City Buildings

SJ 8498, 698-1/17/11136

TODD STREET, City Buildings

II

Former warehouse, shops and offices, now shops, restaurant and mixed use to upper floors. Built between 1865 and 1875. Sandstone ashlar with red brick to rear and side elevations; Welsh slate roof. The building occupies a prominent corner site and is arranged around a small internal court with vehicular access from Todd Street. Four storeys. Ground floor retains its original stone pilasters with foliated capitals between shop divisions and a number of cast-iron barley-sugar mullions. Vehicular entrance with original iron double-gates. Double -doorway to Corporation Street with stone name panel above (CITY BUILDINGS). Upper floors with regular fenestration and 2-pane plate-glass sash windows throughout. The design is enlivened by the use of varied window arches - round-headed to third floor, segmental to second and square-headed with bracketed cornices to first, paired windows above entrances, plat band and cornice. The corner is treated more elaborately: framed by sunken quadrant angles set between rusticated quoins with round-headed paired windows to all floors, a stone balcony on scrolled brackets with decorative iron railings to second floor, another stone name-panel, the whole surmounted by a stone finial in the form of an oculus. Above this point the roof proper terminates in a fish-scale slate spirelet with a cast-iron finial. Interior not inspected.

City Buildings has considerable townscape value, occupying a significant site in this part of the city and groups well with other listed buildings, including Victoria Station. Its design is much enlivened by varied detailing which survives remarkably intact.

Listing NGR: SJ8406598849