the scheme. Of the four designs two were in the stepped-back fashion of the American commercial building and the other were plain rectangular blocks, one with chamfered corners, cornice and pilasters (design D), and the other without. Within a matter of days over 6,000 “ballot papers” had been received. The most popular design was “Design D” which gained over 65 per cent of the votes, the remaining votes being equally divided between the other three schemes.

Presumably as a result of the Depression, further work on the new Manchester store was halted to await more favourable economic times. In the mid 1930's Harrods were again building a series of state-of-the-art department stores incorporating best European and American practice. These included the DH Evans department store in Oxford Street London (1934-1937) designed by Louis Blanc. In 1928 Harrods took control of DH Evans and set about combining their two existing shops into one new store. From October to December 1934, Louis Blanc, discussed his design for the new store with the DH Evans/Harrods board, who commented on every aspect of the plans from the floor layouts and escalator locations to the façade details. It may be reasonably assumed that the design of Kendal's was subject to a similar process.

Several innovations were introduced internally. A new structural grid was introduced with stanchions placed at a maximum of 43 feet centres rather than 26-30 feet span common in most buildings, reducing the number of intermediate pillars required from 26 to 12 and increasing uninterrupted sales areas. Lighting was specially designed, and the building air conditioned and carpeted throughout. Many elements of the London store are repeated in Manchester, D H Evans had been one of the first London stores to incorporate full length canopies above the ground floor display windows from the outset; Kendal=s remain the only Manchester department store to have this  feature.  D H Evans had escalators serving every floor as did Kendals, although in the latter they are grouped with the stairs behind the lifts, thereby maximising clear sales area. Externally D H Evans had a pronounced vertical emphasis achieved though the division of structural bay into three by continuous mullions. The main Manchester elevations are similarly treated but retain vestiges of the "moderne" style.

A model had also been prepared, a photograph of which first appeared in November 1937. As illustrated, the general form of the building appears as finally constructed, including chamfered corners, canopies on the three principal elevations and  the sub-division of the structural bays into three with vertical fins between windows. However, there is a distinct window pattern. Six months later the main elevations to Deansgate, King Street West and St Mary Street had been radically re-designed, a sketch of this revised scheme appearing in the Manchester Guardian of 16 May 1938.  As built this was unlike anything previously designed by Beaumont and Sons.

In this new scheme the spaces between the Portland stone mullions  were now filled entirely with glass blocks, subtly curved to reflect the light, and extending continuously from first to fifth floors rather than the standard window pattern of the D H Evans store, Blanc's later Cape Town Building or the earlier model of the Kendal's building. Whether this change was a touch of genius, or a cost saving exercise, or both, is unclear, although such late changes to elevational treatment usually relate to financial considerations. That this final design was the work of a German émigré was put forward in Claire Hartwell’s Buildings of England: Manchester and South East Lancashire, based seemingly on stylist grounds and so far as can be established, without any additional evidence in support.

In one respect the building still conforms to the "Manchester style." Dating from the nineteenth century, this requires that only the elevations facing the principal streets receive architectural treatment, with little or no attention given to the rear elevation. In the 1920's Professor C H Reilly referred to such Manchester buildings as having Queen Anne fronts and Mary-Ann backs and Kendal's Southgate elevation provides a prime example. Portland stone and vertical glazing immediately give way to brick, exposed concrete floor slabs and exposed external drainage.  J S Beaumont was still designing in this manner in the 1950's at Manchester University Student=s Union, Oxford Road, Manchester (1953-1956) where stone was used for the front and side elevations and brick for the rear.

In March 1938 Sir Woodman Burbage, chairman of Harrods, formally announced the proposals, details of which were published in the Manchester City News -

MANCHESTER ARCHITECTS' PLAN FOR £750,000 KENDAL MILNE STORE - A Manchester firm of architects will be responsible for the new £750,000 Kendal Milne store in Deansgate, announced by Sir Woodman Burbage, chairman, the "News" is able to announce - and here is a model of the actual building. The architects are Messrs. J W Beaumont and Sons of Spring Gardens, Manchester. Building begins in July and will take three years.  The new building will occupy the site on which Kendal=s have been trading for many years, facing their main building. It will comprise a department store consisting of seven storeys above ground with basement and sub-basement. The total floor area will be 294,000 square feet - nearly seven acres - and the selling area will be 202,500 square feet. The building will have a frontage to Deansgate of 215 feet, will be 160 feet deep and 100 feet high! Construction will be carried out in two sections, and its cost, when complete and equipped, including the installation of lifts and escalators etc., will be £750,000. [Manchester City News 12 March 1938]

Building work commenced in July 1938 and by February 1939 the steel frame for the first phase of the new building had been erected. However in that month a fire completely destroyed the adjoining Kendal's building intended for demolition when the first phase was complete.  By April 1939 the basement and sub-basement of phase II had been excavated and the reinforced concrete retaining walls built, the opportunity being taken to strengthen these to resist air attack. The ground floor slab was also redesigned to withstand collapse of the upper parts of the new building. A clean washed air supply and special drainage system to the deep air-raid shelter in the sub-basement were incorporated as were auxiliary lighting, decontamination and first aid rooms and additional fire-fighting plant.

The building was completed in 1940 at which point it was immediately requisitioned for the Civil Service and did not open to customers until after the war. Transfer of departments commenced in 1946 and the new building was being used in its entirety by March 1948, although still lacking lighting and modern shop fittings on the third and fourth floors. On the sixth floor, set back to meet Rights of Light regulations, was the café and restaurant with French windows opening out on to balconies. This opened in August 1948.

Reference           Builder 29 March 1929 page 576