Power Hall Of Museum Of Science And Industry

The Power Hall of the Museum of Science and Industry is a railway goods transfer shed built in 1855 for the London and North Western Railway. It is constructed of red brick with some sandstone dressings and features a hipped slate roof. The building has a very long rectangular shape that runs parallel to the street, with a wide splayed corner and a short return to Lower Byrom Street. It is a single-storey structure with a series of blind windows arranged in groups of six, seven, and four, interspersed with wagon entrances, including one in the splayed corner. The round-headed blind windows have stepped surrounds and raised stone sills, while the large square-headed wagon doorways have flat-arched heads and stone fenders at the bases of the jambs; these were originally fitted with sliding wooden doors but are now glazed. A continuous brick frieze features a simplified corbel table and a white brick band, topped by a brick parapet with stone coping. The return side has a similar three-bay design.

At the western end, there are offices with four pairs of arched windows featuring keystones and shared stone sills across two storeys, which are separated by a dentillated string course that was originally the eaves before the first floor was added. The rubbed-brick arched doorway on Liverpool Road has a stone open pediment above and retains its timber double doors and a later fanlight. The front and rear elevations have four-pane timber sash windows, although some at the rear were altered during the conversion to a museum. The building also includes a modillioned timber box gutter, a central four-pot chimney stack, and a two-pot end stack. The rear wall has carriage stones at each corner, and the office interior is said to retain fireplaces and cornices.