Telfords Warehouse

A canal warehouse, built around 1790, now operating as a restaurant. It was designed by Thomas Telford for the Chester and Ellesmere Port Canal Company. The building is constructed of English garden wall bond brick, with a hipped grey slate roof and features a brick ridge chimney.

The two-storey facade facing Raymond Street has replacement windows set within segmental arched openings, with painted stone sills and wedge lintels. A full-height loading bay, now with false doors, is visible. The ground floor includes a replaced window, a loading bay, two replaced windows, a window in a former doorway, a sixteen-pane sash, and a three-step approach to a recessed round-arched porch with a three-pane overlight. The first floor has a replaced window, part-glazed window to the loading bay, a replaced window, and two squat eight-pane sashes. A simple stone fascia and projecting boxed eaves, characteristic of Telford’s style, are present.

The south-west face, overlooking the Ellesmere Canal, incorporates two round-arched openings on stone plinths, leading to a covered loading dock; boats accessed the dock through the opening at the corner of the north-west end. The north-west face of the rear wing shows a boatway leading to the covered dock, above which a large full-width window was inserted in the 1980s. There is replaced vertical boarding in the gable. The main block has a sixteen-pane sash on both the ground and first floors, an eight-pane sash on the second floor, and replaced windows above the rear wing. The north-east side features a pair of six-panel flush doors with a three-pane overlight, and a sixteen-pane sash on either side. The first floor has three sixteen-pane sashes and the second floor has four eight-pane sashes. The interior of the warehouse has not been inspected.