Victoria Hall, Saltaire

Victoria Hall
Facade of Victoria Hall, Saltaire
Location within West Yorkshire
General information
Status	Complete
Location	Saltaire
Country	England
Coordinates	53°50′13″N 1°47′23″W / 53.837073°N 1.789786°W / 53.837073; -1.789786Coordinates: 53°50′13″N 1°47′23″W / 53.837073°N 1.789786°W / 53.837073; -1.789786
Design and construction
Architecture firm	Lockwood and Mawson
Awards and prizes	Grade II* listed

Victoria Hall, Saltaire (originally the Saltaire Institute) is a Grade II* listed building in the village of Saltaire, near Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, built by architects Lockwood and Mawson.

Saltaire Institute was built by the architectural firm of Lockwood and Mawson between 1867 and 1871 for the industrialist and philanthropist Sir Titus Salt. It cost £25,000. In the original design, the building contained a main hall seating 800, a lecture room, two art rooms, a laboratory, a gymnasium, a library of 8,500 books and a reading room. For use of the building, a quarterly fee was charged. This ranged downwards from 2 shillings for adult males.

Victoria Hall is a T-plan, two-storey building with a basement, constructed in ashlar, with rock-faced stone and a Welsh slate roof.

To the front, the exterior has a symmetrical, eleven-bay Italianate facade, with vermiculated quoins at ground floor level and pilaster quoins to the first floor. The central bay of the building breaks forward. On top of this bay is an elaborate square tower with pyramidal ashlar roof. Each side of the tower has a modillioned segmental pediment on an enriched entablature, supported by Corinthian columns, framing slender, round-arched windows. The central portal has double, panelled doors, fanlight, and large open segmental pediment supported on large consoles. The tympanum has a cartouche bearing the Salt family coat of arms, flanked by the carved figures of Art and Science by Thomas Milnes.