Austin House

Austin House is a Grade II listed building located on Charlotte Street in Manchester. Built in 1860 by Edward Walters, it originally served as a textile merchants' warehouse and has since been converted into offices. The structure features a combination of sandstone ashlar and light red brick with sandstone dressings, and it has a rectangular plan with a rear corner that interlocks with No. 12 to the right.

Designed in the Italian palazzo style, the building has a basement and five storeys, presenting a symmetrical facade with eight windows. The ground floor is treated as rustic ashlar, featuring a cornice, channelled corner pilasters, and enriched sill-bands on the upper floors. A prominent cornice supported by large brackets crowns the building, which is topped with nine brick chimneys that have modillioned stone cornices.

The ground floor and basement create a pilastered arcade of round-headed arches, including central coupled doorways adorned with richly-foliated carved spandrels and keystones featuring masks linked to triglyphs in a frieze with corrupt-leaf enrichment. The windows are evenly distributed between the basement and ground floor, with decorative heads that include keystones and triglyphs similar to those above the doorways.

The first-floor windows have architraves with straight cornices, while the second-floor windows are segmental-headed with pedimented architraves. The third-floor windows feature stilted segmental heads with linked impost bands, and the fourth-floor windows have enriched aprons set within a deep sill-band. All glazing has been altered. The left side wall follows a similar but simpler style. The interior has not been inspected.