Institute for the Deaf, 23 Church Lane, Rochdale

Institute for the Deaf, 23 Church Lane, Rochdale

This is a two-storey brick building of 1907, built as an Institute for the Deaf with an adjoining superintendent's or caretaker's house. It has an L-shaped plan with a small rear yard. The main building contains a central entrance hall with staircase set at right angles to the rear. The right-hand (south) side features a large extended room on both floors, formerly a meeting room on the ground floor and a billiards room on the first floor. The left-hand (north) side contains smaller rooms on both floors, formerly a women's sitting room on the ground floor and a men's sitting room on the first floor. Beyond these is the former house with two rooms on each floor, a cross staircase, and a cellar.

The front elevation faces Church Lane, which slopes steeply down to the north. The facade is six bays long, constructed of pale mottled brick in header bond with a red brick plinth and chamfered stone coping. A central gable rises over the fourth bay, with three more closely-spaced bays to the left and two wider bays to the right. Two red brick gable stacks and a ridge stack stand to the left of centre, with a square timber ventilator topped by a finial on the rear ridge.

The wide entrance doorway in the gabled fourth bay features a recessed modern double door with three inset steps, red brick quoining to the jambs, and a moulded stone doorhood supported on stone console brackets. Above the doorway is a rectangular overlight with small-pane glazing and a gauged red brick lintel with a giant stone keystone. At first-floor level is an approximately square window with gauged red brick lintel, stone sill, and small-pane casement frame. Below this sill is a large terracotta plaque with raised-letter inscription reading 'INSTITUTE / FOR THE / DEAF', the original text continuing '& DUMB' which has been blocked out. A 1907 diamond terracotta datestone is set in the gable apex, and the gable features timber barge boards.

The first three bays contain tall sash windows on the ground floor and slightly shorter sash windows on the first floor, all with stone sills, red brick apron panels beneath, and gauged red brick lintels. The original timber sash frames have six small panes over two large panes. In the deep plinth of bay one is a cellar opening, now boarded, with a stone lintel. Bay two contains a cellar window with stone sill and lintel, now bricked up. Bays five and six have tall sash windows on the ground floor and half-height casement windows on the first floor, all with stone sills, red brick aprons, and gauged red brick lintels. The ground-floor timber sashes contain leaded and coloured glass set in a geometric Art Nouveau pattern. The first-floor windows have small-pane timber casement frames.

The front entrance opens into a small lobby with a mosaic floor with geometric border, a dado of blue-green brick tiles with timber dado rail, moulded cornice, and inner double timber doors. Each door has a lower panel and a cross-frame upper window of four panes with continuous geometric Art Nouveau leaded pattern, with shaped brass door plates. Above is a rectangular overlight with small panes and leaded glass.

The entrance hall has a herring-bone parquet floor, a timber boarding dado, picture rail, and moulded cornice. Two opposing doors open into the front rooms on each side. Both doors have tall architraves with extended jambs with moulded caps and incorporate rectangular small-pane overlights which are bottom-pivoted to open for ventilation. The doors are panelled with a horizontal panel over two vertical panels. An inserted serving hatch is located at the rear of the entrance hall. To its left rises the staircase against the rear wall of the original building, next to a corridor through to the former house. The staircase has a timber balustrade with a square newel post with ball finial and ramped, moulded handrail with square balusters. The timber dado continues up the wall and a sash stair window with six small panes over two large panes features leaded glazing with a coloured border.

Both original ground-floor Institute rooms have simple moulded cornices. The large right-hand room on the first floor presently has a suspended ceiling which conceals curved ceiling beams and a possible roof lantern, now covered over, which would have lit the billiards table. The first-floor former sitting room has a similar door and architrave to the doorways opening off the entrance hall, without the overlight.

The separate house is very plain with a narrow timber staircase rising between the front and rear rooms and a concrete staircase descending to the cellar. The cellar retains the mantelpiece of a range, now removed. The timber window frame remains inside the bricked-up cellar window.