Austin House

MANCHESTER

SJ8498SW CHARLOTTE STREET 698-1/28/48 (South side) 03/10/74 Nos.14 AND 16 Austin House

GV II

Textile merchants' warehouses, now offices. 1860, by Edward Walters; altered. Sandstone ashlar and light red brick with sandstone dressings (roof not visible). Plan rectangular except for rear corner interlocking with No.12 to right. Italian palazzo style. Basement and 5 storeys, a symmetrical 8-window facade, the ground floor of ashlar treated as a rustic, with a cornice to this, channelled corner pilasters and variously-enriched sill-bands to the upper floors, and a very prominent cornice on large brackets, surmounted by 9 brick chimneys with modillioned stone cornices. The ground floor and basement form a pilastered arcade of round-headed arches, including coupled doorways in the centre with richly-foliated carved spandrels, keystones with masks linked to triglyphs in a frieze with corrupt-leaf enrichment; and windows divided equally between basement and ground floor, with enrichment to the heads including keystones and triglyphs like those over the doorways. The windows at 1st floor have architraves with straight cornices, those at 2nd floor are segmental-headed with pedimented architraves (alternately segmental), those at 3rd floor have stilted segmental heads and linked impost bands, and those at 4th floor have enriched aprons in a deep sill-band. All glazing altered. The left side wall is in similar but simpler style. Interior not inspected.

Listing NGR: SJ8418698063