My visit to Hull back in July turned out to be rather provisional. Faced with just a day in a very large city, I concentrated on strolling around, looking at as much as I could, but resisting the temptation to linger too long or to visit museums. I soon decided that this was a place I’d have to come back to. Nevertheless, a number of buildings, large and small, held my attention. Here’s one that did so by sheer size.
As readers will immediately see, this building began life as a branch of Burton’s, the tailor, in the 1930s. I have gone for a photograph showing the whole thing, in all its vastness, but even so the sign at the top of the building displaying the company’s name can be seen clearly (you can click on the image to enlarge it). By 1935, the year this branch opened, Burton’s already had a history going back several decades. Its founder, Meshe David Osinsky, was born in what is now Lithuania and emigrated to the UK in 1900. He eventually changed his name to Montague Burton, and was one of the entrepreneurs who revolutionised the business of men’s outfitting – like his forerunners Hepworth’s, he offered made-to-measure men’s suits at affordable prices. A customer would come to one of his shop, get measured up, and select a fabric and style, then the suit would be made at one of Burton’s factories. The business expanded quickly, because Burton made a deal to manufacture military uniforms during World War I – and his success continued when his branches became a go-to source of the suits soldiers bought when demobilised from the army. By 1939 he had 595 shops.
Burton knew that impressive shop fronts were good advertising. It wasn’t just the long shop windows, but the tall buildings, mostly specially designed by an in-house architect – Harry Wilson in the case of this Hull branch. By the 1930s, Burton had fully embraced Art Deco, and his stores often came with polished black granite facades, tall, metal-framed windows, and jazzy details like the V-patters above the upper windows, the pair of central gold pilasters, and the moderne balconies of the middle section of windows. The company name takes pride of place. Though hard to see in my photograph, there’s a diagonal line of script to the left of the ‘B’, which is the owner’s first name, so that the whole panel reads, ‘Montague Burton The tailor of taste’. What was behind all those upper windows? Not men’s clothes. Burton had all the retail space he needed on the ground floor. Upstairs in a large Burton’s there was usually a room with billiard tables, to attract potential customs to the building. The rest of the upper floors were let out as offices, bringing in more revenue.
When I saw the building, it was obvious that it had recently been restored, but I wasn’t clear how much of this impressive facade had been replaced. It turns out that a lot of the granite had been damaged and has been replaced with material from the same quarry as the original stone. Defective window frames have been renewed and shop fronts reconstructed. And it does look impressive, and an improvement on the tired frontage that it had become. At the time of writing, the building is on the market, to let for retail or restaurant use (the ground floor) and for ‘mixed use’ (the upper floors). One hopes that the old Burton’s will be successful in its new life.
