Public Laundry

MANCHESTER

SD89NE 698-1/5/749

RHODES STREET, Miles Platting (North East side) Public laundry

II

Public laundry. c.1900-1910. Red brick and buff terracotta, with slate and glazed roof. Rectangular plan. Art Nouveau style. The long 2-storey 5-bay facade is almost symmetrical, the centre and ends breaking forwards, and has a terracotta plinth, red brick ground floor with terracotta quoins and cornice, and terracotta tiled facing to the upper floor. The centre is a 3-bay composition with a Diocletian window at ground floor flanked by segmental-headed doorways with terracotta surrounds including keystones and segmental cornices, and a keyed oculus at 1st floor under a gabled parapet, flanked by pairs of small segmental-headed windows with keystones and cornices like the doorways. The link to the left has 4 windows at ground floor, all square-headed with segmental-headed terracotta architraves including keystones and segmental cornices; the wide end bay to the left of this has 2 pairs of similar windows at ground floor and a lunette at 1st floor with archband and keystone. The link and end bay to the right are similar except that each has an additional opening in the centre: a narrow window in the link (now mostly replaced by a C20 doorway with roller shutter), and a doorway in the end bay (this and the flanking windows now furnished with similar shutters). Continuous glazed skylight to roof. Interior: original Art Nouveau tiling in duck-egg blue with bands and friezes of blue and green swags and festoons; original stained glass in doors, etc.

Listing NGR: SJ8629599762