Work is to start shortly on converting an historic Huddersfield canal warehouse.

Yorkshire building and civil engineering contractor, Britcon has secured a £800,000 contract to refurbish the Grade II* listed building for the University of Huddersfield .

The Sir John Ramsden Court building is to be converted from the existing 12 residential flats to provide 6,785 sq. ft of office accommodation for the university.

The building was a former canal warehouse and is one of Huddersfield’s oldest buildings dating back to 1774.

John Ramsden Court

It was named after Sir John Ramsden, whose family once owned much of the land around Huddersfield and sits across the road from the end of the Huddersfield Broad Canal which is also known as the Sir John Ramsden Canal.

The conversion by Britcon is part of the overall redevelopment of the university’s Queensgate Campus. The university originally owned the building but sold it for residential use in the 1980’s. It has since bought it back to include on the overall campus regeneration plans.

Another major project on the campus will see a £27m building erected on the Shorehead frontage .

Watch below to see a virtual tour of the new Shorehead centre

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Britcon expects to complete the works by February 2016.

Take a look below to see pictures of that area and around Huddersfield in the 1960s.

The images were released to the Examiner from Huddersfield Civic Society, were taken in the 1960s and 70s by Clifford Stephenson and Ewald Sotnik and show a town rapidly under development.

The creation of the ringroad, the pulling down of various well-known town centre buildings and the work to build the M62 are all documented in the images above.