The Clay Warehouse

ELLESMERE PORT AND NESTON SJ 4077 DOCK STREET 7/38 (Canal Port Lower Basin) The Clay Warehouse 12.9.78 GV II China Clay and Bone Ash Warehouse circa 1880-90. Red and blue brick with slate roof. Single storey, double depth plan. On the south-east side there are six double-width boarded doors flanked by 3-brick wide x 2-brick deep blue brick piers under chamfered wood lintels, which are almost at eaves level. Between the doors there are recessed red brick panels, in English Garden Wall Bond, which are framed by the door piers, a high blue brick plinth, with bullnosed brick cornice and a deep blue brick eaves - band with three stepped courses and a dentil course. A moulded cast iron gutter sits on the eaves band. The south-west and north-east twin gable-ends have pairs of red brick recessed panels framed by the blue bricks and these are surmounted by wide bands of blue bricks which join similar verge bands to form twin gable-pediments with recessed red brick infill panels. At the centres of the gable pediments there are large circular openings, framed in blue bricks and filled with cast iron wheel grilles with radiating spokes based on dagger and quatrefoil motifs. Large stone kneelers support square edged verge copings. The brick dentil course, which runs up the verges under the copings, is continued downwards carved into the stonework of the kneelers. The east section of the north-east gable-end contains two double boarded doors with board cladding above. On the north-west side of the building, which is divided into six red brick panels by 3-brick wide pilasters, there are two centrally placed double doors under segmental arches with concrete springers. A 3- brick square stack rises from eaves level at the centre of the building on the'north- west side. A central lead valley separates the two pitched roofs of the two parallel rangers. The building was used for the storage of china clay shipped by coaster from Cornwall and then transported by narrow boats to the Potteries. Bone Ash for the manufacture of Bone China was similarly stores and transhipped. The warehouse is on an island formed by the canal, the basin and an arm of the canal.

Listing NGR: SJ4043677290