Tootal, Broadhurst And Lee Building

MANCHESTER

SJ8497NW OXFORD STREET 698-1/32/265 (West side) 03/10/74 No.56 Tootal, Broadhurst & Lee Building

GV II*

Textiles warehouse, now offices. 1896-8 (dated 1896 over doorway), by J.Sankey Gibbons. Probably steel-framed, clad in red brick with liberal dressings of buff and yellow terracotta (roof not visible). Large rectangular plan. Baroque style. Five storeys with basements and attic, 7 bays plus canted corners; glazed terracotta to ground floor with raised banding, alternating bands of red brick and yellow terracotta to all upper floors; cornice over ground floor, banded piers to 1st floor serving as pedestals to giant Corinthian colonnade at 2nd and 3rd floor which has a modillioned cornice and finishes as an arcade of semi-circular windows at 4th floor; very prominent modillioned cornice, attic treated as a parapet and raised in the centre; set-in semi-octagonal corner turrets rising from 2nd floor and capped by colonnaded octagonal cupolas with prominent cornices and apex finials with flagmasts. Massive central round-headed doorway with banded surround and cartouche dated 1896, set in architrave of coupled banded columns and broken pediment; 6-light windows with transoms. Right-hand return to Great Bridgewater Street, 5:2:5 bays in matching style, but the 2-bay centre with coupled round-headed loading-bay arches at ground floor (furnished with wrought-iron gates in Art Nouveau style), and pedimented attic. Interior not inspected.

Listing NGR: SJ8402497647