26-30, Princess Street

MANCHESTER

SJ8497NW PRINCESS STREET 698-1/32/324 (South West side) Nos.26 TO 30 (Even)

GV II

Offices and warehouses, now variously occupied. c.1870-80, altered. Sandstone ashlar ground floor, blood-red brick with sandstone dressings above, steeply-pitched hipped slate roof. Rectangular plan on end-of-block site (now island), with chamfered corners, loading bay at rear. Eclectic style. Four storeys over basement, a 14-window facade, symmetrical, the windows grouped 1:2:3:3:2:1, plus 3-light corner oriels; with high chamfered plinth and plain frieze to ground floor, brick pilasters to the 2-window bays terminating in tall pilastered chimneys (treated as pinnacles), heavy bracketed cornice over 2nd floor, small cornice and brick parapet over 3rd floor. The 2-window bays have coupled round-headed doorways (the 4th altered as window) with much enrichment, including colonnettes with carved caps supporting large elaborate consoles to stilted open pediments which contain carved keystones and swags; the corners have square-headed doorways each with 2 semicircular overlights flanking the corbel of a cylindrical 2-storey oriel above. The windows are sashed without glazing bars, those of 2 and 3 lights with stone mullions (except at 3rd floor) and those of the 2-window bays with stone panels between the floors. Returned sides similar. Forms part of uninterrupted linear group of similar buildings on this side of Princess Street.

Listing NGR: SJ8408997938