83-87 Long Street

Former domestic loomshop and houses, late 18th century, with alteration of the ground floor to two shops in the late 19th century, and 20th and 21st century alterations.

The building is constructed of hand-made bricks, with later applied timber-framing and render to the front elevation, and slate roofs.

The main building is rectangular with a small outshot to the rear. The ground floor contains two shops with a cross passage between them. The first floor comprises two former residences, one of which opens into the rear outshot. The top floor is an open-plan former loomshop.

The three-storey, three-bay building faces east onto Long Street. The original symmetrical front elevation of brick is now covered by timbers applied in the manner of box-framing with the panels infilled by painted cream-coloured render.

The ground floor has a central doorway with a modern panelled timber door and a metal roller blind in front. To each side is a shop front with metal roller blinds and plywood covering the fascias and pilasters. The left-hand shop has a recessed doorway to the left with a timber and half-glazed door and a two-light shop window with a central timber mullion and vertically-boarded stall riser. The right-hand shop has a shop window comprising a wide central window with narrow side lights, a moulded timber stall riser and a recessed doorway to the right with a stone step and a modern timber board door.

The central first-floor window is a timber cross frame with a lower side-hinged casement. To the left is a wider three-light window with a timber mullion and transom frame and top-hinged upper casements. To the right is a timber-framed window with a central transom and an inset top-hinged upper casement (an early 20th century photograph shows a three-light timber-framed mullion and transom window with a lower side-hinged casement).

The top floor formerly had a central taking-in door, now replaced by a timber-framed window of two square-paned lights directly under the eaves with timber framing and render infill below (the sill of the taking-in door was above a narrower band of box framing over the first-floor windows). Set lower to each side is a horizontal loomshop window with timber-framed Yorkshire sashes (sliding horizontally rather than vertically) of six square-paned lights each.

The double-pitched roof is slated with a large brick stack to the left-hand south gable, shared with the adjoining property.

To the rear of the building is a small yard, reached by an external passageway beside the north gable wall, which is considerably lower than the adjacent ground associated with the Methodist Church Sunday Schools. The three-storey rear elevation is built of hand-made bricks in English garden wall bond. On the right-hand side the two-storey outshot faces north into the yard. It too is built of hand-made bricks, though they are not bonded into the main rear elevation, with a mono-pitch slate roof abutting the north side of the adjacent property, which on this side retains its walls of hand-made bricks (rebuilt to the outer elevations). The top floor of the main building has two long horizontal windows. The left-hand window has a timber frame of six lights with mullions and a central king mullion. The right-hand window is the same width although the three right-hand lights are now boarded over; the three left-hand lights have timber mullion and transom frames. Between the first and second floors is a line of infilled mortices for beams of unknown use. Both windows have soldier brick lintels and no sills. On the first floor are two smaller horizontal windows with narrow sandstone lintels and stone sills, which respect the position of the outshot to the right. They may be later insertions as there is a long row of soldier bricks and a straight joint in the brickwork which suggests there may have been an earlier long horizontal window to the left half of the elevation. The left-hand window has a timber frame with a metal security grille over; the right-hand window is boarded. The ground floor has two inserted doors with modern brickwork between them with a sandstone lintel for a former window or doorway. To the right of the right-hand doorway is a shallow unbonded mono-pitch lean-to with a breeze-block infill to the outer face. The front north-facing elevation of the outshot has breeze-block and modern brick infill on the ground floor. The first floor has a central three-light timber framed window.

The north gable wall is blind and built of modern bricks.

Interior

The ground and first floors are subdivided into two properties. The ground floor has a cross passage entered from the central doorway which leads through to a narrow rear staircase against the rear wall up to the first floor. To the left is a doorway into the south shop. The shop has two chimney breasts to the south wall and three boxed-in beams running north-south. The innermost beam is on the junction between the main building and the rear outshot. The north shop has a narrower beam running north-south with a fake boxed beam to each side. There is a wide staircase against the rebuilt north gable wall up to the first floor.

The first floors of the north and south properties both have two large roughly-hewn beams running from front to rear. The south property has wide wooden floorboards running north-south across the space. There are also two narrower beams over the rear staircase landing, which may relate to a former stair arrangement as the northern beam has been cut back to provide headroom for the present staircase to the second floor. A doorway into the rear outshot has a moulded architrave.

The second-floor former loomshop is a single room, presently subdivided with modern lightweight partition walls. It has a ceiling with two large roughly-hewn and chamfered beams running from front to rear of the building, both with a thinner piece of wood attached to the inner sides. In the roof over each beam is a jowled and pegged king-post truss with raking struts, with a ridge post and a purlin to each side. The northern truss has a bolted wrought-iron shoe and has two bolts through to the underside of the beam. The southern truss has a bolted wrought-iron strap and also has two bolts through to the underside of the beam. To the south of that truss is a squared timber set into the purlins on either side, with mortices for another adjacent timber of similar size. Attached to the ridge post are two metal pulley wheels (indicating that the ceiling is later). The south beam also has a metal loop attached to the south side of the beam, which is cut away at this point. The room is reached by a narrow staircase against the rear wall which crosses over a main beam on the first floor. The south gable wall has been boarded out, hiding the two chimney breasts which rise from the ground floor and also a former stair position, which is visible as the under-slope of a staircase in the ceiling of the room below on the first floor; it too has a boarded out south gable wall obscuring the exact arrangement of this staircase.