Behind the scenes: Tower Works

Having (until recently) spent the last 4 years working out of the Round Foundry Media Centre i’ve fallen in love with the Holbeck Urban Village area – beautiful architecture and a rich industrial revolution past – so i’ve been watching with interest what happens to the old Tower Works site off Globe Road.

You can see it’s prominent features from the train station and canal it sits next to – 3 ornate (and listed) towers. The site was built in the 1800s as a metal pin factory feeding the textile industries, and the founder T.R. Harding had a bit of a thing for italianate architecture. Judging by it’s close neighbour Templeworks, wealthy industrialists liked their factories to exhibit a bit of bling (or maybe it was just keeping up with the joneses?), so the architect for Temple Works duly designed the factorys’ dust-extraction chimneys to look like famous italian towers of the time. The tower in the above photo for instance bears more than a passing resemblance to  Giotto’s Campinelle in Florence.

The factory closed in 1981, and has remained empty until now. The site was aquired by Yorkshire Forward for re-development – but, calamity – before construction work started the Conservatives came into power and disbanded the development agency, putting the whole project at risk.

Luckily, part of the re-development has been allowed to go ahead. Some of the bigger buildings on the site will, alas, have to wait for later funding (and while it’d be nice for people to walk up the main tower to take in the view, for the time being that wont be possible).

So as this phase nears completion, what we will have in the re-developed Tower Works is a collection of small (ish) offices aimed at the creative/digital industries (many of which are already stationed in the  Holbeck Urban Village). It’s being managed by Creative Space Management who manage The Round Foundry next door, and will work in a similar way (if a little more hands-off – there wont be a shared reception desk and associated services etc).

The ground floor has a number of small units aimed at crafty-shops (and Click-n-mix are one of the first to sign on the dotted line). The long frontage along Globe Road has been renovated, and there’s new-build spaces on both ends.

Before Christmas @leannebuchan and I asked if we’d be able to have a sneaky peek at the building when it was ready; True to her word, Sharon from the Round Foundry got in touch last week and offered us a quick lunchtime tour.

It’s not completely finished – there’s still a bit of decoration, finishing / fixtures to go in, and a spot of landscaping to complete, but it should be opening its doors to the first businesses pretty soon (probably May). Bucking the current trend they’ve already got a fair few tennants lined up, so if an office in a listed building with lots of history appeals, you might want to investigate more a bit sharpish (Now that i’m freelancing I must admit to being more than a little jealous – i’d love to work here! )

A few things are still be be decided on – eg there’s a large ground floor space that may become either a gallery, cafe or entertaining space (or a combination of all three).

So, without further ado, here’s a few of the sights from our private Nosey-Parker tour:

(the ground floor are going to be small craft-y shops).

(much of the right-hand foreground of this will, alas, be fenced off awaiting later development)

(note the original wooden floor has been largely retained – nice 🙂

(above: the biggest room, on the top floor of one of the new-build blocks. Beautiful light and 360 degree views, and with a juliette balcony.  I think someone’s already snapped this up)

(above: kitchen area)

(above: mountains of architectural drawings to work from. This room has wonderful light, and unsurprisingly has been snapped up by a photographer to use as a studio. Not at all Jealous. Oh no.)

(above: looking out into the tower works grounds, with a large stone terrace, and the mid-distance will become a landscaped garden. You can spot Candle House on the opposite side of the canal in the background)

(above: looking up globe road from the top offices)

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Rick Harrison is Culture Vultures’ Photography editor. He’s also a Freelance Photographer and Web Developer, and can be found loafing around on twitter @sovietuk.