Arts and Crafts villa Banney Royd for sale

Banney Royd, the Arts and Crafts house in Edgerton designed by the architect Edgar Wood, is again on the market.

The Grade I Listed villa, rich in Art Nouveau features, has been described by the architectural historian John Archer as 'an exceptional house of its generation'.

He writes: 'Throughout the house the best materials were used, and room by room the detailing was originally designed, from the fireplace down to the finger plates on the doors. Various features have the elongated forms characteristic of British Art Nouveau, but the general character of the design is robust and vigorous.'

It was built in 1901 for William Henry Armitage, founder of the chartered accountants Armitage & Norton, and acquired in 1918 by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Emmanuel Hoyle of Joseph Hoyle and Sons, woollen cloth manufacturers.

Requisitioned in 1942 by Huddersfield Corporation's Civil Defence Committee, it found later use as a fire service training centre. It became a Huddersfield Education Department Teachers' Centre in the 1960s and was reinstated as a private house in 1991.

The ground floor includes an impressive entrance hall with oak panelling, an important ashlar fireplace, a drawing room, library and orangery. The dining room contains another ornate fireplace behind a broad round arch with a gilded figure of “The Angel Of The Rains”.

An oak staircase with mullioned window and barrelled ceiling leads to nine bedrooms and a further staircase give access to the second floor. To the rear of the house stand a coach house and cottage.

Banney Royd is for sale through Savills for £2.3m and a more  comprehensive account of its history and architecture may be found in the HCS publication The Villas of Edgerton: Home to Huddersfield’s Victorian Elite by David Griffiths. 

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