Waterside House

Waterside House is an engine house and mill warehouse situated on the north side of Water Street, partly bounded by the River Roch.

The engine house was built in the late 1820s as a two-storey structure and was later heightened to three storeys before 1844. The warehouse was constructed in two main phases: one before 1844, and a second between 1851 and 1872. The entire building was re-fronted in 1872.

The structure is built of orange brick and sandstone with sandstone dressings and slate roofs. The engine house was originally constructed of coursed sandstone blocks and was heightened in brick. The warehouse is built in English garden wall bond at 5:1, while the re-fronted facades employ English garden wall bond at 3:1. The building is roofed with four parallel hipped roofs running front to rear.

The front elevation faces south onto Water Street and presents three storeys across ten bays at second-floor level. It is faced in orange brick with a stone plinth and stone coping featuring a frieze of brick pendants beneath. Decorative rectangular stone finials are mounted on the coping at the outer corners and either side of the taking-in doors in the seventh bay. Windows throughout are two-paned with timber frames.

The single-bay engine house occupies the far left of the front elevation, adjoining a round-headed cart entrance. It is fronted in rusticated ashlar stone blocks to halfway up first-floor level, where a projecting stone band marks the division. At ground-floor level is an opening framed by timber pilasters and entablature, now infilled with modern brickwork and a metal roller blind. Immediately above is a round-headed window. The large round-headed cart entrance to the right features alternating stone voussoirs in its arch, with a multi-paned glazed light to the arch head set on a recessed lintel. The left jamb is formed of stone facing from the engine house, while the right jamb is stone at lower level with brick above. Within the passageway, the engine house wall is formed of watershot masonry and includes a large ashlar block that may have supported the entablature of a beam engine.

The warehouse windows feature stone sill bands, with those on the ground and first floors also having stone impost bands. Ground-floor windows are round-headed with moulded, arched stone heads with voussoirs of alternating coloured stone. A central granite column with sandstone base and enriched sandstone capital divides each window opening. The former office entrance in the fourth and fifth bays has a round-headed doorway with a paired round-headed window to its left. The doorway features a projecting keystone carved with the letters "GAS", spandrels inscribed with the date 1872, and granite columns set into the jambs. The door itself has four fielded panels with a plain, round-headed overlight and a stone step. The seventh bay contains a vertical row of taking-in doors, now glazed. A further doorway in the tenth bay features a similar stone head to the windows. First-floor windows in the fourth to tenth bays are round-headed with moulded stone heads and alternating coloured stone voussoirs. Beneath the second-floor sill band runs a plat band of black and white glazed brick. Second-floor windows are flat-headed with stone heads, with a black and white glazed brick plat band running between them.

The east side elevation comprises three bays with a brick parapet and stone coping. Three vertical rectangular windows on each floor have stone wedge lintels and stone sills.

The west side elevation (engine house) retains part of the east wall of a demolished mill, which projects beyond the rear wall of the engine house. The parapetted wall has stone coping and is mostly plastered with scribed blocks. At the right-hand corner, the 1872 facade returns the distance that the engine house projected beyond the front wall of the mill.

The rear elevation is complex. Five bays rise to four storeys including the basement, then step back with a further five bays. The first two stepped-back bays are four storeys, whilst the remaining bays, including the archway and engine house, are three storeys. The lower ground floor is built on top of a stone wall appearing to be the retaining wall for the river. Four hipped roofs cover the sections between bays. Windows are predominantly vertical rectangular windows with wedge lintels and stone sills, with some casement windows imitating small-pane sashes. The five projecting bays have windows to all levels. The return elevation to the right has a single window on each floor with a vertical row of taking-in doors below, now recessed and bricked up. The first stepped-back bay has narrower vertical rectangular windows. The second bay features a wider tripartite window at ground-floor level with vertical rectangular windows above. The cart entrance spans the ground floor of the third and fourth bays, with a brick jamb to the left and stone jamb to the right; the arch is brick with a multi-paned glazed light. The engine house bay features roughly-coursed stone at ground floor and part of first floor, with a tall, narrow rectangular window with stone lintel and sill. Beneath in the right-hand corner is a square opening framed in stone, now bricked up. Second-floor level has a narrow, vertical rectangular window with stone frame.

The interior was not inspected, though plans indicate the warehouse is divided into two spaces on the ground and first floors between the fifth and sixth bays, corresponding to the two construction phases. At second-floor level it forms one open space. Photographs show timber floors supported by rows of slender cast-iron columns supporting large beams and closely-spaced joists. The timber roof trusses have raking timber struts and central iron rods bolted beneath the tie-beams.