Sevendale House

MANCHESTER

SJ8498SE DALE STREET 698-1/29/96 (North East side) Sevendale House

GV II

Large general warehouse; now mostly wholesalers' premises. Dated 1903 on doorway; for I.J.& C.Cooper Ltd, general warehousemen. Steel frame with concrete floors, in cladding of polished red granite, red sandstone (now grime-blackened) and blood-red brick and terracotta; green slate roof. Long rectangular plan filling plot bounded by Dale Street, Spear Street, Lever Street and Stevenson Square, with offices at both ends and warehousing (etc) between them. Jacobean style. The Dale Street facade, of 4 storeys with basement and attic, is a symmetrical composition of 5 wide bays with splayed corners, pilasters at ground floor continued as semi-octagonal shafts terminating in domed finials, a frieze with raised lettering "I.J.& C. COOPER LTD", and a parapet with shaped gables in the centre and over each corner (the latter similarly lettered). The ground floor has a very large round-headed central doorway with elaborately decorated surround including a keystone cartouche with raised date "1903" (opening now filled by mirrored screen with small door in centre), "SEVENDALE HOUSE" in late C20 lettering attached to the frieze above, coupled plate-glass windows in the inner bays and large single plate-glass windows in the outer bays. The 1st and 2nd floors have (inter alia) coupled windows in the centre, 2-storey canted 5-light oriels in the inner bays, large single-light windows in the outer bays (all at 2nd floor - except the oriels - with keyed elliptical-arched heads), 2-storey segmental oriels at the corners with coupled windows, and a moulded cornice carried round; the 3rd floor has an almost continuous series of small single-light windows; and the upper lights of most of these windows have Art Nouveau leaded glazing, or small panes. The roof has flat-roofed dormers. The south side (to Lever Street) is 11 bays in similar style, with 2-storey canted oriels in alternate bays, pairs of square-headed windows at 3rd floor and pairs of dormers above (late C20 entrances inserted in the centre and at each end); the rear facade (to Stevenson Square) is similar to the front but without the doorway. The north side (to Spear Street) is mostly curtain walling of steel-framed glazing, and has inter alia a 3-bay loading entrance with cast-iron piers and wrought-iron beam, and a gabled dormer above this.

Listing NGR: SJ8453598430