Workshops, Shop And Warehouse

A warehouse, workshops, and shop dating to the late 18th or early 19th century for the warehouse section, and the late 19th century for the workshops and shop, with minor 20th-century alterations. The buildings are constructed of red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings and slate and sheet roof coverings. The warehouse section, to the left, is a single bay, four storeys high, with a doorway to the right featuring a basket-arched head, formerly with a stepped approach. To the left of the doorway are stacked window openings below rubbed brick flat heads; the window openings diminish in height at each ascending level. The windows have sash frames; the lower floors have 2-over-2 panes, while the upper floor has 4-over-2 panes. A loading bay is on the left, featuring stacked half-glazed double doors set back within a full-height recess, below double hoist beams with a central pulley wheel. A plain parapet tops the warehouse. The workshop and shop section to the left has a ground floor frontage with a display window above a basement window to the left, a raised doorway to the shop in the centre, and a tall doorway to the right. A continuous lintel beam extends the full width of the frontage; the openings have shouldered heads between plain pilasters, and the ground floor joinery is concealed by 20th-century roller shutters. The three first-floor windows above a wide storey band have shallow-arched heads, moulded brick surrounds, and 2-over-2 pane sashes on an ashlar cill band. The second-floor openings repeat this pattern. A wide semi-circular arched window to the upper floor is set within a coped gable with stepped corbel decoration to the surrounding brickwork. The interiors were not inspected. These buildings represent the workshop and warehousing components of a surviving enclave of small-scale buildings which developed from the late 18th century, alongside dwellings with integral workshops in attics and cellars. They contrast in scale and form with the large-scale factories and warehouses of surrounding districts and are rare survivals of an important phase in the development of industrial Manchester.