Newbold Buildings, 33-37 Oldham Road

Newbold Buildings, 33-37 Oldham Road

Former central premises of the Rochdale Conservative Industrial Co-operative Society, built in 1877. The architect is unknown. The building now contains shops and offices.

The three-storey structure occupies an angled corner plot at the junction of Oldham Road and Milnrow Road. It has an irregular kite-shaped plan with a curved outer bay marking the corner and a canted east end.

The building is constructed from orange brick with sandstone ashlar cladding to the ground floor on the roadside elevations. Stone ashlar dressings are used throughout, and the roof is covered in slate.

The road elevations feature shop windows and doors on the ground floor, separated by banded ashlar pilasters with moulded capitals. These support a frieze and dentilated cornice that continues around the curved corner. The upper floors are of orange brick laid in English garden wall bond (3:1 ratio) with thin moulded stone sill and impost bands. A dentilated eaves cornice runs along the top.

The curved corner bay is topped by a small triangular curved gable with stone coping supported by two corbels carved with human faces. On the first floor is a segmental-arched window with an ashlar surround featuring alternating quoin jambs and a two-centred stone arch with moulded hood. Above this is a stone panel inscribed "ESTABLISHED / MARCH 1869 / ERECTED 1877". At second-floor level, a white clock with black hands and Roman numerals is set within a moulded stone frame, with a small decorative circular stone panel in the gable apex.

The Milnrow Road (north) elevation has three small triangular gables, two paired and one positioned at the right-hand end adjacent to the corner gable. The left-hand outer corner features alternating stone quoins. On the first floor are three paired windows with segmental heads and ashlar surrounds of alternating quoin jambs and paired two-centred ashlar arches. Between the moulded hoods are carved foliate corbels, though some hoods are missing. The second floor has paired round-headed windows framed by pink granite colonettes with foliate capitals. The ashlar arches to the heads project beyond the cornice into the gables and have carved head corbels between the moulded hoods, some missing. The gable apexes display small decorative circular stone panels. The ground floor contains three shop windows alternating with two doorways, the right-hand doorway being blocked up.

The Oldham Road (south-west) elevation has one triangular gable at its left end adjacent to the corner gable, and two closely-spaced gables to the right. Between the gables is a dentilated eaves cornice, and the gable apexes also feature small decorative circular stone panels. The upper windows are positioned beneath the gables and match those on the Milnrow Road elevation, all first and second floor windows being one-over-one pane sashes. The ground floor contains a shop window on the left, followed by a narrow blind recess, a blocked doorway, a shop window, a second blocked doorway, and a shop window on the right.

The canted east elevation is built of orange brick in English garden wall bond (3:1 ratio). It has a gable on the left, south-facing wall and another at the right, east-facing wall with a small gablet immediately to its left. The south-facing wall features a first-floor taking-in door adjacent to the outer corner. This segmental-arched doorway has a shaped stone frame and is now bricked up. Above at second-floor level is a round-headed window with stone sill and head and a one-over-one pane sash. To the right at ground-floor level is a doorway with an adjacent window, both with stone frames, now largely obscured by modern safety shutters. Immediately above are two slightly staggered segmental-arched windows with shaped stone heads and sills. Above these are two rows of staggered stair windows with segmental-arched heads and casement frames. The stone lintels of the lower two stair windows also form the sills of the upper two. The east-facing wall is largely obscured by a modern two-storey building abutting it; historic OS maps indicate this wall historically abutted an adjacent property. The wall above at second-floor level is blind.

The interior was not inspected.