Former Post Office

The building is a former Post Office, dated 1891, and located on a corner site in Warrington Street, Ashton-under-Lyne. It is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond, with sandstone dressings and a slate roof. The building has an almost rectangular plan and is in a Renaissance style. It is two storeys and an attic, with a 1:3:1 bay arrangement, the central bay slightly protruding. A single-storey, three-bay wing extends to the left.

The design incorporates an interrupted battered plinth, a ground-floor sill band, rusticated long-and-short quoins, a panelled frieze, and a moulded cornice over the ground floor, featuring three balustraded balconies. There is also an eaves frieze with nailhead panels between moulded brackets leading to a prominent moulded cornice. The central three-bay section features a rusticated surround to a doorway and two tall windows; the ground floor first window has wooden glazing bars holding a circular pane, the other having 20th-century glazing. The first floor has a three-bay balustraded balcony and three tall round-headed windows with architraves featuring fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals, and cross-window casement glazing with plain fanlights. The attic has a dormer with an altered architrave.

The bay to the right breaks forwards, displaying a larger window at ground floor (with 20th-century glazing and likely formerly a doorway), a balcony with urn finials, a first-floor window similar to the others but with a scallop tympanum, and an attic dormer with a mullioned two-light window within an elaborate pedimented architrave that includes supporters with foliated cartouches, the right side monogrammed “1891.” The bay to the left has a ground-floor window similar to those in the centre and an upper window like that on the right. The single-storey wing to the left has a doorway and two windows like the others at ground floor. The return wall to Wellington Street is in a similar, but simpler style. The interior has been altered.