Former Office Block Of Platt Brothers

OLDHAM

SD90SW FEATHERSTALL ROAD SOUTH 780-1/3/30 (West side) 10/11/87 Former Office Block of Platt Brothers

GV II

Office building. 1883. By PB Alley. Brick with stone dressings and Welsh slate roof. 2 storeys over basement, 13-window range with projecting corner pavilions and central tower over advanced entrance bay. French Renaissance style. Entrance up steps in round-arched entrance door with moulded stone corbels and key to arch. Continuous string course across the facade, forming arcade of round-arched lower windows. Stone aprons below windows. Outer and central windows to each side have paired round-arched glazing. First floor windows all have stilted arched heads, and outer and central windows are paired. Moulded string course and overhanging stone moulded cornice. Steep hipped roofs over corner pavilions with blocking course over cornice. Wrought-iron brattishing to roofs. Central tower has stone plinth above main roof-line and oculus. Modillion cornice below steep hipped roof surmounted by wrought-iron balconette beneath clock, with ornate brattishing above. End wall and axial stacks. Steps up to entrance have stone plinth walls each side with cast-iron rail, and stone piers. Return elevation of 3 full storeys, and 3-window range. Rear range has advanced central block. 4 wide segmentally-arched openings to ground floor. Simpler detailing, with brick arched heads with stone springers and keys to segmentally-arched windows. Roof lights in rear slope of roof. Axial and end wall stacks. The building was formerly the office block of Platt Bros., at one time Oldham's largest employer and the world's most important manufacturer of textile machinery. The building is one of the few surviving structures from the engineering works.

Listing NGR: SD9148704691