107, Piccadilly

MANCHESTER

SJ8498SE PICCADILLY 698-1/29/293 (North East side) 03/10/74 No.107

GV II

Cotton manufacturers' showroom and warehouse, now part amusement shop, part showroom. Dated 1899 in gable of right-hand return wall; by Charles Heathcote, probably for Horrocks Crewdson & Co; altered. Iron frame and concrete floors with cladding of red sandstone and red brick, roofs of slate and glass. Rectangular block (linked by gang bridge to rectangular rear block on Lena Street, qv.). Jacobean-baroque style. Basement, 5 storeys and attic, 5 bays; very elaborate design including banded ground floor, string-courses to the upper floors, 3-bay Ionic colonnaded centre at 3rd and 4th floors surmounted by a tall decorated gable and flanked by extruded turrets, and a corbelled corner turret to the right. The 1st bay has a wide round-headed entrance arch with run-out banded surround and ornamented wrought-iron gates, and above this a stepped transomed window with swan-neck pediment and aedicule above lettered "Founded 1848"; otherwise, the ground floor has altered openings, the 1st and 3rd floors have various semicircular and transomed windows, the 2nd and 4th have mullioned windows (those at top floor with blocked mullions); the corner turret rises from a corbel with finely-carved bracket including 2 children displaying a shield; and all the turrets have domed caps. The right-hand return wall (to Lena Street), a 5-window facade, has (inter alia) sloped basement windows protected by Art Nouveau railings, a 4-bay Ionic pilastrade at 3rd and 4th floors and shaped gable dated 1899. Rear has (inter alia) a rebuilt gang-bridge at 1st to 4th floors linking with Lena Street warehouse block. INTERIOR: porch and entrance hall with decorated glazed tiled pilasters and arcades; staircase with wrought-iron Art Nouveau balusters to 2nd floor and wooden Jacobean style balusters above; 1st-floor showroom with decorated tiled pillars, moulded pilaster beams and dentilled cornices; ladies' room with Art Nouveau stained glass windows; on upper floors, cast-iron columns and wrought-iron beams, white glazed tiled walls and built-counters below all windows; light steel roof trusses with tension rods, large skylights. Fine example of the type, but unoccupied above 1st floor at time of survey.

Listing NGR: SJ8463398145