Proposed Hotel for J. J. Hunt [ The Imperial Hotel, York]
York 1936
Original drawing. 920x600mm Framed behind glass. Slight foxing and a small muddy smudge on drafting paper else very good. Perpsective illustrating one of a number of hotel/public houses proposed for York's new housing estates by the Bewers J J Hunt Ltd. This one situated at the junction Crichton Avenue and Kingsway North, York, adjacent to shops opposite the catholic church which marked another corner of the junction. It would have served the aborted "outer ring road" scheme planned to follow the line of Kingsway as well as the adjacent Kingsway housing scheme. Demolished c2000. The only surviving Needham pub/hotel is the Ainsty on Poppleton Road. This too would have served a portion of the proposed ring road. J. J. Hunt was founded in the 1830s in York, and in various guises, continued till 1956. After 1927 one of the strategies for expansion of the Brewery was to build new public houses to serve the suburbs. Samuel Needham (a leading influence on early twentieth century pub design in York)was president of the York & Yorkshire Architectural Society was responsible for the design of what were effectively "road house" for the proposed road but which also served the expanding suburbs. He initially worked for Tadcaster Breweries but set up on his own in c1904. His son, Charles, also trained as an architect and moved from Leicester, where he had been City Architect, to join the practice in 1927.